Review of The Wrong Side of Brightness (Paperback)

A fast-paced, well plotted, and hip treatment of a believable contemporary moral dilemma and how it is resolved.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Wrong Side of Brightness (Paperback)

Review of Insect Dreams: The Half Life Of Gregor Samsa (Paperback)

When an imaginative and gifted author can use a giant roach as his main character, include a romance between the roach and a human, and still make you love him, he's accomplished a colossal feat.Yet these are only a few of Estrin's marvelous achievements in this thoughtful, but very playful, and often very funny chronicle of western history and thought from World War I through the dropping of the atomic bomb in World War II.Gregor Samsa, the famous salesman turned roach in Kafka's Metamorphosis, ends up not in Kafka's dustbin, but as part of a Viennese freak show run by Amadeus Hoffnung, in the opening chapter, "Tails of Hoffnung."

Reciting Rilke and discoursing on Spengler's Decline of the West, Gregor attracts the attention of writer Robert Musil, who tells him that although western humanity is finished, that "Society...is in a larval state.What it needs is a larval model to lead it onward, upward, and out of the corral," and Gregor is that larval model, his ironic task being to teach us what it means to be human.

In lighthearted, fast-paced prose, Estrin describes Gregor's emigration to New York, his search for identity, and his eventual connection to seminal events in western history and the people responsible for them.The music of Charles Ives, the Scopes trial (at which Gregor, ironically, testifies), the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, the election and administration of FDR, and the development of the atomic bomb are just a few of Estrin's sensitively presented turning points of American history. At Eleanor Roosevelt's urging, Gregor accepts the offer to move into the White House, where he lives, literally, as part of the "kitchen cabinet" and works at the Department of Agriculture as an exterminator.

Extermination and the death of "others" are, in fact, strong themes throughout this novel, despite its playfulness, and an increasing gravity and darkness develop as the plot progresses. As Gregor, the king of otherness,shows us, the U.S., historically, has not been immune to prejudice, and he is remarkably critical of FDR for failing to take an early stand against the Holocaust when clear evidence was available to him. Still, this powerful book ends on a positive note, one which readers of this extraordinary tale will long remember--and, I suspect, share with their friends.Mary Whipple



Click Here to see more reviews about: Insect Dreams: The Half Life Of Gregor Samsa (Paperback)

Review of The Collapse (Paperback)

If you can overcome the thousands of spelling and grammatical errors, 3 to 4 per page, this is a great story filled with action and believable characters. It is a rough look at what could very easily happen in this unprepared soft country. If you are a gun enthusiast you will enjoy this book. I would have rated the book at 5 stars if it were not for all the errors. Whoever proofread this story needs to be fired.

Product Description
A group of friends have their lives turned into turmoil as the North Koreans, and Chinese send teams of special operations units inside U.S. borders.Chinese and North Korean sleeper teams have also been activated in the U.S. The clandestine teams use biological, chemical and explosive attacks that send the U.S. population into panic and fear. They follow up with conventional attacks, on dams, power stations, rail lines, fuel depots, and nuclear reactors to send the country over the edge. The rest of the world isn''t far behind as it is plunged into war and chaos. .

About the Author
Jeff Stanfield is a former Marine. He has served as a police officer for sixteen years. He spent several years working in North Carolina, and now works in North West Alabama as a police officer. He has worked in Patrol, Vice, Criminal Investigations, SWAT as an entry team member, and sniper. This story is his first story.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Collapse (Paperback)