QUARTERLY - Collecting, Preserving, and Celebrating Ohio Literature - FALL 2021 | VOL. 64 NO. 4
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QUARTERLY FALL 2021 | VOL. 64 NO. 4 Collecting, Preserving, and Celebrating Ohio Literature Fall 2021 | 1
Contents
QUARTERLY
FALL 2021
FEATURES BOARD OF TRUSTEES
HONORARY CHAIR
4 2021 Ohioana Awards
Fran DeWine, Columbus
ELECTED
10 “Moultrie” & “Hollow Honey Locust” President: John Sullivan, Plain City
Vice-President: Katie Brandt, Columbus
by Hagan Faye Whiteleather Secretary: Bryan Loar, Columbus
Treasurer: Jay Yurkiw, Columbus
2021 Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant Winner Gillian Berchowitz, Athens
13 The Ohio Literary Trail Expands! Daniel M. Best, Columbus
Rudine Sims Bishop, Columbus
14 Special Review: Colorization Helen F. Bolte, Columbus
Flo Cunningham, Stow
by Wil Haygood
Dionne Custer Edwards, Columbus
Lisa Evans, Johnstown
Negesti Kaudo, Columbus
Helen Kirk, Maumee
BOOKS Ellen McDevitt-Stredney, Columbus
Mary Heather Munger, Ph.D., Perrysburg
Louise Musser, Delaware
16 Book List Cynthia Puckett, Columbus
Daniel Shuey, Westerville
David Siders, Cincinnati
Jacquelyn L. Vaughan, Dublin
Betty Weibel, Chagrin Falls
APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR OF OHIO
Carol Garner, Mount Vernon
Peter Niehoff, Cincinnati
Brian M. Perera, Upper Arlington
TRUSTEES EMERITUS
Francis Ott Allen, Cincinnati
Ann Bowers, Bowling Green
Christina Butler, Ph.D., Columbus
Robert Webner, Columbus
OHIOANA STAFF
Executive Director..............David Weaver
Assistant Director............Kathryn Powers
Librarian........................Courtney Brown
Library Assistant ............Miriam Nordine
The Ohioana Quarterly (ISSN 0030-1248) is currently
published four times a year by the Ohioana Library
Association, 274 East First Avenue, Suite 300, Columbus,
Ohio 43201. Individual subscriptions to the Ohioana
Quarterly are available through membership in the
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subscription. Single copy $6.50. U.S. postage paid at
Columbus, Ohio. Send address changes to Ohioana
Quarterly, 274 E. First Ave., Suite 300, Columbus, Ohio,
43201. Copyright © 2021 by the Ohioana Library
Association. All rights reserved. Printed by PXPOHIO.
2 | Ohioana Quarterly
From the
Director
Dear Friends,
February 1, 1942: a headline in the Columbus Dispatch announces,
“Ohioana Library Award to Be Offered to Authors of State.” The
accompanying article reveals that a committee of judges is being
formed, headed by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis Bromfield,
with the goal of selecting the first Ohioana Book Award winner by
October of that year.
That was the first story ever about what has since become one of the
most prestigious state literary prizes in America, and the second
oldest. (Only the California Book Awards are older.) It’s an award that
nearly every major Ohio writer of the past eighty years has won, in
every literary genre from novels to nonfiction, poetry to picture books.
From 1942 through 2020, Ohioana has honored 459 books. On October 14, we added seven new
titles to that distinguished roster. Over the next few pages, you’ll meet this year’s stellar winners
of the Ohioana Book Awards. Additionally, we’re pleased to introduce the 2021 recipient of the
Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, our special prize for emerging Ohio writers under thirty who have
not yet published a book.
Books-to-movies is a popular theme at Ohioana, and in this issue, we feature a review of a new
book about movies, and an important topic: race in Hollywood. It’s Colorization: One Hundred
Years of Black Films in a White World by three-time Ohioana Book Award–winning biographer
and historian Wil Haygood.
A year ago in this issue—as we were in some of the darkest days of the pandemic—I declared
myself to be (in the words of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from South Pacific) “a cockeyed
optimist.” I still am. We look forward to the day when we can once again host live, in-person
events. Until then, Ohioana continues to serve the public, and doing
so in ways that keep everyone safe.
ON THE COVER
This issue’s cover, designed by
None of it would be possible without your friendship and support—it Kathryn Powers, celebrates the
truly makes a difference. As another remarkable year winds down, 80th anniversary of the Ohioana
we wish you and yours all the best through the holiday season, and Book Awards. To learn more
especially a happy, prosperous, and healthy 2022. Thank you. about this year’s award winners,
see the article on the next page.
David Weaver
Executive Director
Fall 2021 | 3This year marks a milestone for the Ohioana Book he is the editor of Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on
Awards—their 80th anniversary. First given in 1942, the Marriage, Relationships, & Identity. Sickels is assistant
awards recognize outstanding books by Ohioans or about professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University,
Ohio and are the second oldest state literary prizes in where he teaches in the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-
the nation. Nearly every major Ohio writer of the past Residency M.F.A. program.
eighty years has been honored with an Ohioana Book
Award. Juried awards are given in six categories: Fiction, In The Prettiest Star, Brian Jackson returns to his small
Nonfiction, Poetry, Juvenile Literature, Middle Grade/ Appalachian hometown and the family who rejected
Young Adult Literature, and About Ohio or an Ohioan. him. The story is told in a chorus of voices: Brian’s
A seventh prize, the Readers’ Choice Award, is selected mother, Sharon; his fourteen-year-old sister, Jess, as she
from among all the finalists by readers in an online poll. grapples with her brother’s mysterious return; and the
video diaries Brian makes to document his final summer.
FICTION The Prettiest Star offers an urgent portrait of a family in
the center of a national crisis to tell a unique story about
the politics and fragility of the body, and to explore the
bounds of family and redemption.
Photo by Amie LeeKing
Carter Sickels, The Prettiest Star, Hub City Press
Carter Sickels is the author of the novel The Evening
Hour. He is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary
Emerging Writer Award and has been awarded
scholarships to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the
Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. His essays and
fiction have appeared in various publications including
Guernica, Bellevue Literary Review, and BuzzFeed, and
4 | Ohioana QuarterlyNONFICTION ABOUT OHIO OR AN OHIOAN
Photo by Caroline Beffa Photo by Carole M. Genshaft
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders, Carole M. Genshaft, Raggin’ On, Ohio University
Milkweed Editions Press/Swallow Press
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of World of Carole M. Genshaft is curator-at-large at the Columbus
Wonders, an illustrated essay collection published by Museum of Art and enjoyed a close relationship with
Milkweed Editions in September 2020, as well as four MacArthur Fellow Aminah Robinson beginning in the
books of poetry, including, most recently, Oceanic, late 1980s. Since Robinson’s death in 2015, she has
winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters supervised the organization and documentation of
Award. Other awards for her writing include fellowships the artist’s estate, which was left to the museum. She
and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National has curated and co-curated many exhibitions about
Endowment for the Arts, Mississippi Arts Council, and Robinson’s life and work including Symphonic Poem, a
MacDowell Colony. Her writing appears in Poetry, the retrospective of the artist’s work that travelled nationally
New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Tin House. She in 2006. In 2018, she organized Kindred Spirits, an
serves as poetry faculty for the Writing Workshops in exhibition about the relationship between Robinson
Greece and is professor of English and creative writing and her friend and mentor, folk artist Elijah Pierce. In
in the University of Mississippi’s M.F.A. program. addition to contributing articles about Robinson to many
publications, Genshaft has written Aminah’s World, a
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: children’s book about Robinson’s life and art.
the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her
Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall Raggin’ On is the accompaniment to a landmark
mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian exhibition of Robinson’s work, which revolved around
father; and the chillier climes of western New York her family and community, African American history,
and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted— travel, and the stories her elders told her. This catalog
no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the invites readers to enter Robinson’s house and engage
landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and with the art and journals the museum’s staff members
funny creatures for guidance. The axolotl teaches us to have documented since 2015. Robinson embraced the
smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not concept of raggin’ on: the idea that her work will endure
plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; perpetually because each new person that encounters it
the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile will add new meaning. This exhibition’s title reflects the
environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, hope that the perspectives of visitors and readers will
Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this ensure Robinson’s work never ends.
way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough
to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate
the world’s gifts.
Fall 2021 | 5POETRY MIDDLE GRADE/YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
Photo by Clancy McGilligan Photo by Braxton Black
Marianne Chan, All Heathens, Sarabande Books Jacqueline Woodson, Before the Ever After,
Nancy Paulsen Books
Marianne Chan is the author of All Heathens, which
was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award Jacqueline Woodson is the author of dozens of award-
in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in New England winning books for young adults, middle graders, and
Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, children. She has received numerous honors and
The Cincinnati Review, West Branch, The Rumpus, and awards for her many books including a 2020 MacArthur
elsewhere. Between 2017-2019, she served as poetry Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award,
editor for Split Lip Magazine. She lives in Cincinnati the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the
with her partner, Clancy, and her cat, Bella. She is 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the
currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English and creative 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s
writing at the University of Cincinnati and serves as the Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young
assistant poetry editor at Acre Books. People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She
is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time
All Heathens is a declaration of ownership—of bodies, of National Book Award finalist, and a three-time winner
histories, of time. Revisiting Magellan’s voyage around of both the Coretta Scott King Award and Ohioana Book
the world, Chan navigates her Filipino heritage by Awards. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up
grappling with notions of diaspora, circumnavigation, in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York,
and discovery. Whether rewriting the origin story of and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She
Eve (“I always imagined that the serpent had the legs of currently lives in New York with her family.
a seductive woman in black nylons”) or ruminating on
what-should-have-been-said “when the man at the party Before the Ever After explores how a family moves
said he wanted to own a Filipino,” Chan paints wry, witty forward when their glory days have passed. ZJ’s dad
renderings of anecdotal and folkloric histories, while is a charming and talented former pro football star, as
both preserving and unveiling a self that dares any other beloved to the neighborhood kids he plays with as he is to
to try and claim it. his millions of adoring fans. But lately life at ZJ’s house
is anything but charming. His dad is having trouble
remembering things and seems to be angry all the time.
ZJ’s mom explains it’s because of all the head injuries
his dad sustained during his career, but it doesn’t make
the sting any less real when ZJ’s father forgets his name.
As ZJ contemplates his new reality, he has to figure out
how to hold on tight to family traditions while wondering
what their past amounts to if his father can’t remember
it. And most importantly, can those happy feelings ever
be reclaimed when they are all aching for the past?
6 | Ohioana QuarterlyJUVENILE LITERATURE READERS’ CHOICE
Photo by Abigail Best Photo by Kimberly Kaufman
Thrity Umrigar, Sugar in Milk (illustrated by Tiffany McDaniel, Betty, Alfred A. Knopf
Khoa Le), Hachette Book Group
Tiffany McDaniel is an Ohio-born poet and visual artist
Thrity Umrigar has written numerous best-selling whose writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye
novels including Bombay Time, The World We Found, woods of the land she knows. Her debut novel, The
The Secrets Between Us, and the forthcoming Honor; Summer That Melted Everything, won the Guardian’s
Not the Booker Prize and the Ohioana Readers’ Choice
the memoir, First Darling of the Morning; and three
Award. She is the author of Betty, an international
picture books for kids—When I Carried You in My Belly, bestseller with accolades from the Friends of American
Binny’s Diwali, and Sugar in Milk. She is a Distinguished Writers Chicago, the Society of Midland Authors, and
University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve Nautilus Book Award, among others.
University in Cleveland. Born in Bombay, India, Umrigar
came to the United States when she was twenty-one. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a
She is the winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, a Lambda Cherokee father, Betty Carpenter is the sixth of eight
Literary award, and the Seth Rosenberg prize, and was siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of
a recipient of a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard. Umrigar Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence—both
lives outside Cleveland, Ohio. from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within.
But despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient.
Sugar in Milk tells the story of a young immigrant Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for
her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling
girl who joins her aunt and uncle in a country that is
for the fire of her own imagination. In the face of all to
unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness and a which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she
fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, begins to write. Inspired by generations of her family,
until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk, begins to tell McDaniel sets out to free the past by delivering this
her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. heartbreaking yet magical story.
A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign
shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse
their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier,
so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as
a way of saying that the land was full. The leader of
the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His
message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in
your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced
the refugee, welcoming him and his people. This folktale
was a part of Umrigar’s Zoroastrian upbringing as a
Parsi child in India, but resonates for children of all
backgrounds.
Fall 2021 | 7Congratulations also to the 2021 Ohioana Book Award Finalists! These books have appeared on numerous bestseller
lists, and the writers have won many prestigious literary awards. All have made an impact on the literary life of Ohio,
and we are proud to support their work. Look for these titles at your local library or bookstore.
FICTION
Lee Martin, Yours, Jean
TaraShea Nesbit, Beheld
Connie Schultz, The Daughters of Erietown
NONFICTION
Maggie Downs, Braver Than You Think: Around the
World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime
Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
Brad Ricca, Olive the Lionheart: Lost Love, Imperial
Spies, and One Woman’s Journey into the Heart
of Africa
Paul M. Sutter, How to Die in Space: A Journey Through
Dangerous Astrophysical Phenomena
ABOUT OHIO OR AN OHIOAN
Derf Backderf, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio
David Giffels, Barnstorming Ohio: To Understand
America
Eliese Colette Goldbach, Rust: A Memoir of Steel
and Grit
Stephen Heyman, The Planter of Modern Life: Louis
Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution
POETRY
Ali Black, If It Heals At All
Ross Gay, Be Holding: A Poem
Paula J. Lambert, How to See the World: Poems
Amit Majmudar, What He Did in Solitary: Poems
MIDDLE GRADE/YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
Sharon Creech, One Time
Shelley Pearsall, Things Seen from Above
Justin A. Reynolds, Early Departures
Mildred D. Taylor, All the Days Past, All the Days
to Come
JUVENILE LITERATURE
Rita Lorraine Hubbard. Illus. by Oge Mora, The Oldest
Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read
Lindsay H. Metcalf, Keila V. Dawson, and Jeanette
Bradley, eds. Illus. by Jeanette Bradley, No Voice
Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making
History
Jon J. Muth, Addy’s Cup of Sugar: Based on a
Buddhist Story of Healing
Adam Rex, On Account of the Gum
8 | Ohioana QuarterlyThe Ohioana Library Association thanks the following sponsors
for their generous support of the 2021 Ohioana Book Awards:
Award Sponsors
Event Sponsors
Larry & Donna James Peter & Betsy Niehoff
Co- Sponsors
Media Support & In-Kind Contributions
Fall 2021 | 9“Moultrie” and “Hollow Honey Locust”
Essays by Hagan Faye Whiteleather, 2021 Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant Winner
Moultrie the graves because my grandfather told her he wouldn’t
Isolated in northeastern Ohio, bordered by State Route stay married to a woman who couldn’t drive a car. Her
172 and the NEXUS pipeline, a small cemetery rests first time around, she wrecked, or as she put it, got
under the broad limbs of maple trees. In spring, many tangled in the tombstones, and even after she learned to
of the oldest graves bloom with phlox and sharp green steer straight, she was never all that keen on driving.
yucca plants that sit evergreen. My Aunt Shirley calls
them Spanish Swords. The plants themselves are nearly That same year, the steeple blew clean off the roof during
as old as the village in which they grow, rooted in honor a powerful fall storm. The bronze bell, which is said
of all those who laid down their lives and their own to have rung as it fell, somehow remained intact and
swords in the Civil War. The graves that most closely was removed for safekeeping until the steeple could be
perimeter Moultrie Chapel are nearly all flanked by repaired, though it never was. Junior Summers, one of
those green blades. When I was younger, I’d lie in the township’s caretakers, was the only one who knew
the grass and imagine their sharp tips livening when where they had stored it. Recently, while contemplating
necessary to protect that small bit of land. I never did the new restorations that must be made to the chapel,
imagine that pain could come from beneath our soil. Aunt Shirley lamented the loss of the bell, saying, he’s
dead and gone, and though we can go visit Junior to ask, I
*** doubt he’ll answer.
In 1852, at the edge of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh In the 1960s, Junior Summers, and a handful of other
Railway in Columbiana County, a post office called handy men who tended to the needs of the township,
Moultrie was established. One year later, the village of repaired the chapel, putting up new walls where large
Moultrie was laid out. A little land was set aside upon chunks of white plaster had fallen to the slanted floors
which three small churches were built. The structures and mending wooden window ledges eaten away by
were simple log cabins that served as meeting places for rain and time. They were marginal repairs, but enough
the settlers. They could and were used by anyone: the to keep the chapel standing. Aside from the yearly
German Reform, Lutherans, Presbyterians . . . whom Memorial Day service, and the occasional burial, that
all else, my Aunt Shirley wasn’t entirely sure. Those sprucing was the most activity Moultrie had seen in
original cabins, now a long time gone, were all leveled by decades, until the spring and summer of 2018.
1873, and twenty years later, Moultrie Chapel was built.
Surrounding it lay only the graves of the settlers and the After years of contracts and negotiations, and my Aunt
grasses for the dead to come. The chapel was intended Shirley’s adamant refusal to sign away her rights, DTE
for religious and social meetings, but the inhabitants Energy began digging the NEXUS pipeline. Composed
mostly used the space to bury people. Moultrie Chapel of 256 miles, the pipeline pumps 1.5 billion cubic feet of
still sits today, in slight disrepair—squat, white, and natural gas per day from Ohio to an already existing line
lovely—with wavy glass windows and ten-foot doors. in Michigan. It arcs just beyond the cemetery and my
Aunt Shirley’s home, close enough to be seen from her
*** sunporch window, and close enough to cause her daily
concern. For most of that summer, we watched as the
In 1944, the Moultrie Post Office closed its doors, and ground parted and pale green tubes snaked their way
with it, much of the village scattered. What was left of through the township and beyond—silent and underfoot.
the land was divided and plowed into fields. Today only For four months, I drove slowly along beside it, watching
a few lots remain for residences, one of them my Aunt the pipeline grow and spread as it transected every piece
Shirley’s. Two years following the post office’s closing, of land I hold dear.
my grandmother married my grandfather. She spent
their honeymoon circling the gravel loop that surrounds
10 | Ohioana QuarterlyIn the fall of that same year, we cut open the ground My great-grandfather planted them, and my grandfather
of Moultrie to lay my father to rest after fewer than endured the annoyance of the honey locust’s debris in
two years treating his cancer. During which time, exchange for its durability. Honey locust trees are often
his body was opened and sewn back together around coated in furrowed bark and blade-like jaggers, making
foreign pieces. The brown patch of his newly filled them a daunting climb. On listless summer days, my
grave matches the long strip of ground still not grown cousins and I would pelt each other with the large, green
over from the summer excavation and insertion of the banana-shaped seedpods that littered the farm’s road.
pipeline. For the first time in my life, the soil of my home Beyond our entertainment, the trees provided wood ideal
lacks a permanence I never realized it once held. for fence posts. The further our land spread, the more
fields we acquired, the fewer locusts stood. After felling
them, they would be split and reassembled as fencing,
standing on the edges of the road again in a different
Hollow Honey Locust form. The summer my front teeth were growing back in, I
Under my feet, the gravel warms with the rising sun. I watched my dad, who moved at his own strangely precise
move slowly, skirting the line between scraggly grass and speed, pull away the rotten remains of fence posts and
the dusty gravel path. I came to water the geraniums. In replace them with new green-tinted poles. Honey locust
the heat of the summer, Aunt Shirley left Ohio for Texas. wood fades from green to gold after it’s cut, but lasts
She’s to be gone for a few weeks, leaving the geraniums the span of a human lifetime, if not longer. I felt small
and hostas and tombstones in my care. I hoped that the next to them. They were mostly my height—I can recall
earth might be damp; instead, solid soil lies beneath my wondering which one of us would outlive the other.
feet. The night before, a storm kept me up, but the sky
held nothing but lightning and thunder and wind—never ***
letting down any rain. An empty five-gallon bucket
bounces off my leg as I leave the path for the hill. In the cemetery, my sitting tree stands there, its thin,
fingernail-like leaves lank and unmoving. As my bucket
*** and I make our way around the tree to the water well, I
stop, stiller than the leaves above me. The largest of the
It’s foreign to think of a cemetery as fruitful, but it’s branches broke away from the trunk and lies over a fallen
even stranger to see it so barren, like the ghosts of tombstone. A straight yellow-white line splits the base
graves to come. Most of the grounds are smattered with of the tree. The broken branch skinned the trunk in one
a claustrophobia of headstones, but nearly half an acre long strip, and the remains of the bark lay curled at the
blankly waits at the top left corner of the cemetery. base like an apple peel. I can’t stop holding my breath.
When my grandfather died, a year before I was born,
my family decided it would be prudent to buy the plots It isn’t just that the tree has been struck and broken, or
neighboring his, so we could lie dead the same way we that my great-grandfather’s tombstone has been leveled.
lived, surrounded by one another. We’ve only recently It’s the emptiness. The tree, tall and timeless, has been
started to fill them. struck by lightning, revealing the core of the trunk—
moldering and hollow. My lungs itch and refuse to fill.
Our land lies fallow and green under the shade of a
honey locust that is older than the stones that surround ***
it. Honey locusts are tall and broad and, more than
anything, considered dirty. When I was younger, I Earlier in the summer, my father had a sarcoma tumor
would spend a good many of my summer days pressing removed from his inner thigh. Before the surgery, he
my back against its enduring trunk, unpeeling my wax told us that he wasn’t ready to go to Moultrie just yet.
paper-wrapped sandwiches to share my crumbs with the That phrase became code for something none of us
deceased. I had a soft spot for honey locusts even before really wanted to say. Following the procedure, his color
I found my sitting tree. For most of my childhood, before returned, his appetite somewhat revived, and he was
my Uncle Glenn felled them all, honey locusts lined the finally able to stand on his own again. For the first few
gravel lane to my grandmother’s farmhouse. weeks, the incision looked clean, almost healthy—until
Fall 2021 | 11it didn’t. The infections started, and then the swelling, he exhales a significant amount of air, it sounds damp.
and then the realization that despite the months and the When this happens, I picture sooty cotton balls lining his
multiple surgeries, his leg wasn’t going to heal. When lungs, and for a brief moment, I imagine him not there,
the tumor was removed, it left a hollow between the no longer at the other end, no longer here at all. Now,
muscles above his bone. The gap in his thigh remained when he says that he isn’t ready to go to Moultrie, his
too large for his body to mend, so the doctors decided to tone is no longer defiant. He just sounds scared.
fill his leg with foam inserts and attach a Wound VAC
to suck away the still unnamed fluid that pooled in the Even as a child, I felt comfort in knowing where I’d
cavity. Every three days, the foam was replaced and the end up. Each time I stand over my plot, I feel fine with
wound measured. When his nurse came to the house, I the fate of my bones, but I can’t seem to reconcile my
helped her peel away the plastic and the tape that kept father to Moultrie. It’s getting colder, and should he die,
his skin together. Once removed, my dad laid still as the ground will not be ready to be broken. Some days I
she measured the same distance as three days before, take superstitious comfort in that, thinking it couldn’t
and three days before, and three days before, eyes to possibly happen before the thaw. Other times, I agonize
the ceiling, his thigh splayed open like a shelled-out pea over the possibility of him waiting, icy and unresponsive,
pod—void to the bone. somewhere I don’t have access to. Somewhere he’s never
before been. Somewhere martian and chrome-plated.
*** His body pumped full of preserving chemicals more
potent than the chemotherapy he lamented. I’m not
It’s coming on winter, and the cancer has since spread ready to be broken open and made hollow with the loss
to his chest. Now, his lungs feel the heft of each breath. of him.
Sometimes, when his voice catches on the phone, and
A writer, editor, and professor based in Northeast Ohio, Hagan
Faye Whiteleather studied English and psychology at Kent
State University and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing and
environment with a Teaching Excellence degree distinction
from Iowa State University. During her education, she served
as editor-in-chief of KSU’s literary arts journal, Luna Negra,
and as nonfiction editor for ISU’s Flyway: Journal of Writing
& Environment. Her in-progress memoir, Tangled in the Roots,
explores the grounds and graves of Moultrie Chapel Cemetery,
grief, familial ties, and end-of-life care. When she isn’t reading,
writing, or out walking, she’s teaching creative and critical writing
at her alma mater, Kent State.
12 | Ohioana QuarterlyThe Ohio Literary Trail Expands!
The Ohioana Library is excited to announce that Southwest Ohio Region: Montgomery County,
its Ohio Literary Trail has added seven new sites University of Dayton campus. The Erma Bombeck
honoring Ohio literary greats. Introduced in 2020, the Historical Marker is on the campus where the
Ohio Literary Trail connects readers and Ohio writers celebrated columnist and author graduated in 1949.
and shines a spotlight on Ohio’s unique role in shaping She became a household name in the 1970s and ‘80s.
culture and literature worldwide.
Southwest Ohio Region: Clermont County, Point
Among the notable Ohioans honored with new sites Pleasant and Brown County, Georgetown. Two-
are the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize term eighteenth president of the United States and
in literature, the journalist and travel writer who victorious military commander of the Union Army,
introduced the world to Lawrence of Arabia, the Ulysses S. Grant, worked tirelessly to complete his
greatest female humorist of the past sixty years, a autobiography before his death. It became one of the
science fiction writer and screenwriter who wrote most acclaimed memoirs of the nineteenth century.
the script for The Empire Strikes Back, and the Union
general who won the Civil War and penned the most Southwest Ohio Region: Darke County, Garst
acclaimed memoir of any American president. Museum in Greenville. Lowell Thomas’ restored
Victorian home and the museum collection honor
The sites are physical places tourists can visit year- the TV and Cinerama producer and author. His
round, such as museums, permanent library displays, travels with T. E. Lawrence led to Thomas’ book With
historical homes, and Ohio Historical Markers. The Lawrence in Arabia and the movie Lawrence of Arabia.
new additions to the Ohio Literary Trail include:
Southeast Ohio Region: Jefferson County, Steuben-
Northeast Ohio Region: Lorain County, Toni ville. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and the Carnegie
Morrison Historical Marker. Morrison, winner of Library of Steubenville Historical Marker in front of
many awards including the Nobel Prize, was born in the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County
Lorain in 1931 and died in August 2019. The Carnegie honors Ohio’s first Carnegie Library, which was ap-
Center is the former Lorain Public Library where proved for funding in June 1899.
Morrison worked as a youth.
The Ohio Literary Trail can be accessed on the
Northeast Ohio Region: Cuyahoga County. Hart Ohioana Library website at www.ohioana.org.
Crane Memorial Park features a tribute sculpture by
Ohio artist Gene Kangas honoring American poet
Hart Crane (1899-1932), who is considered one of the
greatest poets of the twentieth century.
Northeast Ohio Region: Trumbull County, Kinsman/
Leigh Brackett Historical Marker. Born in California,
Brackett lived in Kinsman about twenty years. The
science fiction writer who perfected the subgenre of
“space opera” was nominated for a Hugo Award for
The Long Tomorrow (1955).
Members of Toni Morrison’s family in front of her historical marker in
Lorain. (Photo by Cheri Campbell)
Fall 2021 | 13Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films
in a White World
A Review by Peter Niehoff
Until very recently, there has existed within film history (1961), Superfly (1972), Do the Right Thing (1989), Selma
a large void when it came to discussions of race in (2014), and many others. Haygood then delves deeper
Hollywood. Just as much as the filmmakers and films to discuss the underlying history that influenced these
themselves, studies on African Americans’ impact in films, from slavery and the Civil War to Reconstruction,
the film industry have been ignored or left to the high the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression,
echelons of academia. Wil Haygood seeks to correct that segregation, the postwar Civil Rights Movement, and all
with his new book, Colorization: One Hundred Years the way up to Barak Obama’s presidency and the murder
of Black Films in a White World. It is well known that of George Floyd. Colorization explores the entire sweep
Tinseltown has always been great at manufacturing of a rich history. It is a very well-researched book that
its image, and more often than not, that image ignored includes interviews by the author with President of the
African Americans (among others). But in the midst Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Cheryl
of #OscarsSoWhite and Moonlight (2016) winning the Boone Isaacs, Louis Gossett, Jr., and award-winning
Academy Award for Best Picture, Haygood offers an director Steve McQueen, to name a few. Haygood deftly
honest and timely history for anyone with an interest in illustrates the struggles and hard-fought successes
film and culture. Black Americans have faced in their long fight to garner
authentic film depictions of their lived American
A good film history should meld together the social, experience.
cultural, and aesthetic contexts with the goal to illustrate
the real-world impacts that film has always made. Haygood writes with immediacy and urgency as he seeks
Haygood unquestionably achieves this. He critiques to give due recognition to Black filmmakers, writers,
and breaks down films such as Oscar Micheaux’s The actors and actresses, producers, and crew who have
Homesteader (1919)—which was a direct rebuttal to strained to have their stories told when Hollywood at
D. W. Griffith’s racist Birth of a Nation (1915)—along first refused, and often watered down, their significance.
with Gone With The Wind (1939), A Raisin in the Sun We learn about the entrepreneurship and ambition of
Oscar Micheaux, the first major African American to
direct feature films. Micheaux got his start as a Pullman
porter, then bought his own farm in South Dakota, and
ultimately self-published and financed his own novels
and films. Hattie McDaniel, the first African American
to win an Oscar with her role in Gone with the Wind, is
introduced through her father, Henry, who was born
into slavery in 1838 and fought for the Union during
the Civil War. Sidney Poitier—the first Black man to
win an Oscar for Best Actor—and Harry Belafonte’s
activism during the 1963 March on Washington helped
to bring national attention to the Civil Rights Movement.
Through trailblazers like Richard Roundtree, Billy
Dee Williams, James Edwards, and Diana Ross, we are
shown the struggle countless actors and actresses faced
when they sought to get beyond the stifling, stereotypical
“I Can’t Breathe.” The Selma cast made a defiant statement on the roles Hollywood fit them into to depict meaningful and
steps of the New York Public Library. (Photo credit: Ray Tamarra/GC
authentic stories on the silver screen.
Images, 2014)
14 | Ohioana QuarterlyOhio features prominently in this history: Fannie Hurst,
from Hamilton, authored the novel Imitation of Life
about the friendship between two women, one White and
one Black. The novel was filmed two separate times; the
one in 1959 starring Lana Turner brought a supporting
Oscar nomination for Black actress Juanita Moore.
Author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who lived in Cincinnati
for almost two decades, passed away the same year
cinema was invented in 1896, but her book, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, was made into nine separate silent films between
1903-1927. Ron O’Neal from the famous Superfly (1972)
and the Dandridge sisters were from Cleveland. The
iconic Pam Grier spent part of her early childhood in
Ohio, while revolutionary director Melvin Van Peebles
graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1953. The Freedom
Riders got their start in Oxford before their fateful trip
south. And of course, Jim Brown left his Hall of Fame
career with the Cleveland Browns for Hollywood.
Colorization really covers more than a hundred years.
It is about the longer history of America’s struggles
with race as seen through the mighty camera lenses
of Hollywood. Many of the stories that made it to the
big screen were based on people, events, and novels Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black
that predated cinema. For example, the life and Films in a White World by Wil Haygood.
autobiography of Solomon Northup (1808-1863) was New York: Knopf, 2021.
turned into 12 Years a Slave one hundred and fifty
years after his death in 2013; and Uncle Tom’s Cabin— This unprecedented history of Black cinema
published in 1852 and filmed countless times—captured examines 100 years of Black movies—from
truths of the Black experience in America that were still Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films
potent as the film industry and the country struggled to Black Panther—using the struggles
with race throughout the twentieth and early twenty- and triumphs of the artists, and the films
first centuries. Indeed, those historical threads are themselves, as a prism to explore Black
present today when camera phones frequently capture culture, civil rights, and racism in America.
racial injustices for the world to see, such as what From the acclaimed author of The Butler and
occurred to Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, among Showdown.
countless others. Haygood reminds us that the camera
and screen are tools that capture and reflect everything,
echoing Hollywood’s, and therefore the country’s, racial
dynamics that are there for all to see.
Peter Niehoff, Ph.D., teaches film and television history at
the University of Cincinnati. Along with Ohioana, he also
sits on the board of the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati.
Fall 2021 | 15Book List
The following books were added to Columbus: Blockfort Gallery and only woman and the only person of
Ohioana’s collection between June Studios, 2019. color on Thomas Dewey’s famous
and September 2021. Look for them In Between Everywhere is an gangbuster team that prosecuted
at your local library or bookstore! exhibition-in-print featuring forty- mobster Lucky Luciano. But little
two central Ohio artists curated has been told about Carter’s life
by Adam Brouillette of Blockfort before and after the trial. In this
NONFICTION Gallery. The artists chosen for the definitive biography, authors
book represent a variety of styles Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li tell
Boggs, Joseph. Prohibition’s and mediums. It is intended to be an the story of this unknown but critical
Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & introduction to the consistency of pioneer in the struggle for racial
Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit- vision and the quality of work found and gender equality in the twentieth
Windsor Corridor. Toledo: The in the central Ohio art scene. century. Carter worked harder than
University of Toledo Press, 2020. most men because of her race and
Prohibition’s Proving Ground Engelking, Jennifer Boresz. Hidden gender, and Greenwald and Li reflect
examines the tumultuous dry years History of Lake County, Ohio. on her lifelong commitment to her
in this trans-border region through Charleston: The History Press, 2021. adopted home of Harlem, where
its thriving motorcar culture. In the Striking natural beauty draws many she was viewed as a role model, arts
1910s, local automobile factories visitors to Lake County, but the patron, community organizer, and,
churned out affordable vehicles area also has a rich and captivating later, as a legal advisor to the United
that put many Toledo-Detroit- history. Willoughbeach Amusement Nations, the National Council of
Windsor corridor residents on Park arose where one of the worst Negro Women, and several other
wheels for the first time, just as a shipwrecks in Great Lakes history national and global organizations.
wave of prohibitionist sentiment occurred years before. Secret Using transcripts, letters, and other
swept the area. State, provincial, and passageways and tunnels helped primary and secondary sources
federal dry laws soon took effect in slaves escape to freedom. Native from several archives in the United
Ontario, Michigan, and Ohio, and son and Tuskegee Airman Earl R. States and Canada, the authors
native rumrunners fully utilized the Lane earned the Distinguished paint a vibrant portrait of Carter
area’s robust automobile culture to Flying Cross. Marge Hurlburt, a and her inspirational, multi-decade
exploit weaknesses in prohibition service pilot during World War II, career working in an environment of
legislation and enforcement. set an international women’s flight bias, segregation, and patriarchy in
Ultimately, the noble experiment speed record. And Amy Kaukonen, Depression-era America.
failed on the TDW corridor. Its one of the nation’s first female
failure can be partly attributed to mayors, personally raided suspected Hagedorn, Ann. Sleeper Agent: The
controversial policing practices that bootleggers during Prohibition. Atomic Spy in America Who Got
angered area motorists suspected of Author Jennifer Boresz Engelking Away. New York: Simon & Schuster,
bootlegging. Local sheriffs, troopers, uncovers the history behind some 2021.
and dry agents could not stem the of Lake County’s most well-known George Koval was born in Iowa. In
tide of motorized professional people and landmarks and reveals 1932, his parents, Russian Jews
smugglers who increasingly stories lost to time. who had emigrated because of anti-
perpetrated brutal crimes in the Semitism, decided to return home
region’s rural roadways and city Greenwald, Marilyn S., and Yun Li. to live out their socialist ideals.
streets. Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong George, who was as committed to
Fight for Social Justice. New York: socialism as they were, went with
Brouillette, Adam, ed. In Between Empire State Editions, 2021. them. It was there that he was
Everywhere: An Exhibition in Eunice Hunton Carter rose to public recruited by the Soviet Army as
Print of Central Ohio Artists. prominence in 1936 as both the a spy and returned to the U.S. in
16 | Ohioana QuarterlyBOOK LIST | NONFICTION
1940. A gifted science student, he Long, Tedd. Forgotten Visitors: Akron, Ohio, told in the style of the
enrolled at Columbia University Northwest Ohio’s Notable Guests. ministry—improvisational, risky,
where he met scientists soon to join Toledo: The University of Toledo and present. As much as this is
the Manhattan Project, America’s Press, 2020. the story of South Street through
atom bomb program. After being Taking readers from the Northwest O’Connor’s experience of the
drafted into the U.S. Army, George Indian War to post-industrial Toledo organization, it is also an invitation
used his scientific background and in the early twenty-first century, to the reader by example. There is
connections to secure an assignment Tedd Long traces the stories of no set of conclusions or directions
at a site where plutonium and famous and not-so-famous visitors provided in this work, save for one:
uranium were produced to fuel the to Northwest Ohio, uncovering don’t let anyone define your story.
atom bomb. There, and later in a surprising details along the way. You claim your own story.
second top-secret location, he had Long goes beyond the simple
full access to all facilities and passed questions of who, where, and when Szor, Judy Harris. Sam Szor:
on highly sensitive information to as he keenly explores the alluring Toledo’s Mr. Music. Toledo: The
Moscow. While there were hundreds backstories and subplots of the local University of Toledo Press, 2020.
of spies in the U.S. during World stopovers to help readers appreciate Born in the Szor family home on
War II, Koval was the only Soviet the history of the Maumee Valley, as Bakewell Street in East Toledo’s
military spy with security clearances well as the fascinating stories behind Birmingham neighborhood, Sam
in the atomic bomb project. The the forgotten visits of famous people. Szor started playing the saxophone
ultimate sleeper agent, he was an and clarinet in the fourth grade. He
all-American boy who had played Markowicz, Philip. Losing God in would go on to play in the Toledo
baseball, loved Walt Whitman’s Translation: A Study of the Hebrew Young People’s Symphony Orchestra
poetry, and mingled freely with Bible. Toledo: The University of and the Paul Mabie band before
fellow Americans—all while Toledo Press, 2020. graduating from Waite High School
providing the enemy with classified Rarely does a translation surpass and heading to the University of
intelligence. the quality of the original work. But Michigan. After graduating with
what if a translation creates and a degree in music education, Sam
Hunter, Bob. Road to Wapatomica: perpetuates a flawed understanding returned to the Glass City where
A Modern Search for the Old of the original? After a lifetime he taught at Woodward and Waite
Northwest. Columbus: Colloden of study and reflection, Philip High Schools and The University of
Books, 2021. Markowicz contends that poor Toledo. In addition to a thirty-two-
Looking for history on our streets translations of the Hebrew Bible year career as a music educator,
and street corners, in our parks, have caused this venerable text to be Sam was also the director of Music
and even in our backyards, Bob misinterpreted. Drawing on insights Under the Stars for nearly sixty
Hunter sets out on a journey from traditional Jewish texts, years and conductor of the Toledo
across the Midwest in search of philosophy, and science, Markowicz Choral Society for fifty-four years.
memorable moments from the days stridently reads lost meaning back He also played bassoon for the
of the Old Northwest. Forts, trails, into the biblical text and makes a Toledo Symphony Orchestra and
trading posts, Native American compelling case for reviving the was the conductor of the Perrysburg
villages, battlefields, gravesites, and study of the Hebrew Bible—in Symphony Orchestra for twenty
landmarks (both remembered and Hebrew. years.
forgotten) are all on his radar—as
are places where acts of heroism, O’Connor, Mary. Free Rose Light: Tramer, Elliot. Photos by Art Weber.
murder, butchery, and even massacre Stories Around South Street. Richness and Rarity: The Natural
took place. He tackles the job with Akron: The University of Akron History of Lucas County. Toledo:
humor, curiosity, and skepticism, Press, 2021. The University of Toledo Press,
tries to separate legend from fact, Free Rose Light is the wide-ranging 2020.
and introduces readers to the people story of the people and community Lavishly illustrated with more than
he encounters along the way. of South Street Ministries in 125 photos by Art Weber, this hard
Fall 2021 | 17BOOK LIST | NONFICTION & FICTION
cover book also features contributed police, it seems she’s right. A film to stills in the area. But when
essays and photos by other local crew is in Harvest to make a movie thirteen-year-old Zebediah Harkins
experts on Lucas County including about a forty-year-old unsolved almost dies after drinking tainted
meteorologist Ross Ellet, geologists murder. A skeleton has been found at moonshine, Lily knows that someone
Mark Camp and Tim Fisher, the bottom of a ravine—and Uriah is has gone too far, and—with the
aquatic biologist Tom Bridgeman, certain it’s his sister, Galilee. Right help of organizer and moonshiner
herpetologist Kent Bekker, OSU before Uriah left Ohio, Galilee had Marvena Whitcomb—is determined
Extension Agent Amy Stone, TNA disappeared, and her harsh husband, to find out who. But then, Lily’s
members Eric Durbin, Jan Dixon, Samuel, was found fatally stabbed nemesis, the businessman George
and Rick Nirschl, along with many with a knitting needle. The sheriff Vogel, reappears in town with his
others. declared that Galilee killed him new wife, Fiona. Along with them
and ran away. Uriah never believed is also her former brother-in-law
the theory, and he’s come back to Luther Ross, now an agent for the
FICTION Harvest hoping, Gott willing, that newly formed Bureau of Prohibition.
Millie will help him stitch together To Lily, it seems too much of a
Campbell, Tom Harley. Satan’s the truth. coincidence that they should
Choir: A John Burke Mystery. arrive now. As fall turns to winter,
Ithaca: Cayuga Lake Books, 2021. MacGregor, Scott. Ilus. by Gary a blizzard closes in. Lily starts to
When the battered remains of a Dumm. Fire on the Water. New peel back the layers of deception
priest are discovered at the bottom York: Abrams Comic Arts, 2021. shrouding the town of Kinship, but
of a lake, Dayton homicide detective This original graphic novel imagines soon she discovers that many around
John Burke is mystified. Who would the lives of blue-collar workers her seem to be betraying those they
murder a priest? Why were the involved in the real-life Lake Erie hold dear—and that Fiona too may
initial inquiries abandoned so long tunnel disaster of 1916 in Cleveland. have an agenda of her own.
ago when the man went missing? Author Scott MacGregor and
As he investigates the case, Burke’s illustrator Gary Dumm tell the Schraeder, E. F. Ghastly Tales of
search for a suspect leads him down intersecting stories of a brilliant Gaiety & Greed: Unauthorized &
a dark rabbit hole of intrigue and into African American inventor, Ben Haunted Cedar Point. Los Angeles:
his own mysterious past. Beltran (based on the real-life Omnium Gatherum, 2020.
Garrett Morgan, Sr.), desperate Coasters, carousels, an old cemetery,
Flower, Amanda. Marriage Can Be immigrants tunneling beneath and a sprawling hotel on a stormy
Mischief: An Amish Matchmaker Lake Erie, and corrupt overseers lakeside. Visit this haunted tour
Mystery. New York: Kensington who risk countless lives for profit. of scrapbook memories where
Books, 2021. As historical fiction, Fire on the legendary summers intersect with
Millie is happy that her childhood Water sheds light not only on one history and rumor. Told in vignettes
friend, Uriah Schrock, has returned of America’s earliest man-made that weave stories, newspaper
to Harvest after decades away. He ecological disasters, but also on clippings, postcards, and images,
was sweet on Millie in their school racism and the economic disparity Ghastly Tales weaves the tales of
days, but she only had eyes for her between classes in the Midwest at four families through the decades
future husband. Now, there’s a new the turn of the century. at a lakeside resort and amusement
spark between them, so Millie is park where everyone eventually
concerned when Uriah doesn’t show Montgomery, Jess. The Stills returns.
up at the Harvest concert series—or (Kinship #3). New York: Minotaur
for his job as the village square’s Books, 2021. Welsh-Huggins, Andrew. An Empty
groundskeeper. Perhaps Millie has Ohio, 1927: Moonshining is a way Grave. Athens: Swallow Press, 2021.
been involved in too many murder of life in rural Bronwyn County, In 1979, a high-profile burglar shot
investigations, but she has a sinking and even the otherwise upstanding a cop, was apprehended, and then
feeling. And when she and her best Sheriff Lily Ross has been known disappeared without ever being
friend, Lois, find Uriah with the to turn a blind eye when it comes prosecuted. Forty years later, after
18 | Ohioana QuarterlyBOOK LIST | FICTION, POETRY, MIDDLE GRADE & YOUNG ADULT
the wounded cop’s suicide, his son, Brennan, Matthew. Snow in New Horvath, Brooke. At Times: New &
Preston Campbell, is convinced York: New and Selected Poems. Selected Poems. New York: Seven
there’s been a cover-up that Beaumont: Lamar University Stories Press, 2020.
allowed his father’s attacker to go Literary Press, 2021. Brooke Horvath is always intimate,
free. At first, private investigator Matthew Brennan’s Snow in New never rhetorical or bland. This
Andy Hayes dismisses Campbell’s York is his sixth full collection of is poetry not just for the sake of
outlandish conspiracy theories. poetry, bringing together his best poetry, but poetry as a way of life—of
But when a mysterious Cold War poems written during the last forty engaging with the world. Like the
connection to the burglar emerges, years. Whether in free verse, blank works of Alan Dugan or Galway
the investigation heats up, and verse, or rhyme, Brennan’s poems Kinnell, these are poems of the
Hayes discovers a series of deaths betray close attention to form while everyday and, when read slantwise,
that seem to be connected, one way evoking the senses through concrete of what lies beyond. The whole
or another, to the missing criminal. images, and the imagination collection, in fact, is imbued with
Nothing seems to add up, though, through vivid figurative language. the wily double meaning of the final
and Hayes finds himself hurtling His subjects cover family, love, and couplet from “What in the World
headlong down a decades-old path memory, as well as art, history, and Were We Thinking Of ?”—”It was a
of deadly secrets. In the midst of landscape. Whether in personal day when nothing happened / that
cracking the cold case, Hayes has lyrics or in dramatic monologues, we will find worth remembering.”
another mystery to solve closer to Brennan speaks directly, musically,
home: What’s been troubling his and emotionally. Besides selections
younger son, Joe, and why is his from Seeing in the Dark, The Music MIDDLE GRADE &
ex-wife so eager to have the boy out of Exile, The Sea-Crossing of Saint YOUNG ADULT
of her house? Further complicating Brendan, The House with the
matters, Hayes learns that another Mansard Roof, and One Life, this Bailey, Kristin. Into the Nightfell
private eye, the captivating but book includes more than twenty Wood. New York: Katherine Tegen
inscrutable Hillary Quinne, is also new poems. Books, 2018.
on the trail of the vanished burglar This action-packed fantasy novel
and needs Hayes’ help. As their Fuller, Jane Ann. Half-Life. Russell: about two siblings and the fractured
professional and personal lives blur, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021. world they inherit when they are
Hayes wonders what he’s gotten Fuller’s Half-Life spans the many adopted by a grieving queen is the
himself into, and whether he really years it takes to come to terms with stunning sequel to The Silver Gate.
wants out. the suicide of a husband and its Wynn and Elric may now be safe,
traumatic effect on the children: but adjusting to life in the Between
drug abuse, rape, unflinching self- is not without complications. Their
POETRY analysis, survivor’s guilt—the loss adoptive mother, the benevolent
is hardly manageable. The poems Fairy Queen, is haunted by the
Brady, Philip. The Elsewhere: look to the self but also outward, to memory of her child who was
Poems & Poetics. Frankfort: the bird feeder and garden, to the kidnapped long ago—and she
Broadstone Books, 2021. paintings of the masters, to Greek won’t risk letting the same thing
In a new arrangement of three books mythology, to the music of a fiddle happen to Wynn and Elric. But that
of poetry, a verse memoir, a poetic teacher, and to the dangerous beauty same grief has been weakening
prose memoir, and essay collections of southeastern Ohio’s sandstone the queen’s powers for years, and
on poetics—as well as new poems— cliffs. In the face of death, the poems the protective shield around their
The Elsewhere re-scores a life alert ask, What do the living know? They kingdom is deteriorating. When
to the workings of line and sentence know immense grief; how brutal and Wynn is coerced into the Nightfell
upon eye, heart, breath, and the dark our human natures can be; and Wood by a creature sent to do the
world. that healing requires engagement Grendel’s bidding, Elric knows he
with the physical world. must go after her to save her life.
What they discover there—about
Fall 2021 | 19You can also read
