From Booklist
A m{‚}elange of pieces that may not end up on short lists of the most durable twentieth-century essays but are at present addictive, this book is like a clutch of letters from a friend who has gone to interesting places and is doing interesting things. The seeming evanescence of the writing stems not from its regionalism--though most of the settings are in Wales--or from the profusely, at times relentlessly, metaphoric style of a poet celebrated enough to tour college campuses internationally, which Minhinnick is. Rather, it stems from the journalistic bent to capture the moment before it departs the memory forever. In the case, for instance, of the leading essay, "Rio de Journal"--which reports a place so violent, so rampant with fire-eaters and contingents of orphans, so strange--the possible factitiousness of Minhinnick's metaphors arises from the fact that the place is barely comprehensible enough to grasp at all. Roland Wulbert
