From Publishers Weekly
With the unadorned acuity that is his signature, novelist and poet Smith (The Palms; The Lives of the Dead) describes the ruins of family life in contemporary America. The voice is that of a son, moderate in all things (including success) and nearing middle age. Beginning in the family cemetery, where a suicidal cousin "mans the frontier of our plot," the tour winds across recognizable terrain: the family house and business, breakdowns and heart attacks, divorces and new spouses. Family members become figures in a larger drama in Smith's convincing and unforgiving?of himself, of them?voice. The cordial, hardworking father enforces his will until he becomes Lear-like: "some silly king of the air,/ useless, ordering nothing." The protective mother, recalling O'Neill's women characters, is opposed by her disdainful sons: "We didn't need some shabby partisan/ to save us from our escapades." The only long poem, "At Five in the Afternoon," dealing with the mother's insanity, much like Ginsberg's Kaddish, is the weakest in an otherwise glittering, forceful collection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In retrospect, most families seem normal, simple: "Old age mostly took them out, and if they were bitter,/and if they raged as my grandfather did/against failure, still they had time for hot spring days,/for love, sappy or dignified, for the excellence of action." Smith is a poet and novelist, and at times the line blurs. His fourth collection of poems is a novel in many ways, recounting scenes from the life of a family?one that is not particularly unusual but in fact all too typical. Much of the volume, of course, deals with father and son, and each line on their relationship rings true; these same expectations and disappointments scar the walls in many households. Smith draws pictures that make the ordinary extraordinary, as when an argument about money recalls "love's broken shoe,/the hobble that keeps us from going far." Such fresh and memorable turns of language make these poems a pleasure. The story of family is one of promise, of hope. In search of treasure, though, Smith finds "[o]nly this journey, my rage,/disputation, horror./And this desire, like/a sudden, stupid gaiety, to lead them by the hand." Highly recommended.?Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphi.--nly this journey, my rage,/disputation, horror./And this desire, like/a sudden, stupid gaiety, to lead them by the hand." Highly recommended.?Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
