Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 10/8

-- Publishers Weekly, 10/8/2007

NONFICTION

Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Allan Antliff. Arsenal Pulp (Consortium, dist.), $23.95 (214p) ISBN 9781551522180
The coupling of Anarchist political movements and art is not a topic likely to attract broad interest, yet the issues dealt with by author and art historian Antliff (Anarchist Modernism) in this collection of essays have greater range than the politics of the extreme left. One typically enlivening chapter is devoted to the personal reminiscences of Susan Simensky Bietila, a painter on the scene of the American student movement of the 1960s; among stories of student strikes and absurdist, performance art-like protests, she relates her struggle with art professors at Brooklyn College, who insisted that fine art could not have explicit political content. That debate is central to Antliff’s work, and the implications he draws in these eight scholarly essays carry resonance beyond the political questions used to frame it. Bookended by an argument between French 19th century leftists Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Emile Zola and the fall of the Berlin wall (overlapped by the first Gulf War), with stops in 1880s Paris, New York during WWI, post-Revolution Russia and McCarthy-era America, among others. Antliff’s latest will prove lively and thought-provoking work for art students and scholars. 16 color plates. (Sept.)

Are the Rich Necessary?: Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values
Hunter Lewis. Axios, $20 (278p) ISBN 9780975366202
Investment advisor and author Lewis (A Question of Values) presents a number of prescient arguments that seek to answer the title question and others, exposing in the process alternate approaches to solving everyday economic problems. Lewis utilizes a relatively novel approach: he presents a succinct, yes-or-no economic question (“Does the profit system glorify greed?”) and then analyzes rationally the arguments behind both answers. Lewis begins with an econ overview before diving into queries, looking first at reasons to believe the rich aren’t necessary (they “do not share adequately,” they “stand in the way of democracy”) and that they are (“There cannot be too much saving if it is invested properly”). He goes on to cover topics like market depression, global free trade, inequality and government intervention; regarding the latter (“Can government protect us from the excesses of the profit system?”), he looks at both Alan Greenspan in the 1990s and Han emporer Wu-di in 100 BCE.. Lewis is skilled at boiling down arguments to their most concise, and his sharp analysis employs highly accessible prose; as such, this makes great reading for anyone interested in quickly expanding their knowledge of today’s political-economic issues, though Lewis’s punchy point-counterpoint approach may turn off more knowledgeable readers. (Sept.)

The Best American Essays 2007
Edited by David Foster Wallace, series edited by Robert Atwan. Houghton Mifflin, $28 (336p) ISBN 9780618709267; $14 paper 9780618709274
If, as author and editor Wallace (Consider the Lobster) notes in his introduction, “fiction comes out of nothing,” and nonfiction comes from “Total Noise,” the essays here offer sure-footed dispatches that distill nicely “the seething static of every particular thing and experience” in today’s America. From Garret Keizer’s argument for owning a handgun to Roger Scruton’s inside-out “Modest Proposal” for meat eaters, these essays ask tough questions and push for answers. Mark Danner and Elaine Scarry each consider American foreign policy with refreshingly detailed analysis (Wallace’s own hallmark) that’s free of political ideology (though, elsewhere, this muscular thinking can squeeze out the reader in a fit of author self-awareness). Marilynne Robinson’s discussion of the meaning and use of holiness, with writing that invites readers to mull things over alongside her, is a pleasure. And in the tradition of the best personal nonfiction, W.S. DiPiero’s essay on physical pain and the rapturous pleasures of music strings together disparate threads of life to bring forth its hidden patterns. Other selections include Malcolm Gladwell on “dog whisperer” Cesar Milan, Mark Greif on children and sexuality, and Cynthia Ozick on the book-length essay, “Romantic Religion,” that left her “dazzled and undone.” In a serious, trying year, these essays meet the challenges of modern American life, each writer shining his or her facet to a clean, clear brilliance. (Oct.)

Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
Dahr Jamail, foreword by Amy Goodman. Haymarket, $20 (300p) ISBN 9781931859479
Readers unsatisfied with mainstream coverage of the Iraq War will want to grab this, an up-close look at daily life in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. One of the few unaffiliated journalists in Iraq, journalist Jamail went to see the conditions for himself, and the compelling, heartbreaking stories he sent back over his eight month stay were carried in publications world-wide: from family houses destroyed with their inhabitants to mosques full of people held under siege to the ill-equipped medical facilities and security forces meant to deal with them. Emphatically populist and unapologetically dubious of the U.S. government’s party line, Jamail sees “resistance” where “obedient” mainstream reporters see “insurgents,” “the occupation” where others see “the war.” Jamail is a courageous writer who relates fears and bouts of panic alongside jaunts to Fallujah and other hotbeds unapproached by the press at large. Though the writing can be clunky, and the stories hard to distinguish—without any characters to follow (besides Jamail) one is left with the picture of a terrible forest, but few of the trees—this fascinating, eye-opening document of Iraq’s day-to-day has a unique perspective and moments of incredible impact. (Oct.)

Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Most Outrageous Sexual Puns
Pauline Kiernan. Gotham, $20, (303p) ISBN 9781592403271
It’s a universal truth: sex sells. Giving the audience what they wanted in the 16th century, however, meant veiling it with puns, bon mots, slang and other tricks; fortunately, Shakespeare scholar Kiernan (Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama) has taken the mystery out of the Bard’s deceptively graphic passages in these frank translations from some of his most popular plays. Because most students read whitewashed versions (or because most high school instructors don’t want to go there), even fans may be unaware of the degree to which, for instance, Iago (Shakespeare’s “filthiest-minded character”) employs sexually loaded language to rouse Roderigo’s murderous lust in Act 5 of Othello: “Quick, quick, fear nothing… and fix most firm thy resolution” seems innocuous enough until Kiernan reveals that “nothing” means “vagina” and “resolution” means “balls.” These blush-inducing transcripts render Shakespeare’s work instantly contemporaneous; as it turns out, just the title of Much Ado About Nothing is easily as vulgar as anything uttered by gross-out moviemakers the Ferrelly brothers. Divided into chapters on lesbianiasm, homosexuality, virginity, sexual diseases, impotency, whores, pimps, brothels and other topics that shall here remain nameless, this jaw-dropping, giggle-inducing text proves both the Bard’s enduring relevance and the fact that today’s popular entertainment isn’t nearly as debased as some might think. (Oct.)

The Gambler and the Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix
John Christgau. Univ. of Neb., $24.95 (274p) ISBN 9780803211223
Christgau unveils the dark underbelly of late 1930s horse racing in this melancholy, occasionally meandering history. Early on we meet Albert Siler, aka “Prince Albert,” an 18-year-old with stars in his eyes and a stunning horse racing debut: the first day he rode a thoroughbred, he “won five races that afternoon.” Professional horse racing takes him to a California racetrack where he runs into Barney “Big” Mooney, a flamboyant professional gambler in “fancy suits and a fedora,” who combines the lure of easy money with strong-armed tactics to enlist Al and other young jockeys in a race-fixing scheme. The result was the “worst scandal in racing in 50 years,” what one attorney called “the contamination of the sport of kings.” Christgau is skilled at making memorable characters from his subjects, so much so that he wastes significant space developing characters with little bearing on the story, and an abrupt, pat ending will leave readers scratching their heads. Though inconsistent, history-minded handicappers will find much to appreciate. (Oct.)

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson
Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour, intro. by Johnny Depp. Little, Brown, $28.99 (512p) ISBN 9780316005272
Uproarious and unpredictable, this oral biography is a fitting look at the turbulent life of Gonzo journalism pioneer Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005), a life surrounded by many but understood by few: “always pushing,” Thompson “created a kind of inner circle of people who stood the test.” That circle is well represented among the volume’s many “voices,” including ex-wife Sandy Thompson and their son, Juan, longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman, actors Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson, and old friends Porter Bibb and Ed Bastian. The story-tellers provide a great number of angles, bringing forth insight that goes well beyond Thompson’s famous love for alcohol and drugs—though they don’t neglect the intoxicants, nor the eccentric writer’s most obvious quirks (such as his indiscriminate verbal outbursts: “he was always yelling at himself, like ‘AAHHH!!! CAZART!!!’”). A rich, rollicking vision of Thompson that highlights his outlandish personality and his passion for language (“He started typing out Fitzgerald and Hemingway books word for word… he said, ‘I just like to get the feel of how it is to write those words.’”), Wenner and Seymour’s work also encompasses the unlikely transition of Gonzo from radical, reactionary style-du-jour to culture-defining literature: “Only a handful of writers in a generation can pull that off, and Hunter transcended his competition.” This fine, fond biography amuses, inspires, outrages and haunts at all the right moments—and sometimes all at once. (Nov.)

Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee
Dean Cycon. Chelsea Green, $19.95 (240p) ISBN: 9781933392707
This surprisingly gripping travelogue is filled with tales from the “coffeelands,” barely-on-the-map locales in Africa, the Americas, and Asia where coffee farmers struggle to survive. Written with knowledge and good cheer by the founder of Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee, the book reads more like a trippy adventure than a business trip, though the issues Cycon raises are vital, prescient and little known (“99 percent of the people involved in coffee… have never been to a coffee village”). While learning first-hand about the hardships involved in growing and selling coffee beans—the world’s second most valuable commodity, after oil—the author finds himself in Guatemala praying to an effigy in a Mickey Mouse tie and cowboy boots; eating armadillo leg in Colombia; working to heal landmine victims in Nicaragua and war widows in Sumatra; and meeting with all manner of farmers, bureaucrats and dignitaries. His dispatches are highly enlightening, demonstrating how few national governments provide coffee growers with water, education, health care or even protection from harmful pesticides; further, coffee growers’ income is subject to the whims of financial speculators half a world away. Reading this eye-opening book, it’s impossible not to reconsider—and feel grateful for—the myriad people behind your morning cup. (Oct.)

The Power of Story: Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and in Life
Jim Loehr. Free Press, $25 (264p) ISBN 9780743294522
According to this pragmatic self-help, each person has a story they tell themselves about themselves, which is often flawed and misunderstood by the conscious mind telling it: “Residing [in the subconscious] is most of the hidden matter that influences our stories—all the instinctual urges coded in genes… all the conditioning that took place during childhood… all the trauma and conflicts festering.” Performance psychologist Loehr, coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement, shows how these stories, which can be as broad as a worldview (“The world is full of traps and misfortune”) or focused unhealthily on a particular “subplot” (like work), define our reality and “destiny.” To fix a story gone awry, Loehr explains how to plumb the mind’s depths with honest questioning and self-regard, then to rewrite stories using three basics of storytelling—purpose, truth and action—in order to fashion a new, healthy, mission-oriented narrative. Later chapters provide guidelines for rewriting, with instructions on “indoctrinate[ing] yourself” and creating specific training “rituals” you can adopt to turn “story into action.” Loehr draws a lot of complex, convincing points from his seemingly simple premise; his book should give anyone suffering from general life dissatisfaction or business malaise plenty to think over. (Sept.)

Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica
Tom Giffiths, Harvard Univ., $29.95 (400p) ISBN 9780674026339
As the climate changes and polar ice caps shrink dramatically, author and environmental historian Griffiths (Forests of Ash) provides essential background for understanding how we reached the current state of meltdown. Griffiths weaves journal entries from his own voyage to Australia’s Antarctic stations in 2002-03 with extended chapters on the history of human exploration in Antarctica. His description and analysis of the polar experience is clear and comprehensive: he knows the rough seas, the storms, the desolation, the strange lack of green, the physical disruption of body rhythms and the psychological distress, and makes vivid use of that knowledge in his accounts of past explorers (Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Douglas Mawson, Richard Byrd and many others). As an Australian, Griffiths looks European colonial misdeeds head-on, but he also analyzes forthrightly the Australian government’s claims on and behavior toward Antarctica. A jumpy style can be difficult to follow at first, but soon the Griffiths’ many angles of pursuit—the effects of solitude, the experience of overwintering, the struggle for survival, the biology and behavior of penguins, etc.—come together in an engrossing and highly satisfying pastiche. A fine and informative ecological adventure, Griffiths’ history is worth reading and re-reading. (Oct.)

LIFESTYLE

Chucks!: The Phenomenon of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars
Hal Peterson. Skyhorse, $14.95 (160p) ISBN 9781602390799
In this fawning fashionography, readers will find more than they ever wanted to know about the enduring line of Converse basketball shoes worn by hip athletes, lithe hipsters, Pollyannas and iconoclasts. Originally a rubber shoe company, Converse rolled out the canvas All Star in 1917, nicknamed “Chucks” for the basketball hall-of-famer, Chuck Taylor, who was a lifelong advocate. Chucks-obsessed Peterson chronicles the shoe’s evolution from stylishly unsupportive court sneaker to the all-purpose footwear embraced by those who are “hip [and] fashion-oriented, part of the counterculture, nerd-like, or just regular folks.” Peterson tries to dig up the secret of their appeal through owner interviews, a menagerie of trivia and a quirky collection of photos that range from art-house to prom-tacky. Anyone who has ever owned a pair will appreciate the movie and TV sightings: Brendan Fraiser’s thawed caveman in Encino Man, Ice Cube in Anaconda, Timmy in Lassie and virtually the entire cast of The Wonder Years among them. Though Peterson can get carried away, it’s hard to deny these high tops are as American as Apple Pie and Paris Hilton, and this book is a worthy appreciation of their place in the pop culture canon. (Nov.)

Cook with Jamie
Jamie Oliver. Hyperion, $37.50 (448p) ISBN 9781401322335
The seemingly inexhaustible Oliver (The Naked Chef, Happy Days with the Naked Chef, etc.) returns with what may be his best book yet. Aiming to educate readers on cooking basics, Oliver offers over 175 recipes that emphasize flavor and freshness over labor-intensive preparation. With a conversational style that favors general guidelines over strict instructions—recipes often call for a “knob of butter,” a “handful of shelled peas” or “a big handful of freshly grated Parmesan”—Oliver’s friendly and enthusiastic approach handily deflates new cook anxiety. Loaded with photos that cover common skills like cleaning and preparing fresh lobster, discerning degrees of doneness in meat and crafting homemade pasta, Oliver’s patient explanations leave little room for confusion. His dishes, many of which are updated versions of classics, are impressive and accessible. A simple baked potato is made savory by stuffing it with bacon, anchovies and sage, and a basic risotto becomes extraordinary with the addition of apples, walnuts and gorgonzola. Empathizing with those strapped for time, he offers four takes on that trusty fall-back, chicken breasts, all of which can be prepared in a single baking dish. Loaded with everyday dishes ranging from fried calamari and onion gratin to shortbread cookies, this volume doesn’t set any new culinary standards, but it will certainly make an impact on determined newcomers still intimidated by the prospect of preparing a three course dinner. (Oct.)

The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny
Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood. Hudson Street, $23.95 (292p) ISBN 9781594630422
Co-founders of the online magazine Healthy Wealhty ‘n’ Wise, husband and wife team Bray and Attwood have produced a self-help guide with a simple test at its core, requiring readers to list and prioritize their goals, wants and desires, weeding and striking until they have just five “passions” listed; those are then held against one’s life to determine how close one is to each (readers are encouraged to retake the test every six months). A full life steeped in passion is achievable, the authors assert, through the application of three concepts: intention, attention and ”no tension.” In part one, these concepts are explored in depth, along with seven steps for “Living Life Aligned with Passion”; part two puts these ideas into action. Throughout, the text is peppered with anecdotes, theories and analysis from experts and colleagues who have taken the test and put it to use in their lives. There’s nothing revolutionary about Bray and Attwood’s technique, but it’s a simple (if not exactly “effortless”) approach to organizing and prioritizing that’s both practical and intuitive. (Oct.)

ILLUSTRATED

Learning to Love You More
Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July. Prestel, $19.95 paper (160p) ISBN 9783791337333
In this selection of art and personal stories from their website, learningtoloveyoumore.com, artists Fletcher and July (author of the short story collection No One Belongs Here More than You) present a jumble of the poignant and slapstick. Founded in 2002, the website provides its visitors with arty “assignments” and asks that participants post their responses online. Assignments range from the straightforward (#9: “Draw a constellation from someone’s freckles”) to the absurd (#1: “Make a child’s outfit in an adult size…and wear it as much as possible”) to the heart-wrenching (#31: “Spend time with a dying person”). The resonance of the work submitted and displayed on the easily navigated website is sadly diminished in book form, where a willing lack of organization often isolates contributions from the same assignment; though it’s probably the authors’ way of encouraging readers to slow down and browse a bit, the awkward format doesn’t do the lively, carefully crafted contributions justice. A more conventional presentation (including, say, an index) would have gone a long way toward making the most of both contributors’ works and readers’ time. More compelling is a complete list of assignments in the final pages, which offers many points of departure for the inspired browser. 160 color illustrations. (Oct.)

Lincoln: The Presidential Archives: Intimate Photographs, Personal Letters, and Documents that Changed History
Chuck Wills. DK, $40 (160p) ISBN 9780756632229
A highly readable general biography of the American icon, complete with realistic replicas of notes, sketches and letters from the Presidential collection, this book will delight Lincoln enthusiasts, as well as fans of general American history. Wills’ text is a well-written account of Lincoln’s life, with nods to all of the recent scholarship—from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2005 Team of Rivals to recent speculation over Lincoln’s sexual orientation—without sinking into too much analysis or debate. Photos, portraits and engravings abound (though, chronologically, they’re occasionally at odds with the text), and a dozen vellum envelopes bound into the book hold historic reproductions, including a leaf from Lincoln’s school notebook, an 1860 presidential campaign banner and his handwritten copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. Though a bit gimmicky, these replicas do provide unique insight into the man’s elusive life; holding a letter from an impatient Mary Todd that begins, “I have waited in vain to hear from you… [but] will be charitable enough to impute your silence to the right cause,” one can almost hear the President’s exasperated sigh as he turns to his writing desk. (Oct.)

The Sixties
Photographs by Robert Altman, intro. by Ben Fong-Torres. Santa Monica, $39.95 (192p) ISBN 9781595800244
Those nostalgic for the free love era will revel in this handsome, oversized collection of gritty photographs by celebrated photographer Altman. A master at catching his subjects at the moment of emotional overload—whether they be mischief makers, war protestors or musicians—the black and white photographs collected here are pure nostalgia, making a powerful you-are-there impression that simultaneously highlights the era’s distance—chronologically and otherwise—from the current moment. In addition to period luminaries like Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Mick Jagger, the compendium highlights lesser-known players on the scene, as well as average attendees at rallies, “be-ins” and festivals. Altman’s particular genius is best showcased in his legendary crowd scenes; what these photos occasionally lack in technical precision, they more than make up in the raw, wild feelings they’ve miraculously captured. Despite the book’s title, images straddle the period from the late 60’s to the early 70’s (though none of the subjects seem to make much of the distinction), and a fun introduction by longtime Rolling Stone editor Fong-Torres reveals that Altman has always felt his purpose was to depict “the life and times that the Sixties inspired”; he succeeds beautifully with this, an impressive social document and a powerful remembrance. (Oct.)

POETRY

Dismal Rock
Davis McCombs. Tupelo Press (Consortium, dist.) $16.95 paper (70p) ISBN 9781932195484
McCombs follows up his Yale YoungerPoets Prize winning debut, Ultima Thule with another book-length study of life in Kentucky. The first section, “Tobacco Mosaic,” is a sixteen-poem sequence about the decline of the burley tobacco farms of south-central Kentucky. The second, “The Mist Netters,” is comprised of twenty-six lyrics addressing the American rural landscape and/or artistic making. Throughout, McCombs is wonderful with details: “Tonight, the year’s first dust of snow started falling on the road/ past Mansfield Bend, and as I drove, it fell on Summer Seat,/ Paul Wheeler’s Barn, and Haunted Hill. It fell, no doubt,/ on Woodsonville and darkly on the spine of Dismal Rock.” Unfortunately, McCombs can also be melodramatic, as in “Nineveh,” where the moonlight falls “like forgiveness,” or in “Smoke,” when a mysterious, ghost-like stranger warns us, “Tobacco is a holy spirit/ [. . .] but abuse it, and its power will kill you.” Several poems in “The Mist Netters” consider McCombs’ own process, among them “Noodling” (slang for catching catfish by hand, using the fingers as bait), which ends up an unintentionally comic echo of Elizabeth Bishop’s famous poem “The Fish.” Nonetheless, McCombs is a careful poet who looks thoroughly. He will be exactly what some readers are looking for. (Oct.)

FICTION

Last Rituals
Yrsa Sigurdardottir, trans. from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder. Morrow, $23.95 (320p) ISBN 9780061143366
Similar in plot to Swedish author Helene Tursten’s The Glass Devil, this first in a new series from Icelandic author Sigurdardottir offers little readers have not seen before. As with Tursten’s novel, the spectre of demon-worship is at the heart of the mystery, after the strangled corpse of Harald Guntlieb is discovered with his eyes gouged out. Guntlieb, a German student, was attending graduate school in Iceland, examining the latter country’s history of witch-hunting, an academic pursuit that may have taken on more personal overtones. His grieving parents, who had already suffered the loss of a child, enlist attorney and single mother Thóra Gudmundsdôttir to objectively assess the police case against a drug addict arrested for the murder. Aided by an attractive ex-German police officer, Gudmundsdôttir diligently tracks down the dead man’s friends and colleagues, before arriving at the truth. The author gives less of a sense of her native land than other contemporary Scandinavian crime writers like Karin Fossum, and the identity of the killer will surprise few. (Oct.)

Masquerade: Ten Crime Stories
Max Brand, edited by William F. Nolan, Jr. Crippen & Landru (www.crippenlandru.com), $29 (175p) ISBN 9781932009606; $19 paper ISBN 9781932009613
Under the alias of Brand, pulp writer Frederick Faust, who created Dr. Kildare, wrote hundreds of novels, mostly Westerns, but he also turned his talents to crime writing. This 24th Lost Classics volume from Crippen & Landru collects 10 of those stories from the late 1930s for the first time, and the range of the tales gives Brand ample opportunity to display his versatility. They include fine whodunits like the title novella as well as noirs like the gripping opening story, “A Silence in Tappan Valley.” Many in this collection display an ironic sensibility, but that quality is leavened by the empathy displayed towards the small-time hustlers and crooks who people many of the tales. Further collections of Brand’s crime stories would be welcome. (Sept.)

Robert Ludlum’s The Arctic Event: A Covert-One Novel
James H. Cobb. Grand Central, $15.99 paper (400p) ISBN 9780446699075
Ponderous prose and a less than credible plot-line weigh down Cobb’s Covert-One novel, the seventh in a series (The Hades Factor, etc.) based on a concept created by the late Robert Ludlum. After the chance discovery of a crashed aircraft in the Arctic Circle, the Russians, who are on the verge of signing a landmark antiterrorism pact with the United States, inform President Samuel Castilla that it’s a Soviet plane that went down in the 1950s while carrying a ton of weaponized anthrax. Castilla, who suspects that there’s more to the story than the Russians are letting on, orders series Jonathan Smith, chief operative for the shadowy Covert-One intelligence service, and his team to investigate. Two women whose field skills are matched by their physical attractiveness join Smith, setting up predictable situations when they fall into the hands of the bad guys. Veteran thriller fans are likely to find the underlying premise behind the Russians’ duplicity unconvincing. (Sept.)

Silent Counsel
Ken Isaacson. Windermere (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (332p) ISBN 9780978862244
Attorney Isaacson squanders a worthy look at the legal system’s limits by hooking it to a by-the-numbers plot in his fiction debut. Vincent Saldano, a wealthy New Jersey resident, takes his new BMW out for a joyride in a quiet a residential area, where the car strikes and kills a young boy. Saldano flees the scene, but then contacts New York attorney Scott Heller. Heller agrees to keep Saldano’s identity secret while he attempts to negotiate a plea deal. His commitment to attorney-client privilege gets put to the test when Stacy Altman, the boy’s mother, becomes obsessed with forcing the attorney’s hand, and Heller’s own young child gets drawn into her scheme. The hit-and-run itself is forgettable, and Altman’s increasingly irrational behavior is not conveyed plausibly, but Heller’s conflict touches on real issues. (Sept.)

Stuff to Die For
Don Bruns. Oceanview (www.oceanviewpub.com), $24.95 (296p) ISBN 9781933515106
Set in South Florida, this middling thriller from Bruns (Barbados Heat) never quite manages to persuade the reader to buy into its concept. Best friends Skip Moore and James Lessor have partnered in various hare-brained schemes since grade school, but their latest lands them in the midst of murder and international intrigue. After Lessor gets Moore to join him in a moving business, the pair are hired by an attractive divorcee, Jackie Fuentes, to haul away the possessions her ex-husband, Rick, left behind. That routine assignment turns into something quite different when they accidentally open one of Rick’s letters and find a severed finger inside, a discovery that enmeshes them in a plot by Cuban exiles to topple Castro. A prose style that falls short of the standard set by such chroniclers of the Florida crime scene as Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey fails to compensate for a plot that on the improbabilities. (Sept.)

Whose World is This?
Lee B. Montgomery. Univ. of Iowa, $15 paper (96pp) ISBN 9781587296147
Memoirist and Tin House executive editor Montgomery (The Things Between Us) makes her fiction debut with this wise, heart-wrenching short story collection, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Concerned largely with the emotional and physical pain of modern life, one representative tale, “Arts and Crafts of American WASPs,” finds a childless young wife considering motherhood through memory, an ovulation kit and her own mom’s detritus: “My mother has sent me her life in boxes and pieces of old wood and I study these like artifacts.” The capacity for self-defeat comes beautifully to life in the title story, about a young woman dealing with average twenty-something issues (“doing a lot of drugs, trying to find God, trying to figure out how many men I could make love me”) who unexpectedly falls in love with a paralyzed man: “we’d lie in bed facing each other in darkness… and he would tell me how it would feel if it could happen.” Montgomery is a realist with a talent for stringing together perfectly captured moments such as this, evoking Lori Moore or Antonya Nelson with a skillful balance of the beautiful and the grotesque, graced with glints of humor. Though her morose introspection can overwhelm, Montgomery more than makes up for a lack of cheer or action through her characters’ lived-in authenticity. A quick, inspired read, this collection bodes well for Montgomery’s future in fiction. (Sept.)