Books | A road trip in pursuit of Utopia
- "Utopia Drive" is a road trip that provides perspective about our nation as we head into heated election.
- New books for children include "Ninja Librarians" and "The Thing About Leftovers."
- Plus, a bumper crop of books with local connections in fiction and nonfiction.
The release of Erik Reece’s new book is perfectly timed. It’s about a road trip, the American dream for summer travels. It also provides perspective about our nation as we head into the heated election season.
In "Utopia Drive: A Road Trip through America’s Most Radical Idea" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Reece leaves his home in Nonesuch, Ky., to learn more about utopian communities that exist or existed in the eastern United States. Surprisingly, several are located in a region now viewed as a stronghold of conservative values. While the people who established utopian communities in the 1800s differed in their goals – whether religious, economic or political – they all dared to imagine radically different American dreams.
Reece first headed to communities that feel familiar in this part of the country from Shakertown at Pleasant Hill and the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani Monastery to New Harmony, Ind., and Cincinnati. His links between historical research and contemporary culture make the stories feel fresh and current, giving the reader context for why the history matters.
Along the way, Reece reveals a great deal about himself, too, which enlarges the book to include aspects of memoir. He visits Cincinnati to learn more about Josiah Warren’s first cooperative general store, an enterprise based on Warren’s own economic theory of equitable commerce. While in town, Reece heads to the stadium to see part of a baseball game. A passage about his relationship with his stepfather is particularly poignant in the context of their mutual love of the Cincinnati Reds and Pete Rose.
The rest of the journey includes stops in Virginia, New York, Walden Pond, and Niagara Falls. A favorite chapter describes Reece’s experience at modern-day egalitarian communities in Louisa County, Va. He stays and works at Twin Oaks, a community founded in 1967 and still thriving. He describes its residents, governance and beauty, as well as its shortcomings. Reece, who teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky, also discovers his own theory of a utopia of solitude.
The book is an accomplishment, a type of confluence of economic theory, spirituality, human nature, and the American dream in its many forms. The time is right to consider such values.
Preparing for 2017’s big eclipse
Astronomers predict that people in far western Kentucky – specifically around Hopkinsville and Princeton – will have the best view on Earth of a total solar eclipse Aug. 21, 2017. "Get Eclipsed: The Complete Guide to the American Eclipse" by Pat and Fred Espenak (American Paper Optics) is a new book that makes the eclipse accessible for all ages, not only in text but with its "Safe Solar" glasses.
Fred Espenak is a retired astrophysicist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and was the agency’s expert on eclipses. His wife Pat is a retired chemistry teacher and amateur astronomer. Together they’ve chased eclipses around the world. The Memphis-area publisher has a 25-year history manufacturing 3D and eclipse-safe glasses. Check out the book and additional viewing products at www.eclipseglasses.com.
Kentucky Arts Council awards writers
Five Kentucky writers have been awarded Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council.
The award, named in honor of former arts council chair and Kentucky journalist Al Smith, recognizes professional artists who have reached a high level of achievement in their careers. Since its beginning in 1983, the program has provided more than $2.5 million in funding to artists in the visual arts, literary arts, media arts, composing and choreography. In this round of funding, the fellowships were awarded to artists in the choreography and literary arts disciplines.
Writers selected as 2016 recipients are Aimee Zaring, creative nonfiction, Jefferson County; Sharon Mauldin Reynolds, fiction, Fayette County; Rebecca Gayle Howell, poetry, Fayette County; Maurice Manning, poetry, Washington County; and Sarah McCartt, poetry, Jefferson County.
Six Kentucky writers in the first 10 years of their professional careers will receive Emerging Artist Awards. The recipients are poets Joey Connelly, Daviess County; Ann DeVilbiss, Dave Harrity, Mary Elizabeth Pope, all of Jefferson County; Dominic Russ-Combs, fiction, Jefferson County; and Britton Shurley, poetry, McCracken County.
Local lit and The Oxford American
For years, The Oxford American has regularly featured the work of contemporary Kentucky writers like C. E. Morgan, Manuel Gonzales, John Jeremiah Sullivan and Chris Offutt, who writes a column in each issue called "Cooking with Chris.” The connection became even stronger recently when Rebecca Gayle Howell became senior editor at the magazine. The Kentuckian previously served as poetry editor.
Recent issues have included an excerpt of Crystal Wilkinson’s new novel "The Birds of Opulence" and poetry by Bianca Spriggs, Nickole Brown, Davis McCombs and Nikky Finney. Sarah Hoskins' photographs of the Old Taylor distillery were featured in a recent “Eyes on the South” section.
New poetry by George Ella Lyon, Kentucky’s current poet laureate, will appear in an upcoming issue. The nonfiction writer Ellysa East tells the story of her family’s Kentucky connections in "The Ballad of Harlan County" in the current issue found at http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/911-the-ballad-of-harlan-county
Books for young readers
"The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks" by Jen Swann Downey (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky) is a MG/YA novel with an exciting premise. After stumbling upon the secret society of time-traveling ninja librarians, Dorrie joins Petrarch’s Library as an apprentice. She trains for missions to rescue people whose words have gotten them into trouble.
Through sword-swinging, karate-chopping warrior librarians in her Ninja Librarians series, Downey has written about censorship, intellectual freedom, and violence directed at writers throughout history. The first book in the series was "The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand," which received a Kirkus starred review when it came out in 2014.
One of the real-life librarians featured in "Sword in the Stacks" is Rachel Davis Harris (1869-1969), the first African-American woman to direct a Kentucky library branch. Downey, who grew up in Anchorage, now lives in Virginia.
"The Thing About Leftovers" by C.C. Payne (Penguin) is a well-written YA novel about a girl – Fizzy – trying to figure out how to navigate her newly blended family after her parents’ divorce. Food and cooking are important themes as Fizzy practices to compete in a Southern Living cook-off. Food analogies abound, including Fizzy’s description of herself as a leftover kid from a marriage that both parents want to forget.
The novel is set in Louisville and offers an empathetic view of a child adjusting to a changed family. An interesting aside about the book is that the fictional mom works for the Courier-Journal. Payne grew up in Lexington and lives in Kentucky.
"Safety Safari" by JoEllen Wilhoite (Joey Books) is a picture book designed to teach young children about staying safe. Colorful safari animals take readers through a variety of potentially dangerous situations that illustrate appropriate responses. Wilhoite lives in Lexington.
Staying cool with books about movies
Going to the movies is a time-honored way of beating the heat when it’s too hot outside. Reading about classic movies is another, especially with two new books from University Press of Kentucky.
"Lincoln before Lincoln" by Brian J. Snee reveals how national perception and memory of Abraham Lincoln has been adapted and commemorated in film. The book covers a century of screen representations from the overtly racist "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915 to recent ones like Steven Spielberg’s "Lincoln" and Tim Burton’s production of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." While those last two are starkly different in story, Snee writes that they share honors as the first movies with “a focus on Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”
"Conversations with Classic Film Stars: Interviews from Hollywood’s Golden Era" is a collection of rare interviews of the biggest names in the business. Authors James Bawden and Ron Miller are veteran film and television columnists; they’ve gathered more than thirty one-on-one chats with stars like Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, Joan Fontaine and Roy Rogers. It is truly a time capsule for film fans.
A crop of new books
There’s a bumper crop of books with local connections in fiction and nonfiction. Here’s a rundown of what’s new.
"The More They Disappear" by Jesse Donaldson (St. Martin’s Press) is an eye-opening novel set in the violent years following the release of the drug OxyContin. The novel examines addiction, loss and redemption while a lawman searches for Sheriff Lew Mattock’s murderer. Donaldson grew up in Kentucky, where the novel is set.
"My Brother Slaves: Friendship, Masculinity and Resistance in the Antebellum South" by Sergio Lussana (University Press of Kentucky) fills a gap in contemporary understanding of southern history. Lussana offers the first thorough investigation of the social dynamics between enslaved men and how masculine identities were negotiated by individuals living in bondage. The author also reveals how men developed oppositional communities in defiance of the slaveholders and in support of conversations about revolution.
"The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin" by Stephanie Knipper (Algonquin) is a debut novel with a hint of magical realism that’s getting a lot of buzz for its deep understanding of what it’s like to be different. The story is about 10-year-old Antoinette who has a severe form of autism. She has never spoken but she has a gift, the power to heal with her touch. Antoinette is able to change the course of nature on the Kentucky flower farm where she and her mother live.
"Prayer: It’s Not About You" by Harriet E. Michael (Pix-n-Pens Publishing) examines specific biblical verses to determine whether prayer is “a mighty spiritual weapon or a waste of time.” Michael, born in Nigeria to missionary parents, lives in Louisville.
"The Angels' Share" by J.R. Ward (New American Library) is the second installment in Ward’s Bourbon Kings fiction series that chronicles a wealthy Louisville family in the bourbon business. Ward is a bestselling author of paranormal romance.
Huddleston wins fiction gold medal
"Greg’s First Adventure in Time" by Connie Huddleston (Interpreting Times Past LLC) was awarded a gold medal for preteen fiction by the Children’s Literary Classics Awards. The book features a boy who is transported back to 1000 B.C. He becomes friends with a Native American named Hopelf who helps him survive. Greg saves Hopelf’s life and is honored for bravery. Despite the feeling of belonging, Greg wants to find his way home. It’s the first in Huddleston’s series of time-travel books. She lives in Crab Orchard.
Jayne Moore Waldrop is a Lexington writer and attorney. She received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Murray State University. Her monthly book column appears in Forum the first Sunday of every month. Share local literary news with her atkyliterature101@gmail.com.