New Releases Week of October 23-29
A couple of great new books are hitting shelves this last week in October, including a new fantasy-horror to add to your Halloween reading list, and collection of brilliant short stories.
Wicked Weeds
A Zombie Novel
Pedro Cabiya
Jessica Ernst Powell, translator
Mandel Vilar Press
Softcover $16.95 (184pp)
978-1-942134-11-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Horror-film buffs will appreciate the irony and impressive knowledge the zombie possesses of pop-culture representations of the living dead through the years.
Threats of a zombie apocalypse seem to be around every corner, but what’s rare is an intelligent, thoughtful, funny, sentimental, socially conscious, and, yes, gross at times zombie tale infused with Caribbean culture, piques, prejudices, and passions. Pedro Cabiya delivers all of this and more in Wicked Weeds, one gentleman zombie’s quest to recapture his lost qualia, that indefinable, internal, sensory perception of self.
With all the edgy, philosophical musings characteristic of Latin American fiction, the progression of Wicked Weeds unfolds over generations and across the complicated social strata of Haitians and Dominicans. Three distinct voices are at play: the scientist zombie, the beautiful and cunning fellow scientist Isadore Bellamy, and her great-aunt Sandine, who hails from a black-magic-steeped village in Haiti.
Through field reports, journal entries, reminiscences, and even a few police interrogation reports, the zombie’s roots and expectations carefully emerge as he attempts to blend into a society unaccepting of his living-dead status. After all, “to be dead,” observes a wise zombie, “has grievous consequences.” Humorous, introspective, and often both at once, the zombie clumsily fields amorous pursuits while pursuing his search for qualia, surprisingly overlapping Isadore’s own forays into the botany of dangerous plants, or “wicked weeds.”
Horror-film buffs will appreciate the irony and impressive knowledge the zombie possesses of pop-culture representations of the living dead through the years, which were studied purely for self-preservation but prove insightful nonetheless. That knowledge integrates decades of science-fiction representations and icons.
Whether you consider yourself a lover of zombie fantasies or not, devour Wicked Weeds for its unique perspective, cultural insights, and charged humor. Go ahead and laugh out loud or clear your throat in surprise because, as every zombie knows, “when all is said and done,” a laugh and a cough are each just a “spasm of the thorax.”
PALLAS GATES MCCORQUODALE (August 26, 2016)
We Show What We Have Learned
Clare Beams
Lookout Books
Softcover $17.95 (184pp)
978-1-940596-14-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
We Show What We Have Learned evinces keen insight into the inner workings of human hearts and minds.
Clare Beams takes her characters on a stroll through eerily fantastical landscapes in her short-story collection, We Show What We Have Learned. From a bride whose WWII parachute turned wedding dress gives her visions of her groom’s experience in battle, to an elderly woman pulled from her nursing home to once again visit the magical New England woods of her youth, Beams’s characters are drawn with emotional care and complexity.
Beams’s stories have appeared in many publications, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading, but this is her first collection. With her stories presented together, it is easy to see the themes of transformation and emotional turning points in her work. Some of the transformations are physical, like the corseted boarding-school girls who strive to shape themselves into their headmaster’s vision of femininity, and others are intangible, like the disappointed longing of unrequited young love. Many take place in dreamy worlds where animalistic shadows hold the promise of renewal, or buildings mysteriously heal themselves. Within these boundaries, each story focuses a brilliant shaft of light on one person’s emotions as they reveal insecurities and secret longings, resulting in vulnerability and intimacy.
We Show What We Have Learned evinces keen insight into the inner workings of human hearts and minds. The broad range of its characters and settings invite a wide audience. Through all these varied settings and protagonists, Beams’s voice remains true to its essence while feeling fully appropriate for the particular time and place. Each story’s pace is just languid enough to lend an eerie contrast to the increasing tension of the plot without bogging down the story.
For fans of realistic fiction tinged with elements of the fantastic, We Show What We Have Learned is a collection that will quickly become a favorite, and leave them looking forward to what comes next.
CHRISTINE CANFIELD (August 26, 2016)
Seth Dellon is director of audience development at Foreword Reviews. You can meet him or hear him speak at most of the events Foreword attends, and contact him at seth@forewordreviews.com.
Seth Dellon
