Prrbpacific Rim Review of Books Keetsahnak, Edited by Kim Anderson, Maria Campell & Christi Belcourt Review by Michelle Laflamme Page 7 Issue Twenty-Five Vol
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B R the Pacific Rim R P Review of Books Issue Twenty--Five Vol. 14, No. 1 Publication Mail Agreement Number 41235032 ISSN 1715-3700 $5.95 AMANDA HALE’S MAD HATTER BY Patti Smith: CAROL ANN SOKOLOFF An Interview Year of the Monkey with Dr. Wade Davis Reviewed by Miles Lowry by Jesse Boyes Claiming the life and work Keetsahnak: On the Missing and of Nelson Algren, by Charles Tidler Murdered Indigenous Women a review by Michelle LaFlamme Matters Of Vital Interest: Befriending Leonard Cohen, by Joseph Blake Houseboats and the Himalayas: Marilyn Stablein’s Unforgettable India Colin James Sanders reads Tosh Berman’s life in Art Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires reviews by James Edward Reid A Shameful Life: Osamu Dazai’s Japanese Noir La Francophonie: 3 Books/4 Poets from Québec: Reviews by Eric Spalding the Love of the Salish Sea Islands Righting the Brain: the Mind Fixers Richard Wirick on Anne Harrington 0 1 plus: Tom Wayman essays, Peter Orlovsky, Breaching the Peace by Sarah cox, Milton Acorn, 7572006 86399 Winter/Spring 2020 Jan Drabek on Ian Waddell, Poetry by bill bissett, John La Greca, Jude Neale & Bonnie Nish Contents Features: “Claiming the Body of Nelson Algren”: Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren by Colin Asher; Nonconformity: Writing on Writing by Nelson Algren, review by Charles Tidler page 3 “An Interview with Dr. Wade Davis” Interview by Jesse Boyes page 5 PRRBPacific Rim Review of Books Keetsahnak, edited by Kim Anderson, Maria Campell & Christi Belcourt Review by Michelle LaFlamme page 7 Issue Twenty-five Vol. 14 No. 1 Winter/Spring 2020 “A Refuge from Rage: Milton Acorn and His Poetry” Essay by Len Gasparini page 9 ISSN 1715-3700 Publication Mail Agreement Number 4123503 “Son of a Genius: Tosh Berman, A Life in Art”: Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World by Tosh Berman, review by Colin James Sanders page 13 Love of the Salish Sea Islands , edited by Mona Fertig Review by Paul Falardeau page 15 Published by Pacific Rim Review of Books Ltd. Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale Publisher/Editor: Richard Olafson Review by Carol Ann Sokoloff page 17 Managing Editor: Carol Ann Sokoloff Departments: International Editor: Trevor Carolan International Relations: Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars Music Editor: Joseph Blake in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll Medical Editor: Dr. Nicolas Kats Review by James Edward Reid page 8 Circulation manager: Bernard Gastel Environment: Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Contributing editors: James Edward Reid (Ontario), Jack Foley (San Francisco), Big Hydro by Sarah Cox , review by Rose Morrison page 12 Richard Wirick (Los Angeles), Paul Falardeau (Vancouver), Gregory Dunne (Japan), Bypassing Dystopia by Joyce Nelson Antonio D’Alfonso (Montreal), Peter McCambridge (Quebec), Colin James Sanders Review by Rose Morrison page 19 (Vancouver) Carol Ann Sokoloff (Victoria), Linda Rogers (Victoria), Eric Spalding Pacific Rim: The Fourth String by Janet Pocorobba (Vancouver), Harold Rhenisch (Vernon), Anna Aublet (Paris). Review by Maryse Cardin page 14 Music Books: Matters of Vital Interest: A Forty Year Relationship with Legal deposit at the National Library of Canada, Summer/Fall . Leonard Cohen by Eric Lerner; Is It Still Good to Ya? by Robert Christgau PRRB welcomes manuscripts and letters, but we take no responsibility for their safe Reviews by Joseph Blake page 20 Travel: “Asian Travel Accounts from the Higher Heights”: Houseboat on the return. If you would like your work back, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Ganges & A Room in Kathmandu by Marilyn Stablein Do not send original artwork. All texts will be edited for clarity and length, and Review by Trevor Carolan page 22 authorship checked; please include all contact information. Science: “Righting the Brain”: The Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington Review by Richard Wirick page 27 The PRRB is published three times a year. Back issues are available at .. A one-year subscription in Canada is . plus GST. Please send a cheque payable to the PRRB. Reviews: “He Sings the New Body Electric” The Charge in the Global Membrane by B.W. Powe PRRB mailing address for all inquiries: Review by William Kuhns page 18 Box Main Postal Outlet Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith Victoria, B.C., Canada VW S Review by Miles Lowry page 21 email: [email protected] What the Dead Want by Paulette Claire Turcotte phone & fax: () - Review by Krysia Jopek page 21 “Bill’s Breth: Tending the Wild”: breth / the treez uv lunaria by bill bissett Copyright Pacific Rim Review of Books for the contributors Review by Scott Lawrance page 23 “Two Poetic Debuts Tackle the Lesser Seen in Western Canada”: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles in the Pacific Rim Review of Books are the Little Wild by Curtis LeBlanc; Homeless Memorial by John La Greca opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of the PRRB. Review by Paul Falardeau page 24 Taking the Torch: A Political Memoir by Ian Waddell Review by Jan Drabek page 25 A Shameful Life by Osamu Dazai This issue of the Review by Trevor Carolan page 26 Pacific Rim Review of Books Sound of Wave in Channel by Stephen Ratcliffe Review by Orchid Tierney page 28 is dedicated in part If You’re Not Free at Work, Where Are You Free? by Tom Wayman to the memory of Review by Joel Robertson-Taylor page 30 Patrick Lane (1939-2019) “Peter Orlovsky: In His Own Right”: A Life in Words by Peter Orlovsky Review by Colin James Sanders page 31 A Lamb by P.W. Bridgman Wonderful poet, memoirist Review by John Swanson page 32 and novelist, The Fabric of Day by Anne Campbell Review by Antonio D’Alfonso page 33 he will be missed. “La Francophonie: Three Books by Four Poets from Quebec”: Night Blues by Yolande Villemaire and Claude Beausoleil; Daring Touch by Louise Cotnoir; Woman with Camera by Corinne Larochelle The Collected There Is a Season: Review by Eric Spalding page 34 Poems of A Memoir in a The Silence by Karen Lee White Patrick Lane Garden Harbour Publishing McClelland & Review by Linda Rogers page 35 Stewart “Ethnology’s Rivers & Tributaries”: Gods of the Upper Air by Charles King Review by Richard Wirick page 36 “Mother Mother”: The Heart Is What Dies Last by Robert Lalonde Review by Eric Spalding page 37 Cantata in Two Voices by Jude Neale and Bonnie Nish Review by Fran Bourassa page 38 Feature Claiming the Body of Nelson Algren Charles Tidler “A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from soci - where he ended up a broken man begging his own fami - ety is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed rob - ly for a scrap of bread and a pallet on the floor. One of his bery. The strong-armer isn’t out merely to turn a fast buck sons, Gerson, Nelson’s father, had no interest in such any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the messianic folly and instead became an excellent carpenter cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may and mechanic with a reputation as a hard-working man afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even.” who mostly kept to himself. Gerson married Golda, the – from Nonconformity: Writing on Writing (1996) sharp-tongued mother of his children, two girls and then Nelson, the surprise. “Goldie” had nothing but contempt he obituaries in the papers, May 10, 1981, regard - for her husband, and her three-year-old son was known Ting the heart attack death the day before of writer to hide in a box in the backyard shed to avoid her. The Nelson Algren in Sag Harbor, Long Island, tended family soon moved to Chicago’s Southside, and Algren to depict him as a deeply flawed has-been and bitter grew up on the edges of The Jazz Age, seeing Al Capone loner-loser – “bard of the stumblebum” said Leslie and hearing Louis Armstrong. Nelson delivered newspa - Fiedler in The Partisan Review – who had long ago lost pers during the 1919 Black Sox scandal, mended tires in touch with the American reading public and never got his dad’s garage, and graduated in 1931 from the over it. Even the headline in the The New York Times Never a Lovely So Real, Nonconformity: Writing University of Illinois Champaign with a degree in jour - opined “NOVELIST WHO WROTE OF SLUMS, DIES.” The Life and Work of on Writing nalism. It was the depths of The Depression with no There was confusion too about the circumstances when Nelson Algren Nelson Algren prospects for him – or anyone – whatsoever. the Sag Harbor Police said they knew of no immediate Colin Asher Seven Stories Press survivors, which prompted the headline in another paper WW Norton and Can $16.00 “At the ten-second warning to the evening’s first pre - “BODY UNCLAIMED.” Company liminary, a newspaperman on the apron of the ring The night before in fact, Algren was tidying his tiny Can $53.95 stood up to get his slicker off. He had the right arm out and was pulling at the rented beach-house for a cocktail party he planned to host left while watching a Mexican featherweight in the corner above his head. At the next day. He had recently been elected to the American Academy of Arts and the bell he left the sleeve dangling: to see a Pole with an army haircut come Letters, and along with old friends arriving from as far away as Chicago, he would be out of the opposite corner straight into the Mexican’s left hand.