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2001 |
To The Uzbekistani
Soldier Who Would Not Save My Life (Pivotal Prose Series)
Essays, meditations, travel notes, or chapters in a novella, these seven pieces defy easy categorization. Our narrator (a certain Susan Smith Nash) initially introduces herself as a resourceful, capable, sedated woman turning 40, but the reader soon finds this thumbnail sketch unraveling. As the narrator's obsessions drive her from Argentina to Mozambique, from Uzbekistan to Oklahoma, nothing appears to satisfy her desire for meaning--neither the burial practices of medieval Russian monks nor a romance with a Paraguayan MCP. Nothing, that is, until she re-reads Shakespeare's comedies. Recording the unique perceptions of a woman addicted to relentless exploration, this is a book of fierce honesty, a soul-baring performance that manages to be both intellectually challenging and emotionally quickening. Cover artist Basil King is a painter and poet who has just completed the Rimbaud Suites, for Illuminations, The Drunken Boat, and A Season in Hell. He lives and works in Brooklyn. His next book of text and art, Warp Spasm, is forthcoming from Spuyten Duvyil Press. |
