Poem: Mount of Olives
Mount of Olives Patrick T. Reardon On the dark Mount of Olives, in a rain-jeweled copse above the garden, I removed my breastplate. I unwound my belt. My robe [...]
Book review: “Double Indemnity” by James M. Cain
Noir fiction, like film noir, deals with bad guys doing bad things, often to each other. So why do we care? James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity — serialized in 1936 [...]
Book review: “Stoner” by John Williams
John Williams’ 1965 novel Stoner is one of the saddest novels ever published. It’s sad not because it is maudlin, but because it isn’t. Williams writes of William Stoner with [...]
Book review: “Old Mali and the Boy” by D. R. Sherman
D.R. Sherman’s Old Mali and the Boy, published in 1964, is a complex and poignant fable about love, set in northern India in the first half of the twentieth century. [...]
Book review: “The Night of the Generals” by Hans Hellmut Kirst
American thrillers tend to be strictly for entertainment. Oh, yes, there may be a subtext message to the reader that, if you don’t do something about something — such as [...]
Book review: “The ‘Lomokome’ Papers” by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk’s short science-fiction allegory The “Lomokome” Papers was written in 1949, just four years after the United States dropped two atom bombs on Japan, ushering in the nuclear era. [...]
Book review: “Harriet the Spy” by Louise Fitzhugh
The plot of Louis Fitzhugh much-loved Harriet the Spy doesn’t yield a moral. But the life of Harriet does. What I mean to say is that some schools and libraries [...]
Book review: “Spoil of the Violent” by Emmanuel Mounier
There are two types of Christians, according to French philosopher-theologian Emmanuel Mounier. There are those who see their faith as an adventure, a lively zestful engagement with the fullness of [...]
Poem: “Elect”
Elect By Patrick T. Reardon Toast with choice wine the elect. Toast the vampires, bad boys, hyenas, stone-cold demons and assholes strolling the halls of heaven, side by [...]