“Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage”
Edited by Holly Welker (University of Illinois Press, $19.95)
Confession: As a kid, this reviewer used to pore over her grandmother’s ladies’ magazines to read the “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” columns. In a romanticized world of happily-ever-after, it was intriguing to peek behind the curtain to see what actually went on after the ceremony. This new collection of essays holds a similar appeal. Southern Arizona poet and essayist (and Mormon) Holly Welker compiled essays from three dozen women about their marital lives in relation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for this collection.
The essays are diverse, but all are outgrowths of basic church teaching —that a woman’s role is to be a good and obedient wife and mother to a devout Mormon man. For some of these women, this is satisfying; for others, issues arise.
Welker doesn’t draw conclusions or weigh in on decisions of her writers; she lets their experiences speak for themselves (which they do with considerable grace). You could say, after this peek, that while some LDS marriages might seem arranged in heaven, some shouldn’t be saved … sanctified or not.
Christine Wald-Hopkins
“Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert: La vida no vale nada”
Edited by Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Celestino Fernádez, Jesse K. Finch, Araceli Masterson-Algar (University of Arizona Press, $24.95)
A thoughtful repudiation of the subtitle of the book—“La vida no vale nada” (“life has no worth”), this collection presents arguments attesting to the significance of the lives lost crossing the Arizona desert.
Based on a 2008 conference of the same name, the editors have gathered writers from varied fields —academe, public health, activism, art. Here they bring their respective methodologies and expressions to examine and to explain the tragedy of Arizona desert migrant deaths. Including history, statistics, coroners’ reports of retrieved bodies, and meditations on the meanings and values of migrant lives, this a natural text for border studies.
Christine Wald-Hopkins
“A Small Saving Grace”
By G. Davies Jandrey (Fireship Press, $17.95 paperback; $6.95 eBook)
The “new normal” is anything but in this domestic thriller by retired Tucson educator G. (Gayle) Davies Jandrey. Raped and beaten in a Tucson parking garage, teacher Andy Richards has been left in a coma, and her family rallies to care for her and her children. But Andy’s family requires some reconstituting before it can effectively rally: Her husband has recently left her for another woman, her father has left her mother for another man, and her mother has left them all for the bottle. Add to the household mix Andy’s dad’s flamboyant boyfriend and her ex-husband’s tacky girlfriend (plus Andy herself lying comatose in the living room), and you have a sense of why her pre-teen daughter hesitates to bring friends home.
The action is driven successfully by the threat of the perp’s returning to finish his job. A motif of diversity in spiritual expression is reflected in the book’s title, and lends an additional element to an appealing read.
Christine Wald-Hopkins
“Lost Roundup”
By Phyllis de la Garza (Silk Label Books, $17.99).
When Willcox rancher Jerome Brown collapses in front of the local saloon, his young widow Azalea looks to their ranch for support. What she doesn’t expect is a dated will and her husband’s estranged daughter Josefina, who claims her inheritance before the old man is in the ground. But Azalea is not about to let her cattle be driven to Mexico, and sets out to reclaim the herd before it reaches the border.
The West is a well-traveled trail for De la Garza — a Cochise County resident and author of 18 books — and the action gallops through the cactus and grasslands of Southern Arizona as Azalea battles the elements and Mexican banditos.
Vicki Ann Duraine
“Writing What You Know: How to Turn Personal Experiences into Publishable Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry”
By Meg Files, Allworth Press ($16.99)
For much of her adult life, Files has championed for the writer in us all. In this dense, approachable guide, she encapsulates her expertise, experiences, writing examples and exercises, antidotes, and literary techniques that succeed (or fail.) Chapters include “Facing down the Monsters” and “Jumping into the Abyss” and she ends with that necessary but dreaded subject — revision. An invaluable resource when facing the blank page.
During her tenure as an English instructor at Pima Community College, Files established the venerable Pima Writers Workshop. This is her fifth book.
Vicki Ann Duraine
“Art for Poetry’s Sake”
By Ned Mackey Wheatmark ($18.26)
I admit to being a novice to ekphrasis (a response to a work of art) poetry, but Mackey grabbed me with the dedication and didn’t let go. In turn, raucous, reflective, irreverent and sentimental, the poems are always clever and, more importantly, each verse delivers you back to really examine the artwork from which it was inspired.
Mackey’s choice of artists is as eclectic as his poetry, ranging from Van Gogh to Tucson’s own Guy Atchley. One of my favorites is Reginald Marsh’s lively carousal painting “Wooden Horses.” Mackey taught English in the Tucson Unified School District for 36 years, and I have become a student of both the style and the stylist.
Vicki Ann Duraine
