Su Zi's Review of Mrs. Gulliver by Valerie Martin

 

There are those authors with whom one forms a relationship as eager reader.

So it was one summer at the end of the 20^th century, seeking solace in a stroll to the Bywater branch library, there was an astute librarian unafraid of interlibrary loan, and of loading my arms with books from universities across the country. There was also a local bakery. Thus supplied, and thus directed to delicious pleasures of dinosaur cookies and Valerie Martin, the summer was a healing hedonistic haze.  

Seeking solace again this summer, and stumbling through forests of fiction, it seemed fortuitous to remember again this author who then was soul’s necessary medicine. There’s a 2024 release from Doubleday, and a consistent canon that dates back to that sugar cookie summer. This work, Mrs. Gulliver begins with the narration of the title character, and the novel’s arc remains from that point of view, with a sense of being taken from the journal entries of this protagonist; however, it is the narrator who tells the reader of the work’s central character, Carita.

I caught my breath. Her face was beautiful, a creamy complexion with a natural blush, like an English beauty, her nose straight, her lips full and soft, her chin squarish and firm. But it was her eyes that startled me, heavy-lidded and half-closed, with dark lashes, and irises like blue glass, the perfectly translucent blue of a glacier. Beneath the dark bird-wings of her brows, her eyes glittered enchantingly. I studied her. Something was very odd about those eyes [...]

Carita inclined her head toward her sister’s voice, but the eyes didn’t move. "She’s blind from birth” (6-7).

While the characterization is native to romance writing, and literary writers going swimming in both topics and genres is to be expected, disabled characters are still rare enough in their presence to be noteworthy.

Martin challenges notions of disability throughout our intersection with Carita’s 1954 reality:

[...]we had a big breakfast, and then we went to the doctor’s office. [...] the doctor has a soft voice; there was a nurse as well, and she was very kind, helping me undress and put on a robe; and then she showed me how to get up on the table and put my feet in the stirrups [...]

The nurse helped me dress again and led me out to my uncle. [...] When I came in, they fell silent, and I said  "Is somebody going to tell me what this is all about?"

The doctor explained he’d clipped some tube together inside me so that I couldn’t ever get pregnant. Then, we got in the car and went home (48).

    Nonconsensual sterilization is a historical fact in the history of the disability community; that Martin handles this despicable injustice as a conversational topic, “Carita paused and ran a piece of bread across her plate, mopping up bits of egg” (48), is a testament to the overarching elegance of the work.

Disabled characters are often painted as lesser-than just as they are painted within western society, and Martin continually challenges this notion as the character herself is forced to challenge notions about her person. When the character goes shopping and gets “to my surprise, a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses” (85), a scarf, and a haircut:” It occurred to me that, in fact, she now appeared to be what she genuinely was, an educated woman accustomed to wealth and liberty” (86). The novel’s arc is Carita’s, and when the inevitable lover becomes disabled, there is perhaps a scent of a Jane Eyre allusion. Martin’s assessment of disability becomes the musings of the protagonist:

When Carita appeared in my drawing room, what i saw was that her beauty, her blindness, and her poverty made her an object of desire, and she thereby was destined for destruction by the powers of this world. Without protection, she would be worn down and cast aside. Only money could protect her, and we both knew it (271-272).

    While Valerie Martin’s established sensual style moves this novel through an interesting, invented country, the characters are bedeviled in ways both as ancient as star-crossed lovers, and as modern as the Braile typewriter that is Carita’s midcentury mark of personal achievement.  

In our times now, when books about disability are banned from stores and libraries, when disabled people themselves face many hostile forces, a romance novel about a self-determining blind woman is itself an object of taboo. That such a work exists is, again, deep solace from Valerie Martin’s works.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago. Check out her author page on Amazon.

Light Reading: An Essay by Su Zi

 

Light Reading

Once, in a crowded and large room that was an unending school assembly, a girl handed me a water-logged book of some thickness. The arc of the prose was some ridiculous derivative swill with maybe a troll, but the book allowed for the meeting to fade—the joy of light reading.

Although research skills are culturally crucial, there is equal value to a bit of a romp; a reading experience which provokes satisfaction without rigorous concentration.

How such books come to hand is the odyssey of each book—a fascination for authors—a personal favorite being a cabinet at a resort introduced as “for people who like to read” here is found a stumble upon pile of print material of various editions, formats...whatever little leaves the currents have cached there.

Nonetheless, some people who like to read habituate festivals as well and therein find unlikely candidates to read perhaps because of a pleasant exchange.

Thus comes to hand The Pot Thief who Studied D.H. Lawrence by J. Michael Orenduff, a murder mystery, and one of a series of Pot Thief novels. Of the positioning of this particular novel in the series, Orenduff gives three pages to the topic at the end of the book—why this fifth book was written before the third. “Then I went to Italy for the summer because my wife was scheduled to teach art history in Florence” (231). The Pot Thief series then appears as a work of some dedication. 

The running joke is that the pot thief is a ceramicist. The series are his adventures, and Orenduff has the character discuss this fairly swiftly when the character explains of himself, “I’m a treasure hunter” (12).  Later, as the work lavishes the research that drives the adventure, Orenduff has various attributes of the subject highlighted by character discussion.

‘Right. When the Spaniards converted the natives to Christianity, the Indians saw the Virgin Mary as the white man’s Pachamama. The priests didn’t object because it made the conversions easier if you didn’t force the Indians to give up all their former images [...] pre-Columbian renderings of Pachamama show a female-like character in the shape of a mountain. But after the Spanish came, the Indians painted her with a halo and western clothes. And those are the ones that sell today” (57).

The narrative arc involves a snowstorm, an event and murders—and these are handled without splattergore that re-nominates the book as community friendly.

In circumstances where someone who likes to read might find themselves in a situation where the satisfaction of length of achieved, but with a lighter draw upon situational concentration...perhaps even a picnic... The Pot Thief series will certainly entertain.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago. Check out her author page on Amazon.

Making America Sad Again: Trump and the Sycophants by g emil reutter

g emil reutter:

It has been quite an experience these last few months in the promotion of our rights as citizens of the United States to speak out against tyranny without fear. The goal was to reach folks who could not attend rallies due to work commitments, many working two jobs.  I decided in October to begin distribution of Distance to Infinity on street corners/bus stops and parks to promote this right that we hold dear. Making America Sad Again – Trump and the Sycophants followed with the same distribution pattern. The books were handed out, (campaign style), at 19 different locations between October 7, 2025 and March 14, 2026. A total of 475 books were gifted to citizens traveling our streets, byways and transit systems.

 

In brief discussions with many, it was evident fear has been generated from Washington to our citizens about speaking out. In some small way I am hopeful to have encouraged those encountered to speak out. The reaction I received was generally 80% positive with a few negative encounters but civil conversation.

 

I view the books as seeds spread out over the Philadelphia area that hopefully will take root and encourage others to speak out. I am grateful to all those I have encountered as well as all those who have purchased Distance to Infinity and Making America Sad Again – Trump and the Sycophants in support of Alien Buddha Press. I am especially thankful for Red at Alien Buddha Press for his constant encouragement and bravery.

 

Review: Making America Sad Again: Trump and the Sycophants by g emil reutter

g emil reutter writes with the urgency of a man who cannot afford to wait for history's verdict. This collection, published by Alien Buddha Press in 2026, is political poetry in the oldest and most necessary sense — not poetry about politics, but poetry as witness, testimony delivered in real time while the courthouse is still burning.

The work's greatest strength is its refusal of elegance as evasion. Reutter doesn't reach for metaphor when bluntness will do. "Everyone is getting screwed by Trump" lands with the flat exhaustion of a man who has watched the con unfold in slow motion. The poem "Marionettist" is perhaps the collection's most formally controlled piece — Miller as puppeteer is an image that earns its bitterness, the strings spreading "across spectrum" with a cold, mechanical efficiency that the fragmented syntax mirrors well.

The collection is deliberately uneven, and that's partly the point. These poems were written "in real time as events unfold," as reutter states in his introduction, and they read like dispatches — some sharper than others, some ragged with anger. "Hey Mr. Putin!" has a chant-like repetition that builds genuine menace. "The Light Shines Brightly in the Darkness," centering María Corina Machado as a counterweight to Washington's chaos, is one of the few moments of genuine tenderness, and it lands harder for being surrounded by so much corrosive fury.

The Light Shines Brightly in the Darkness

As fascists dim the lights of freedom

And shadows are cast across the political

Spectrum and with the exception of a few

Many have lost their spines. America with

All its faults was once the beacon of light

Now struggles to overcome the darkness

Generated from the White House.

Yet in another land, another place where

Autocrats rule and diminish freedoms of

The people, stands a woman strong in

Conviction against all odds to bring

Democracy back to Venezuela …

In spite of threats

In spite of jailings

In spite of the bullies

She is a defender of freedom

Who has risen and has resisted

Inspired and led in the cause of freedom.

In Washington a White House full of

Whining, again the loser in charge failed

To con the Nobel Committee as he

Attacks peace and freedom at home

"Standard Police Procedure" and "No Praying Permitted" are the collection's most devastating poems — concrete, specific, and built around a repeated phrase that accumulates moral weight with each pass. These show what reutter is fully capable of.

Making America Sad Again is not a comfortable book, nor does it try to be. It is a record of a man paying attention when many looked away, written with blue-collar directness and genuine moral outrage. Whether it endures will depend on whether the moments it documents become history or — as reutter clearly fears — a new normal. Either way, someone had to write it down.

                                                                                                    Belinda Subraman

An Equestrian Reads Dick Francis: Essay by Su Zi

An Equestrian Reads Dick Francis

 Insofar as genre writers might have some renown, Dick Francis has been a fairly ubiquitous name as an author. The roving reader might happenstance a copy, and the title which somehow found its way was Whip Hand in a rather nice, 1979 hardbound, first edition. Of course, the title is of significance to every equestrian, as there are rules about the holding of whips; traditionally held in the left hand, a skilled reinsman must switch hands with the whip quickly and fluidly.

The work in one in a series, with established characters, however, the protagonist wears a prosthetic hand. A casual poke into the offerings of the AI reveals that the disability of the character is well-reviewed and cites a sector. com article that, in part, says that “readers with disabilities generally respond positively [...] for providing some of the most nuanced, respectful and realistic disability representation in 20^th-century popular fiction” Francis doesn’t muck about with being coy about the disability, as the first sentence of chapter one says 

“I took the battery out of my arm and fed it into the recharger, and only realized I’d done it when ten seconds later the fingers wouldn’t work” (3).

And whilst many disabilities do not involve prosthetics, being introduced to a character with a disability at the starting bell is rare even in writing that is specifically about disability.

But the topic is horses, or rather a story involving horses, and equestrians might sometimes also be sensitive as to the accuracy of representation. Francis indirectly gives us a description of horse trainers— a crucial person in the life of an equestrian, but not a particularly well-known character type, generally. “Some of the cream of the world’s bloodstock floated year by year to his stable, and even having a horse in his yard gave the owner a certain standing” (7). While it might be as true a description of any well-renowned management team for any athlete or performer, the reader ought to consider the triplicate nature of what Francis undertakes in his writing: to have his characters in a series show consistency in behaviors, to have his first time readers understand the series well enough to sit down for the whole read, and to not get the equestrian details wrong.

These are racehorses, and often enough, our protagonist takes us to the track—not the visitor side, but the working one.

“Outside the weighing room there was the same old bunch of familiar faces carrying on chats that have been basically unchanged for centuries: who was going to ride what, and who was going to win, and there should be a change in the rules, and what so-and-so had said about his horse losing [...] the same mingling of honor and corruption” (17)”.

And while this view might be close to form for those who have been to the back side of a racetrack, for those who have not, Francis makes this acerbic observation:

“City dwellers might be addicted to gambling, but not to fresh air and horses. Birmingham and Manchester, in days gone by, had lost their racecourses to indifference” (17)

And while the book’s copyright is now near a half century ago, those who had a fondness for racing do have the demolition of the great American racecourse Arlington Park to mourn in recent memory, and to emphasize this author’s point.

Horse savvy readers might be more savoring of Francis’ doings among horse people, and certainly there’s enough sub plot to entertain even the young and restless reader, but what of the horses themselves? It is about the horses themselves that dick Francis begins to surge out of the pack of horsie-set storytelling:

I had enjoyed it well enough when i was sixteen, on account of the horses. Beautiful, marvelous creatures whose responses and instincts worked on a plane as different from humans as water and oil, not mingling even where they touched. Insight into their senses and consciousness has been like an opening door, a foreign language glimpsed and half-learned, full comprehension maddeningly balked by not having the right sort of hearing or sense of smell, nor sufficient skill in telepathy” (69).

Francis gives further insight in the following sentence, “The feeling of oneness with horses I’d sometimes had in the heat of a race had been their gift to an inferior being” (17). And while not every equestrian has experienced both Francis’ insight and experience, the tradition of equestrianism has that perception as a pinnacle of achievement.

For readers who might be more of what Francis called a “city-dweller”, the experienced components of the genre are well-represented in this detective story. For those with no taste for splatttergore, Francis has a certain remove from his protagonist that makes even the grueling-but-expected scenes of violence to be more psychological terror than the slow motion explosion that can be too distressing for a casual reader. In all, Francis provides a pleasurable trail-ride of a read for someone who might know how to hold a rope, and is apparently popular enough with those who don’t; nonetheless, a solid ride for all levels of experience.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago. Check out her author page on Amazon.

Belinda's Review of Because of You – Selected Poems by Bilal Al Masri

 

Review: Because of You – Selected Poems by Bilal Al Masri

Translated from Arabic by Dr Anba Jawi MBE and Dr Mohamad Haj Mohamad | Palewell Press, 2024

Bilal Al Masri writes from a country where, as Dr Anba Jawi puts it in her introduction, "human life has no value, and killing is ordinary." Yet Because of You is not a collection defined by despair. It is something stranger and more alive than that — a book perpetually caught between opposites, where tenderness and violence, presence and erasure, the sacred and the nihilistic collide on the same breath.

Al Masri writes out of Lebanon, out of war, out of a reality where beauty and brutality are not opposites but constant companions. What is extraordinary is how this context produces not bitterness but a ferocious, almost mystical aliveness on the page. These poems pulse. They contradict themselves deliberately and brilliantly, stretching language to hold experiences that resist easy expression. "I carry my head with cut off hands" is not merely a striking image — it is an entire worldview compressed into eight words.

The collection moves with remarkable range. The shorter poems are like perfectly cut stones. Absence, Exercise, The Path, Whiteness — each arrives swiftly and leaves a lasting mark. My Mother is one of the most beautiful poems about maternal love you are likely to read anywhere, in any language, casting silence itself as ocean and shelter. The longer, more ambitious pieces — Jasmine rises like bullets, And because of you…, Until you have become a garden — reveal a poet equally at home in expansive, accumulating structures, where meaning builds through repetition and paradox rather than linear argument.

Throughout, Al Masri's use of oxymoron feels not like a literary device but like a genuine mode of perception — the only honest way to describe a world in which jasmine and bullets occupy the same air. He touches Sufism and nihilism almost simultaneously, as Dr Jawi notes in her illuminating introduction, and the tension between transcendence and nothingness gives the whole collection a spiritual electricity that is rare and thrilling.

The translation is a triumph. Dr Anba Jawi and Dr Mohamad Haj Mohamad have preserved the strangeness of these poems rather than domesticating them, which is exactly the right choice. The English sings. It takes real courage and craft to trust a reader with lines this unusual, and the translators have trusted us fully. Dr Jawi's candid introduction about the collaborative process of translation is itself a pleasure to read, offering genuine insight into the difficulties and rewards of carrying poetry across languages.

Because of You is the kind of collection that makes you grateful for the existence of literary translation — the reminder that extraordinary voices are speaking all around the world, waiting only for the bridge of language to reach us. Bilal Al Masri is such a voice.

Belinda’s Review of "Compositions on Compassion and Other Emotions" by Bob McNeil

 

ORDER HERE

"Compositions on Compassion and Other Emotions" by Bob McNeil is a profound and multifaceted exploration of themes such as love, hope, healing, and the complex nature of mortality. Written during a pivotal period in McNeil's life, marked by a life-threatening health crisis, the collection reflects a deep introspection born out of confronting his own fragility. Rather than dwelling solely on despair, McNeil crafts a narrative that embraces the importance of compassion and the pursuit of a more loving world.

The book comprises essays, illustrations, poems, and short stories, creating a rich tapestry of emotional expression. McNeil’s writing invites readers to navigate the intricacies of human experience, from the joys of affectionate connections to the painful reality of loss. In pieces like "What Love Wrote" and "My Heart's Unthwarted Sentiment," he articulates the necessity of love in navigating life’s hardships, suggesting that genuine affection is both a refuge and a source of strength. The work is characterized by a tone that oscillates between solemnity and hope, reflecting McNeil's understanding that vulnerability can lead to profound personal growth.

A significant aspect of McNeil's collection is its exploration of societal issues. He does not shy away from addressing the systemic challenges faced by marginalized communities. Poems such as "A Mouse and the Lack of Housing" serve as poignant critiques of societal neglect and indifference towards those who are homeless. Through these reflections, McNeil emphasizes the need for social change and the importance of community in combating these injustices. By intertwining personal narratives with broader social commentary, he elevates the emotional impact of his work, urging readers to recognize and address the struggles of others.

Additionally, McNeil’s contemplations on mortality permeate the collection, prompting introspection about life and legacy. In pieces like "Sentiments Before Residence in the Firmament," he encourages readers to embrace their emotions and relationships fully, underscoring the fleeting nature of existence. His reflections on ancestry and familial bonds in "Praise My Forebears" and "A Mantra for Babas" further highlight the resilience found in one’s heritage, encouraging a deep appreciation for the journey of life.

Bob McNeil, a seasoned writer and spoken word artist with previous works such as "Lyrics of Mature Hearts," brings a unique voice to this collection. His commitment to social causes is evident, as a portion of the proceeds is directed towards supporting a homeless organization. This dual purpose adds an additional layer of significance to his literary effort, reinforcing the message that art can drive positive change in society.

In conclusion, "Compositions on Compassion and Other Emotions" is a compelling and heartfelt exploration of the human experience. McNeil’s blend of personal reflection, social commentary, and philosophical insight creates a resonant narrative that encourages readers to reflect on their own lives and the world around them. This collection stands as a significant contribution to contemporary literature, offering both solace and empowerment through the lens of compassion and creativity.