Book Shelf >Gail Godwin

You Are Here: A Memoir of Arrival
Wesley Gibson
Back Bay Books, 2004, $13.95

Wesley Gibson is a 36-year-old self-deprecating hypochondriac prone to anxiety attacks and laziness. Why would he write a memoir? The primary story arc of You are Here describes his first months struggling in New York City following a move from Richmond, Virginia. Gibson humorously captures his labors to land menial jobs such as caterer and telemarketer while trying to jumpstart his dormant writing career, of which he says: “At this point a team of specialists were working round the clock, wondering if I would ever write again.”

At the opening of the book we find Gibson at his second day in his new home, a room in an apartment found through a gay roommate service. Looking around at the décor, which Gibson describes as “New Age Kitsch,” despair mixes with humor from the first page as he realizes too late that he accepted an offer too quickly. His first clue: over 60 messages on the answering machine inquiring about the apartment.

You Are Here is not a typical memoir. Only four sentences in, Gibson launches into a page-long acerbic stream of consciousness detailing of his interview with John, “a man as pale and waxy and elongated as a candle.” As John begins to die slowly in front of his eyes and deny it, Gibson weaves together run-on anecdotes about his job search, his phone conversations with his best friend Jo Ann, his reasons for moving to New York, his motives for writing, and flashbacks from his youth. (Gibson’s mother: “I’d rather you be a murderer than a homosexual.”)

There are no chapters, only a double space between trains of thought for 232 pages as Gibson proceeds to expose the finest details of his life and darkest recesses of his brain. The point of the book is not so much a memoir of look-what-I-have-accomplished, but rather a seat on the couch next to Gibson while he chats with his therapist. While this might not sound appealing, Gibson’s solid writing is more than enough support for this meandering tale. He tells us “My life had always been populated by hopeless eccentrics, derelicts and losers, like some Leonard Cohen song.” I enjoyed being introduced to some of them.

—Jonathan D. King

Land in the Sky
Ellen Sheedy
Herstory Publishing, 2003, $24.95

Ellen Sheedy has created a tale of captivating romance and passionate struggle for land ownership in Land in the Sky. Set in New York in 1674, the novel tells the story of Catharyna van Broeck, a Dutch woman who is torn, following her father’s death, between her fiercely independent spirit and the undeniable emotions she feels for the Albany Indian Commissioner, Englishman William Hawkins.

Trained by her father to be the best trader in Manhattan, Catharyna has a shrewd nose for business, and is determined to keep the Broeckwyck patroonship under her family’s control. In need of an heir, Catharyna is pressured to accept an arranged marriage. However, she refuses to sacrifice her ideals, and puts her clever business capabilities to good use by making a deal with the Minichque Indian tribe—a deal which buys her time to find a husband of her own choosing.

In dealing with the tribe, Catharyna is accompanied by Hawkins, and the two strong-minded land traders take the first step in a whirlwind romance. When Catharyna and Hawkins embark together on a voyage to London, sparks continue to fly, and Catharyna finds herself fighting the urge to surrender herself to a man who wants not only her, but also her family’s beloved Broeckwyck.

Ultimately, Catharyna cannot resist the charms of the Englishman and agrees to marry him. However, their union is halted and complications ensue as a result of one of the many twists in the tale. The pair is separated as Hawkins travels the world on business, leaving Catharyna to wait and occupy herself with the duties of keeping Broeckwyck in tact. Thoughts of Hawkins consume her though, and when he returns to New York, anger and suspicion subside.

Catharyna is refreshingly strong and extremely capable. Her stature among the businessmen whom she encounters is never weakened, even as she struggles to determine the best course of action for herself in the shadow of her beloved father’s memory. Hawkins is equally intriguing in his desire to overcome his past and allow himself to fall for such a glaringly independent woman.

Sheedy successfully engrosses the reader with fervent characters who struggle to balance love and desire with great pride. Captivating descriptions of the scenic Hudson Valley are interwoven with historical background of Dutch and English land-trading tactics, enriching the already absorbing adventures of Catharyna, Hawkins, and others.

—Sarah Amandolare

The Bad Man
Dennis Doherty
Ye Olde Font Shoppe, 2004, $15

The Bad Man seems an ironic title for a book of verse by my suny New Paltz colleague Dennis Doherty, about whom one often hears: “You’ll never meet a nicer guy.” Nor rarely one so prolific: his debut volume comes stuffed with 101 poems, many dense in imagery and long-lined.

The collection’s two sections, “Woman Dancing” followed by “The Bad Man,” playfully hookup in its inaugural line, shared by the first part’s title poem: “The applaud of zippers knitting.” Union between the sexes—like union in nature or between poet and muse—informs the volume as a whole. In “Oral History,” the speaker engages a character in conversation about their favorite topics: sex and poetry, poetry and death. Add to this summary of major themes in The Bad Man an unflinching look at family life as well as celebration of universal fecundity.

Doherty’s poetry overall projects a physical sense of the world, as in: “We were chesting against / impossible waters” (“Something Flutters”). His intimate language just as likely may reveal familial love in unadulterated form, as when a speaker addresses a daughter in “Rain for My Children”: “I hugged you with my arms and chin, / your perfect girl’s rump in the sling of my hands,” commencing from these opening lines to a meditation on the death of an only son. A canny humor also pervades several father-daughter portraits, such as “For Molly, At Two” and “Death by Popcorn,” as well as family snapshots like the sassy “The History of My Relations.” Elsewhere readers may encounter ultra-hipness, as with Doherty’s psychological hologram of a college student found in “Post Post Modern” (among my top picks overall). Doherty captures the sonorousness of everyday speech by using deft dialogue, a technique he employs throughout the collection.

The book contains several stunningly realized lyric-narratives (among them “Umberto’s Plea” and its companion poem “Amazing Stories”); symbolist poems (such as “In the Beginning Was Intent”); a handful of pleasing epigrams (“Upstate Saturday Epiphany” a gem); and masterful parables (see “Born Again” and “Who Will Believe”) along with retellings (especially “If Lot Had a Wife”).

Dennis Doherty will read from The Bad Man on Monday, April 19, at 6:30pm at the Rosendale Cafe, 435 Main Street, Rosendale. For more information, call (845) 658-9048.

—Pauline Uchmanowicz