Amazon Review for Patti Liszkay’s book "Equal and Opposite Reactions"

I wrote the following review of Patti Liszkay's novel for Amazon.com

An Engaging and Timely Debut Novel

Patti Liszkay’s debut novel, Equal and Opposite Reactions, is full of trouble, and as writing instructors tell their students, “Only trouble is interesting.” The novel is a story of blossoming love, broken love that has turned to hatred, greed, and selflessness. And if that weren’t enough, there is a plot twist involving an issue that has been in the news in the first months of Donald Trump’s administration—the massive roundup and deportation of undocumented immigrants. We see the difficult choices left for these immigrants, their families, and supporters and the wide ripples of damage these policies are causing.

Patti Liszkay tells much of her story via dialogue and action, with a minimum of exposition. In that way her novel is much like a movie or play. The dialogue rings true, even when it is bilingual, in Spanish and English. The characters are vivid, and, frankly, fun.

The novel is set primarily in working class Northeast Philadelphia, and the author has a fine grasp of the geography as well as the ethnic mix and voices of the area. Honestly, I was amazed at how much the author knows—about different kinds of people and professions, about legal issues involving immigration, and the twists and turns of the human heart

There are some minor flaws that will be corrected in future editions—typos, and the use of backwards accent marks in the Spanish sections. Some of the legal issues are out-of-date because of very recent Trump Administration decisions. But overall, this is a very engaging novel, with the sweetest of love stories. It makes you hope that Patti Liszkay continues writing fiction!

If you want to see Patti's book on Amazon.com, click here.

A Poem for a Child Killed in a Car Accident--Janyia Thomas

Timara Wilcoxson, a woman we know from the St. Mary's Painesville Karpos meal, has suffered a great tragedy, the loss of her three-year-old child Janyia in a pedestrian car accident in Broadview Heights. I wrote the following poem as an elegy, a lament, for the poor child, her mother, and her entire family. We pray for this suffering family.

O Broken Heart—A Dirge for Timara and Janyia

O broken heart!

Three-year-old Janyia lying dead on the street,

Her mother Timara asking her, over and over,

To open her eyes, “Janyia, wake up; you’re not doing this to Mommy,

Just wake up.”

The two other babies, Mia and Kylina, safe but stunned

By the unfeeling car, striking everyone down,

And their little sister quiet and still

Under the car.

The heartbreak seeps in, then sweeps in like a tidal wave

Cold and blackness and impossibility, this stillness,

This stillness!

Her life so hard as it is, three babes under 4,

And an unborn one in her womb, 7 months,

Contractions triggered by the trauma of the car accident.

Seven days later, the little child Janyia waked and buried,

The heart broken. Can it ever heal? Can the pain, Sweet Jesus,

Ever subside, like the tsunami of suffering and

Darkness.

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                                                Bob Coughlin / August 24, 2017

Pairing a photo I took in Montana with a Gary Snyder poem

For All
 
Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

                                    --Gary Snyder

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[What an extraordinary poem--by one of America's greatest living poets! Gary Snyder captures it exactly right. This poem passes the envy test where you say, "I wish I had written that one!" The photo was taken by me on July 14th, 2017, and shows Carolan and Linda crossing the cold, cold Morrison Creek in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana. We were on our 14-mile trek from the Morrison Creek Trailhead to the Schafer Meadows Forest Service Station--a very difficult hike for Linda and me (and maybe a routine one for Carolan, who is in superb shape). The water of Morrison Creek is fast-flowing and perfectly clear. It contains meltwater from snowpacks melting atop the high mountains in the Great Bear Wilderness section of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. I'm guessing the water temperature was in the low 40s. It was painful (my feet and legs ached from the cold), exhilarating, and unforgettable.

Gary Snyder reminds me why I still try to write poetry. Once in a while, you get it perfectly right, as he did here.]