Book Chat BY PHAEDRA GREENWOOD
CONVERSO: A HISTORICAL NOVEL By Mario X. Martinez 2009, 124 pages, $12.95 Gaon Books www.conversothenovel.com
By Jim Levy 2016, 259 pages, $12.75 The Porcupine Press jim@start-nonprofit.com
Set in a Hispaño village in northern New Mexico in the 1870s, in his compelling style, Martinez leads us through one tense chapter after another to reveal a historic family secret. When a family journal falls from the false bottom of an old trunk, young Abran Espinosa discovers his heritage: “Somos judios, somos Sefardíes.” (We are Jews, we are Sephardics.) Abran, engaged to beautiful Isabella, is caught between his uncle, a converso or hidden Jew who still secretly celebrates Shabbat, and the arrogant French priest who accuses Tio Moisés of sorcery. Like his uncle, Abran pretends to be Catholic so the priest will marry him to Isabella. But a thief steals the family journal and reveals all. Excommunicated? Please, not that! Abran realizes how dangerous it is to become alienated from his community. Isabella is in tears. How can they marry now? The surprise ending will make you smile.
14
APRIL 2016
JOY TO COME: LITERARY AND CULTURAL ESSAYS
These informed essays explore the writer’s dilemma: the agony of life and simultaneous longing for immortality. Levy imagines a droll Rolling Stone interview with the late Arthur Rimbaud. (As he says, “If you aren’t paralyzed or insane, you have to do something after breakfast.”) The view expands as Levy ferrets out an annoying secret in Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Prize lecture. Even if you’ve never read Flaubert’s letters, The Leopard or Under the Volcano, keep swimming upstream against the undercurrent of depression and suicide until you reach the epiphany. The spirit of an Arabic Caliph rises from the dust of an excavation to relate 14 days of his life when he was truly happy. And behold! He sees that his moments of happiness were actually “too numerous to imagine.” If you devour The New York Review of Books, you’ll be eager to discover Joy to Come. Five stars!
enchantment.coop
LIFE AFTER NEAR DEATH
DAD'S CAR
By Debra Diamond 2016, 240 pages, $12.71 New Pages Press www.newpagebooks.com
By Balinda Fiebiger 2014, 166 pages, $9.95 Enlightening Publishers www.amazon.com
In 2008, Diamond had a near-death experience. She returned to life with psychic powers that she utilized as a medium to explore spiritual transformation with other near-death experiencers (NDEs). Many of them had unanswered questions, difficult childhoods that softened them to learn from near-death experiences. Diamond quotes Rumi: “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Many NDEs felt they had a mission in life to enlighten others using the special abilities they had been given in areas such as poetry, music or mathematics. But for some, caught between the murkiness of ordinary life and the clarity of universal love, earthly choices became even more confusing. Diamond touches on a wealth of subjects from electromagnetic sensitivity to spontaneous healing and cognitive transformation. While out there, some NDEs recognized patterns of sacred geometry in brilliant color and light as an expression of universal love. A well-researched and fascinating read!
Set in Western Pennsylvania, Dad’s car, a beautiful 1953 red Chevy convertible, is both a joy and a curse in the life of Betty Albright, a child of the fifties. The whole family delights in road trips to places such as New York City, Niagara Falls, Washington, D.C., and a favorite lake. But from the day Dad drives home in the new car, he never walks again. Not anywhere. So he gains a lot of weight and has a heart attack. Doctor Albright is particularly interested in water experiments and clean water for their community. Strip mining and industrial waste are poisoning the waterways. The Albrights lose their favorite swimming hole. “It breaks my heart to watch what is happening to this planet,” Dad says. “We all need to pray for help.” This young adult novel is a paean to an intelligent, affectionate father who wants to help save the world. To submit a book for review: include contact information and where to order.