Review by Sharon Brunner M.F. Erler has woven an intimate tale filled with despair, hope, and resiliency in her book An Irish Odyssey: from Despair to Hope. Maggie, Thomas, John and Mary were some of the main characters who struggled to succumb to the hardships placed upon them by the…
Review by Michael Carrier Peter Geye, in his novel A Lesser Light, has served up to his readers a well-constructed and entertaining chunk of his heart—and it’s a sizable chunk at that. Here Geye not only demonstrates his amazing ability to put words and sentences together in a deeply compelling fashion…
Review by Mack Hassler “…to tell the whole thing, going back to that first grisly night….back even further, in fact, to our days with Professor James at Harvard. Yes, to dredge it all up….” Caleb Carr, The Alienist (1994), p. 5 Tichelaar has produced a comprehensive book loaded with…
Review by Mack Hassler “…the novel is reflecting upon its own nature” Jean-Paul Sartre, Search for a Method, 1963 Gentle Spirits, this first book-length offering by Conlan, a retired shipmaster and poet, is not exactly an “Anti-Novel” in the tradition that Sartre describes above. It does not use the…
Review by Victor Volkman Every generation born in the U.P. has to find its own way, that’s just a cold, hard fact of life. Generational wealth in the form of inherited land comes with its own special burden of care. Families across our peninsula struggle with how and whether any…
Review by Jon C. Stott Although Melville in Moby-Dick “Sailed the seven seas,” Whitman in Leaves of Grass embraced the entire United States, and Jack Kerouac in On the Road crisscrossed and re-crisscrossed the continent, many important American writers have explored their themes by setting their characters in specific locations….
Review by Victor R. Volkman “Chogan and the Vision Quest” is the fifth installment in as many years of this popular Middle-Grade reader. The series begins in the 14th century with “Chogan and the Gray Wolf” which is the first book. Buege sets the series in that era, which he…
Review by Mack Hassler “…the Lord came down to see the City and the tower the people were building…. [he said] Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Genesis 11: 5-7 Reading Genesis, by Marilynne Robinson (2024) The author of this…
Review by Jon C. Stott “Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.” This statement by Louisa May Alcott, which introduces Chapter 38 of Linda Bakken’s On the Backs of Women: A Story about Family and Generations, encapsulates both the themes and the characters of a novel that is subtitled A…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar In Legacy of an Immigrant: Four Generations of Flying, Maria Vezzetti Matson shares the story of her incredible pioneer Italian-American family. This book, although based on Maria’s family history, is written as historical fiction. Maria takes some small license with the past and present to…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera Having read the first book, this reviewer was eager to read North of Nelson Vol. II. In that first volume, Hilton Everett Moore related stories of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from past generations. Volume II brings us from the 1950s and 60s to the present in…
Review by Jon C. Stott. Near the end of Sharon Kennedy’s The SideRoad Kids: Tales from Chippewa County, one of the characters muses: “It’s hard being 12. It’s like we’re in between.” Kate, who is in sixth grade, realizes that when the school year ends, an important stage in their…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The middle-grade novel Voodoo Shack is not just for kids. Adults who grew up in the 1960s will remember, fondly or otherwise, their growing-up years. Parents of today’s middle-grade readers may comment, “So that’s what it was like for my parents, and it’s pretty much…
‘Anatomy of a Murder’ Lives On Review by Rick Gould Robert Traver’s Anatomy of a Murder has enjoyed many lives. There was the actual Upper Michigan murder the summer of ’52. The case inspired the 1958 best-selling novel. The book became a classic 1959 film. There was a 2009 documentary….
Review by Deborah Frontiera In Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel, Tichelaar’s main character, John/Neill Vandelaare, wakes up with no memory of who he is or how he came to be in a bed in the home of the Allen family. The year is 1900, the place, Marquette, Michigan….
Review by Mack Hassler Trained as a medievalist but now working mostly with stories about Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Tyler Tichelaar has learned how to weave in and out of time references perhaps from his work with Chaucer or the King Arthur stories. He has done a…
Review by Mack Hassler We read just now of the latest honor for the writing of Sue Harrison: her induction into the UP Literary Hall of Fame. So this fine new novel The Midwife’s Touch by an established award-winner for our literature comes at an auspicious time. It is a…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Novel About Five Generations of Women Reflects Patchwork of American History Linda Bakken’s new historical novel On the Backs of Women: A Story About Family and Generations offers a look into the lives of five generations of women in the United States between the American…
