Washington Books

Vietnam stayed bottled up in me until I read this book decades after the war. I had a well of tears that had to come out. The book helped do that. The book is very touching, sweet, and startling. One family's journey to the Wall is a movie in itself and it should become a screen play. I hope people learn from this book. Every elected official should have to read it and those debate moderators ought to ask them if they have read it, especially if they are trying to run for the presidency.

This novel was wonderful! I am still amazed at the author's ability to cover so many different difficult topics in a flawless manner. An amazing "tale" that needed to be told............

Stella Pope Duarte's is an excellent novel about the long-lasting effects of the Vietnam war on an Arizona family and how they finally come to face some of the devastation. The novel is narrated by Teresa, whose older brother Jesse, was killed in 1968. Thirty years later, her mother hears Jesse's voice calling to her and she ultimately decides that she must go to the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington. The trip and the events leading up to it are difficult, bringing up painful memories of Jesse and their own lives before and after his death. The trip and what they find when they get there will change their lives completely. Let Their Spririts Dance is a satisfying, moving read.

LET THEIR SPIRITS DANCE by Stella Pope Duarte

The debut novel by Stella Pope Duarte, LET THEIR SPIRITS DANCE revolves around a Hispanic family's trip from their Arizona home to the Vietnam Wall, in a journey where they question themselves, their beliefs, and remember the family member they lost to the Vietnam War.

School teacher Teresa Ramirez has held on to the knowledge, all these 30 years, that her brother Jesse knew he was not going to return from the Vietnam War. On his departure at the airport, he whispers to her that he will not be back, and to take care of their mother. This memory haunts her when they get word six months later of his death while trying to help out a fellow soldier who was shot down. Thirty years later, when Teresa's mother Alicia informs everyone she has heard Jesse call to her, Teresa is more than just upset, and wonders if her mother is hallucinating or if her mother truly has these powers where she can hear from the dead.

Then, in a surprising turn of events, they are informed that because of an error made by the government all those years ago, Alicia has $90,000 coming to her because of Jesse's death. This seals the deal - Alicia informs the family they are going to DC to touch Jesse's' name on the wall. It doesn't matter that Teresa is being sued by her husband's girlfriend for assault, or that Teresa is waiting to hear about her soon-to-be divorce from Ray. Alicia says it will all take care of itself, and that they are all to go on this journey together. Alicia's health is in jeopardy, but she is determined to do this, as the last thing she may do on this earth.

Duarte tells the story with flashbacks, the point of view coming mostly from Teresa, as she remembers her childhood with Jesse and her other siblings Priscilla and Paul, happy moments as well as sad moments that continue to bother her into the present. She remembers her father, who was unfaithful to her mother Alicia, a man that Teresa had no respect for. She also remembers the stories she heard from an old Aztec medicine man, Don Florencio, who talked about the ancient Aztecs, their heritage, about dead spirits and other things that Teresa wants to believe are true.

While the first half of the book is filled with mostly flashbacks and helps set up the story, the second half details the journey that the Ramirez family and friends take, as they drive in a caravan of vehicles to their destination in Washington. They become the favorite of the media, thanks to the help of nephew Michael and his computer, even garnering the attention of President Clinton. Relationships are mended and created as the trip ensues, while more and more people join the caravan, and when they finally reach their final destination, it is a moment of sadness and remembrance as they embrace those that have left them.

This reviewer enjoyed LET THEIR SPIRITS DANCE. The story of the Vietnam War and how it affected one family, as well as one group of people, the Hispanics, was eye opening. The ending was expected, yet it also was climatic in that one had waited so long for this journey to end. It was not truly a happy ending, but what made it happy was their realization that our loved ones are never really far from us, only separated by death. Teresa's story involved one's questioning of faith and religious beliefs, and reconciling one's past with the present. Her problems are resolved in a manner that surprised this reviewer, but it was a wonderful ending to her story as well as Alicia's journey in search of her son. Some readers may find the politics in this book to be opposite of what they feel, as Duarte does not hold back on her views of the war, told through the eyes of the characters in this story. Other than that, four stars for LET THEIR SPIRIT DANCE.

James Halon will tickle your adventure-bone with this novel! His characters have an incredible depth to them, and the premise of his story is unique and fast-paced. Halon's main character Jim Morgan has wit, intrigue and sex-appeal. Morgan is today's James Bond without all the gadgets and far-fetched scenarios. See what happens when a Field Engineer is thrown into a life of spys, danger, and romance! Even Halon's 'bad guy' has been done originally and is a refreshing departure from the norm. I recommend this book to anyone who loves adventure with a twist of romance!! For Halon fans, be sure to check out his collection of poetry entitled "Poetry" by James Halon, too! You will glad that you did! This author is extremely versatile and has a firm grip on how to entertain a reader!

James Halon takes the spy thriller to a whole new level with his novel The Malagasy Tortoise. Engineer Jim Morgan has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and making the most of it. Fancy clothes, secret weapons, Bond girls, Morgan doesn't need them (well almost!)as he battles the forces of evil. Humor, witty dialogue, brilliant description, and imaginative situations keep this fast paced book clicking along.

James Halon has done an excellent job of mixing elements of intrigue, action packed adventure, and infatuation.Jim Morgan, like so many men, is carnially motivated by love - or lust (I'm not sure he knows the difference). His motto seems to be love the one your with. His overactive libido leads him into one disastrous scenario after another.
On his quest to find the rare Malagasy Tortoise in Madagascar, he finds himself torn between his recently reunited love, Eunice and the young, sultry, CIA agent, Sophie. Perhaps, the mysterious Tina Johnson would be a good distraction from this dilemma. What is a man capable accomplishing in the name of love? Jim Morgan, an engineer by trade, finds himself smack in the middle of a CIA covert operation. Car crashes, burning buildings, Russian prisons, is any woman worth the tortures he finds himself enduring?
This book is a great read for any audience. It's difficult to find characters portrayed so honestly. James Bond, he's not. Jim Morgan tries to be just as suave and sophisticated with the ladies. Instead, his charismatic wit and humor seem to be his strong point. In the end, like Bond, Morgan finds his share of love / lust.
This reader can't wait for the next, Jim Morgan Adventure!

If James Bond was an Engineer and wore sweatshirts instead of tuxedos his name would be Jim Morgan... Well, maybe not. Morgan is a refreshingly unique character unlike the typical male protagonist. James Halon has conjured many wonderful characters in this book that take the reader on a bizarre quest for a rare tortoise. A quest that reveals multiple lovers, deadly spies and plenty to laugh at along the way. I look forward to Jim's next adventure and future dreams.

Author Jim Halon has managed to create characters that enabled this reader to feel she knows them personally. A very well crafted story with laugh out loud writing. The humor the author displays throughout is refreshing and uplifting.

Halon has a wonderful ability to place the reader "there"...with exceptional description, one feels like they're partaking of the adventure right along with Morgan. The fresh prose delights throughout the story. "My steak disappeared so fast that David Copperfield, the infamous illusionist, would have been awestruck, and demanding that I eat another so he could pick up on my trick."

I was gravely mistaken when I initally thought this was a "man's" adventure story. Halon has combined adventure with a hefty amount of humor and romance. This reader was quite impressed with his choice of female characters...strong-willed, intelligent, competent, attractive and independent. Don't expect a damsel in distress in this novel. Halon's female characters makes this particular female reader exceptionally impressed with what he created. All of them, including Morgan himself, are realistic and believable. I sincerely give this novel a five star rating, only because six wasn't available. Order a copy, curl up in a comfortable spot and prepare to be highly entertained! This author has great promise and I look forward to the sequel.

What god or goddess at which mystery school taught Bruce MacKinnon the strong love and yearning that he shows for his father, mother, wife and son and who taught him the felicitous turns of phrase that give them life on these pages? What woman would not want to be the inspiration for "Atlantis" or the child commemorated by the "Butter Knife" or the mother so tenderly recalled in "Stories?" B. Forden

MacKinnon's poetry is intense, sometimes dark, definitely mood-altering, and nothing short of brilliant! I tried to limit myself to reading only one or two poems per day (not an easy task) in order to fully digest the beauty of his thought-provoking visions. I loved this book, will pass it on to friends, and will read it again and again.

I read poetry only if I happen upon it. By some good fortune I happened upon this lovely book. I got all the poems, identified with many. hope for the rest, look forward to books to follow.

Mystery Schools delightfully accessible, poignant, brutally honest, and universal in its portrayal of the author's experience. Very enjoyable reading.

Published in September, Mystery Schools seems particularly suited to the fall of the year. There is an underlying poignancy to many of MacKinnon's poems. It's not that they are winter-cold or somber, but the loving moments from his life, so vividly portrayed, are often tinged with sadness. The portraits of his father and mother are especially moving - even heart-wrenching - especially "Stories," "A Different Law," and "A Cabin in the Woods."

I found myself thinking of Mystery Stories as I drove alone last week, on a crisp day when the sun illuminated stands of brilliant red and orange foliage, only to be covered the next instant by scudding dark clouds.

The initiation rituals of the mystery schools were often dark, weren't they? And some of the glimpses the author gives us of his coming-of-age years reveal the careless cruelties common to the young, seen now through the mature eyes of a thoughtful, loving man, whose journey is laid bare before us in a series of reflections and meditations. Here is a soul whom we find in several poems seeking his way as a young man in a holy order: "then I'm on my knees scrubbing cracks in tile/ with a toothbrush, not at all sure how I got here,/ knowing it has something to do with light."

Ultimately, however, it's the death of the father, not the Son, which casts a chiaroscuro image, like scattered sunlight on the shadowed forest of fallen and falling autumn leaves, on all the stories of this talented poet's life.

I look forward to his next collection.

This cookbook is absolutely gorgeous. It is a wonderful guide to the Pacific Northwest for both locals and visitors. The recipes are fabulous (try the Chipotle Chocolate Cake) and very easy to do at home, while still elegant. And the wine pairing suggestions are spot on. Outstanding book that would make a great addition to anyone's cookbook collection - and one that you will actually use.

Braiden has captured the unique flavors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and B.C. with her lively commentary of the distinct ingredients you can find there. Her profiles of people and places make me want to visit each and every destination. If I can't get to that farm or winery, at least I can make the meal myself - and pour a glass of Braiden's hand-picked Northwest wine recommendations to accompany it.

The recipes are easy and delicious, inspiring us to use local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients. So far, our family favorites are the Grilled Asparagus Salad with Prosciutto, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and Balsamic Vinaigrette and the Dungeness Crab with Ginger-Cilantro Mayonnaise! Yummy~

This book offers many exceptional recipes however there are two from Chef Maury Bennett in Idaho that are amazing his passion for local fares radiates through his ideas. I would like to see an entire cook book done by him!!

For the wine and food nut, this book is of epic proportion. Vivid and lively pictures combined with the real people and real stories of the Pac NW illustrates the connection between Braiden Rex-Johnson and her subject. The
wine country traveler's guide to the good life in the Pac NW. Bravo!

To counter the damp and dreary days of winter I surround myself with distractions that promise better days to come. At the top of my pile is Braiden Rex-Johnson's Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining. Just looking at the cover of this love letter to NW cuisine warms me. I imagine myself dining al fresco on the patio of this restaurant or a myriad of others. Then I pour over the interior pages, like a gardener pouring over a seed catalogue in winter. I indulge in the descriptions of familiar restaurants and wineries as well as intriguing new ones. I plan our next excursion into Eastern Washington or the Willamette Valley or the always promising Vancouver area, while noting the recipes from these areas that we want to make today and the wines we will want to serve with them. I smile at the quotes from favorite and unfamiliar chefs and feel as though I now know something of what makes them who they are. And then I remember another friend who I want to share this book with and I'm back online to order it. What a perfectly luscious way to wile away the winter days.

I really enjoyed this book immensely. A great balance of good things happening to offset the horrible violence of a serial killer. I was told it was more of a love story, and it certainly had demonstrated the loving nature of a lot more than just the main characters. Excellent book, can't wait for the next.

Took me awhile to finally pick this book up to read but
when I did I could not put it down.Stephen King move over.
Waiting on the next book Robert.

As an avid reader of Mary Higgins Clark and Fern Michaels I put the book aside. I started to read the book then while shopping picked up another book by Mary Higgins Clark putting "Serial" to the side. I am ashamed, three days ago I picked Serial up again and couldn't put it down. As a book worm and Co-worker of Mr. Strange I would like to congratulate you, Excellent. The chapters well written and the viewing of each character at the same scene. I loved it and can't wait for the next book to be published......HURRY UP!!!!!

This book takes a little time to get into it but once it grabs your attention you don't want to put it down until the end! I really enjoyed the way Mr. Strange keeps the reader on their toes by moving from one scene to another and back again. Look out Stephen King. Once the word is out this author is sure to have the number one best seller!

This book takes a little time to get into it but once it grabs your attention you don't want to put it down until the end! I really enjoyed the way Mr. Strange keeps the reader on their toes by moving from one scene to another and back again. Look out Stephen King. Once the word is out this author is sure to have the number one best seller!

I loved this book. I kinda wish it was more about Ashley and Sean and less Kate and Tyler but it was amazing! I never would have guessed the ending. I did think it was sad that everyone sacrificed their lives to protect the family's secrets but I guess I can understand that. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This was a most intelligent and enthralling story; not only intriguing, but sensual as well. All characters were well-thought out and interesting. From the very first, when Tyler appears on the scene, the story and romance grabs you. There was one fascinating plot after another, and I found myself half-crazed to know the secrets, and to see how Tyler and Kate got together, along with Sean and Ashley. And to find out whose baby it was and what became of Jeremy. I have been reading romance/suspense for a number of years and Ms. Freethy has become an addition to list of my best authors.

Stormy relationships and a stormy sailing adventure combine to make this a better-than-average read. Barbara Freethy keeps you guessing about the big family secret and the ending is predictible but still fun. It's a great way to pass a summer afternoon at the beach or just curled up on the living room sofa.

If you want a love story wrapped up with some intrigue, SUMMER SECRETS is the book for you. All the while I was reading the book, I was trying to guess the secret ... and never could! The romance and mystery will keep you turning the pages as fast as you can. Great read.

I, for once, never disappointed with Barbara Freethy, ever since I purchased my first book of her (One True Love) few years ago. She is my favorite author when it comes to family stories. She always manages to write such beautiful, heartwarming, and also real family stories. The joy, the tears, the fears, the loyalty ... they are always there, knotted into one amazing story. She did it again with SUMMER SECRETS. Each character stands out with their own self. The sisters are uniquely different with one another but nevertheless, united with a strong bond called "family. The romance of course, is also beautiful. I love the chemistry between Tyler and Kate, also Ashley and Sean. I just wish Caroline will get her own man. This book is wonderful read ... if you don't know Barbara Freethy, you're missing such a talented author!

Love a good detective/police procedural mystery, step into the world of J.P. Beaumont. The pace of TAKING THE FIFTH by J.A. Jance rockets through the pages of a finely crafted story.
Twists and turns deluged the reader from the time one man's body is found by the tracks with a bloody woman's shoe nearby. The police enter the man's home to discover the body of a second man dead from natural causes.
J.P. has his troubles after his previous partner has been taken off the rooster adjusting to the style of Big Al, but Peters is determined to stay in the game.
Enjoy the genre at its finest with TAKING THE FIFTH.
Writing as a Small BusinessSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelSweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series)Under the Liberty Oak

Have read every J A Jance book! They are equally well written and compelling. They have a wonderful flow to them, fascinating characters and she never gives up the mystery of who and why until the last few pages....excellent reading and nearly impossible to put down til its completely done.

J.P. Beaumont is one of the most likable and intriguing characters in the mystery genre. He is a divorced detective who has a daughter in college and enough money that he does not need to work, but he enjoys his job. J.P. is the proud owner of a long list of failures with women, not all of which were his fault. It starts with his divorce, and then follows with women with which he gets involved and who end up either dead or on the guilty side of a crime. Whenever I start a new book in this series I ask myself: will it be different this time?

This time around, the case involves a dead man by the tracks and a woman's shoe near the body with blood on its stiletto heel. This is complemented by another dead man, apparently from natural causes, in the house of the first victim. J.P. gets the case and he immediately suspects foul play in the case of the second body. And the discovery of a pack of cocaine in the victim's pillow adds timber to the fire. From then on, the plot starts moving full speed and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way to keep our interest at a maximum level.

All of the usual players are present in this story. We have the femme fatale, the annoying Maxwell Cole, who hates Beau's guts, and a new partner. Beau's new sidekick is Big Al Lindstrom, but we will soon see his old partner, Peters, help from the hospital. Peters is there due to a broken vertebrae, and after a period of depression he decides to start "living" again and pulls a "Lincoln Rhyme".

J.A. Jance has done it again. She delivers another novel that moves at a fast pace and that keeps us guessing as to what is really going on until the last few pages. The author shows how good she is at varying her style, and the contrast between this series and the one featuring Joanna Brady could not be clearer. She does a fantastic job in both series though.

I recommend this book to everyone that loves a good mystery, but I just want to give you a word of advice. Do not start this novel close to the end of your day, or you will find yourself reading well into the night. There is no letting go; trust me, I learned this from experience!

THE BOOK CAME IN GREAT CONDITION AND I AM SURE I WILL REALLY ENJOY IT. I LOVE THE AUTHOR AND HER WRITING. THANKS SO MUCH. JANICE

I feel that the fans of J.P. Beaumont will love this one. It is so typical J.A. Jance. I enjoyed every page of this one. Another reviewer has done a wonderful job of outlining the plot, so I will not repeat what is obvious. Jance's character developement (this author's strongest skill) holds very true to form with this work and we learn more and more of her detective Beaumont. We also get a look at the drug culture in that part of the country (Seattle of course) and some of the alternative life styles found their. This work has some fascinating twists (no spoilers here) and as one reviewer points out, just when you have things figured out, you get the rug pulled from under you. Of course, the book will be much better for those who have read the preceeding books dealing with this seattle Cop, but the book is also able to stand on it's own and is simply a good read. Recommend this one highly.

I just finished another excellent novel by Ralph Peters --- Traitor (hard cover).

I placed it at the bottom of a stack of books I brought home from the library, two weeks ago. I generally put his books at the top of my reading list, but the cover art was so impressively unappealing and the title so blasé that I almost took it back to the library unread.

It seems to me that Mr. Peters has proven his ability to write exceptional, and well plotted, thrillers. Why would anyone stick such an uninspired cover on a truly extraordinary read?

If someone likes Clancy, Higgins, et. al. they should love Ralph Peters.

In an author's afterword, Peters decribes this book as his homage to Chandler, Hammett and Cain, which it most certainly is. But there's no overt emulation of the style of any of those authors; what one does experience is the exhilarating momentum of plot, vivid characterization, and the acerbic wit that those authors brought to bear in their work. Peters' protagonist is an honorable man making his way through a chaotic present, similar to Philip Marlowe in Chandler's novels, with a comparable eye and ear for the "luminous detail." And the first-person perspective makes for some great interior monologue throughout the book. Readers who are dismayed by the lack of moral center in the books of such authors as James Ellroy might find Peters' writing a worthy alternative.

The portrayal of our defense industry in this story is unfortunately accurate. We have placed so much emphasis on "smart weapons", that we have forgotten the real effectiveness of our military. The action and pace of this book will keep the reader enthralled and they will not want to put it down.

I've read almost all of Ralph Peters' novels, and this is probably my favorite to date. I passed it over in hardcover--frankly it didn't sound very interesting. I couldn't have been more wrong: it's one of the best written, engrossing novels I've read in a long time. Peters is one of the few military thriller writers that can name drop Thomas Hardy novels and actually make us believe his characters read them. I know what a cliche this sounds, but I couldn' t put it down. Peters has within him his best novel yet--some day he'll write the Once An Eagle of his generation of officers.

After 25 years in the defense industry, watching the Services buy big things they don't need while neglecting small things they do (like enough pay so the troops don't have to be on food stamps), it continues to disturb me that the American taxpayer continues to allow Congress to sell out to what Ike Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex". TRAITOR could have been a documentary. This is a great novel, thrilling and unpredictable, but it is also based on the real world and all the more gripping because of this.

No need to summarize the plot; others have already done so. This is another terrific novel by the author of "Morte D'Urban" and fans of that sadly-neglected work will find this one equally enjoyable.

Powers has a talent, rare in American literature, for subtlety. His portrayal of Joe Hackett, a somewhat aloof, well-meaning but complacent Catholic priest, is a masterpiece of nuance, as realistic a character study as any I've encountered. One wouldn't think a book about the everyday goings-on of a suburban clergyman (everything from fund-raising to attending retreats to petty diocesan politicking) would hold much interest for the lay-reader, but don't let the subject matter scare you: this is a book about faith, redemption, and the wins and losses faced by all of us as we grow older (and, purportedly, wiser).

J.F. Powers's characters are built incrementally, as much through what they say and do as by what they leave unsaid and undone. The dialog here is snappy, the plotting is swift, the humor is wonderfully dry (the first chapter alone is a quiet riot), the observations of human nature are acute. The writing is razor-sharp; not a wasted word or imprecise thought to be found. And this without the stylistic bells and whistles so many writers feel the need to employ in order to "prove" their literary merit. It's not often I say that I hated to see a book come to an end, but in this case, it was true. In many ways, the novel ends just as Hackett's life is beginning.

Keep Powers in print. Read this book.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

This book was nominated for the national book award in 1988 for fiction. It is the story about Father Joe Hackett who as a young man was an athlete and a bit of a partier, and then he became a priest out of saintly ambition but becomes overly fond of the drink. Joe is a strange hero for a novel. Powers' daughter Kathrine in her introduction to the current edition states: "Written over an increasingly dark time, Wheat That Springeth Green was shaped by my father's growing conviction of the progressive and irredeemable absurdity of things. He was a connoisseur of the dull, the mediocre and the second-rate, and of the disingenuous and fraudulent, but now it seemed that their dominion has truly come." This book captures much of that sentiment - Joe in his own life and in his interactions with most of the other clergy in this book. Though Powers is more famous for his earlier work Morte D'Urban, I personally find this book much more enjoyable and Joe, though he has more visible faults, a person you can relate to more easily. I have known priests in my life that were mirrors of both Joe and Urban and yet I end up seeing a lot of myself in Joe.

Joe desired to live a holy life; he wanted to be pious and devote. He desired to be a man of prayer, serving the world. In chapter 6 Out in the World (previously published as The Warm Sand) Joe, in his last year in seminary, became known as a holy roller and was avoided his last year in school. His first assignment is with a priest who is a truly pious man, and when he criticizes him in front of some other clergy he experiences great remorse. Through this event he tries to change his ways.

Personally I can really relate to Joe; there is much in his small successes and more frequent failures or setbacks. This book is excellent. It was a labour of over 25 years of writing and rewriting. And having read some of the earlier versions of some chapters published as short stories, it was worth the wait. Powers, being the wordsmith he is, crafted and recrafted the stories together into a fabulous novel.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.

This is a well researched and written book about the Indian wars on the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers during the American Revolution. It tells the stories of the Wyoming Massacre, the Cherry Valley Massacre and the Sullivan campaign providing the details on each but in a very readable format. It also provides some details on other not so well known events on the frontiers like the situation around Pittsburgh and in western Pennsylvania. Consequently, this book fills in a gap in the American Revolution and worth the purchase for any individual interested in reading more about that period.

Mr. Williams recent book describes in excellent, understandable detail what caused the Americans to invade Iroquois territory and the effects of the invasion. His book is an excellent companion to another book I have read titled History of Wyoming, by Charles Miner that was originally written in 1845. Miner interviewed people who survived or were connected to the Wyoming Massacre, while Williams had access to all the archives. The two books fill in details and each makes the other more rewarding to read.

I read this book because I have Loyalist ancestors who were members of Butler's Rangers and almost certainly participated in the battles described in such detail. My ancestors, William Pickard and his 2 sons James and Benjamin, two privates and a drummer boy, did not get mentioned in the book, but that was not a problem since around 900 people were in Butler's Rangers. They survived to move to Canada after the war and they started large families after leaving their homes in Tryon County.

The book has a nice section on the key personalities that I found useful since there were Butlers on both the Loyalist and Patriot sides. The book would be improved by detailed maps. Unless you can imagine where places like Tioga, Unidilla and Stone Arabia are, you will read the book in front of your computer with Google Maps open as I did. The book would also be improved with contemporary photos of the battle sites; some of these, like the Battle of Newton, were easily found on the web.

I learned much from the book and enjoyed it. It was very interesting to see that the Rangers contained a good number of Black soldiers who lived with the rest of the Rangers and the Indians. It was also interesting to see how both sides courted the Indians and tried to win their support. The book really makes the Revolution look much more like a civil war than people typically think.

The book was well written to the point that the book rich in detail was not lost by the tremendous amout of utilized quotes and reference points. More detail on the life style and pressures (for survival)of settlements along the frontier border would have been benefical.

After two years of fighting in America with limited success, the British felt they were, to coin a popularized modern term, in a bit of a quagmire, and sought a new strategy for their overseas war. The new strategy involved moving the war away from the more populated northeast and into the western frontier. This move would not only disperse the already diminutive American forces, but would also allow Britain to utilize its strongest North American allied force, the Iroquois Indian Confederacy.

Glenn William's book, THE YEAR OF THE HANGMAN: WASHINGTON'S WAR AGAINST THE IROQUOIS chronicles the events that took place in those western frontier skirmishes and battles. The book derives its name for the year, 1777, which had become popularly known at the time as the `year of the hangman' due to the three sevens appearance of gallows when written, though the majority of the events actually occurred in 1779. Though using that title for his book was too good of an opportunity to pass up, William's title is slightly misleading as to the dates of the primary events.

The Iroquois, though primarily located in Western and Central New York, were quite possibly the strongest Indian nation of North America for a span of over 500 years. Their control reached across the Great Lakes into Central Wisconsin and their rise to prominence came at the cost of driving out, and driving to extinction, numerous other Indian tribes of the region. They were, to be sure, a force to be reckoned with.

Both the Americans and the British had heavily lobbied allegiance with the Iroquois, but in the end, the Indians felt their best chance for future lay at the hands of the British and consequently, four of the six main tribes of the Iroquois sided with the British. This error in judgment would prove fatal to the Iroquois nation, when, as a primary result of the Sullivan Expedition, the Iroquois nation would virtually lose all of its military and political power.

While the Sullivan Expedition is the primary focus of William's book, other major events are deftly chronicled as well, such as the Battle of Oriskany and the Wyoming Valley attacks. By 1979, Gen. Washington had successfully developed the army making it capable of taking the fight to the Indians and literally destroying their economical stability and rendering them harmless, not just for the remainder of the revolution, but into the subsequent years of frontier settlement into the traditional Iroquois homelands.

That Washington was able to develop a force the size of the Sullivan Expedition (5000 men) is in and of itself, a testament to Washington's military leadership abilities and, though today, only an afterthought in Revolutionary history, stands as one of the General's greatest military accomplishments.

This is good reading. Glenn William's had put together a readable and valuable presentation of a rather forgotten aspect of America's fight for independence.

Monty Rainey
Junto Society