The Seaboard Review: March 24th, 2025
Date Volume 2, Issue 12
The Immortal Woman by Su Chang
Beginning in 1960s China, The Immortal Woman spans decades and generations of a Shanghai-based family. It explores the damaging consequences, and tragic outcomes of communist governmental control for one family and explores the choices people make to survive. Lemei is a high school student who reluctantly becomes a Red Guard despite her strong reservati…
antibody: Poems by Rebecca Salazar
antibody by Rebecca Salazar is a powerful reckoning with trauma, language, and survival, where poetic form dissolves under the weight of memory and violence. In the tradition of feminist poetry that refuses to be quiet, Salazar’s work is unrelenting—each poem an incision into the body, each word a form of resistance.
Horror, History and Genre Mashup in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
In the sprawling The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Steven Graham Jones takes on (plot spoiler) vampires, and uses a fair amount of (trigger warning) bloody, violent horror to probe the American Old West of McKinley and Manifest Destiny and genocide. Part of the factual backbone of his work is the Marias Massacre of Piegan Blackfeet Native by Army forces and Ma…
Rayner’s “The Gates of Polished Horn” Takes Us to Places Strange and Familiar
A famous character experiencing an existential crisis. A youth picked on by a gang in a lunar settlement. A professor ruminating on the influence—not always positive—of electronic media. These are some of the protagonists of the twenty short stories in Mark Rayner’s
Michael Greenstein Reviews:
On Beauty: Stories by rob mclennan
Long ago, Longinus wrote a treatise, On the Sublime, which examines the nature of beauty. More recently, Zadie Smith’s novel, On Beauty, and Anne Carson’s poem, The Beauty of the Husband, further explore aesthetic dimensions. Enter rob mclennan with his collection of stories,
Hot Takes: Brief Notes on Books Present & Past
(Note: clicking on the underlined link takes you to the book’s publisher page for more information or for purchasing purposes)
The Queen (2025, Simon & Schuster) by Canadian creep-meister Nick Cutter is a deeply visceral read for fans of detailed gore and unfurling mystery both. With shades of the Alien, and the yuck of various bugs and the psycho-fuel of teenage pheromones amped up by something diabolical brewing out of sight, The Queen draws readers into an anarchy of arthropod fury. Cutter uses the cat nip device of treasure-hunt clues left via iPhone by someone who's got it out for plucky teen heroine Margaret Carpenter, who combines the wiles of Riley from Aliens and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Contributed by Emily Weedon)
Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh (1999, HarperCollins Canada) "While the 'hot take' is that the world is regressing into the 1930s, I picked up some 1930s reading. Ngaio Marsh has been called one of the Queens of Crime - alongside Agatha Christie - writing what now would be called cozy mysteries. Marsh's settings are delightfully retro, while her main characters are surprisingly modern; Detective Roderick Alleyn calls his wife, by her last name, and independent "Troy" has kept her career as a celebrated painter, while helping her husband solve murders. Steeped in an era, infused with glamour, and wittily written, Marsh is a delightful find for an escape from the current tensions in the world." (Contributed by Heather McBriarty)
Berth by Carol Bruneau (2005, Nimbus Publishing) Willa Jackson, the lonely wife of a helicopter technician for the Canadian Air Force, falls for the attentions of Hugh, an attractive saxophone player (and lighthouse keeper). When her husband Charlie is on a tour of duty, Willa leaves her present life and moves, along with her nine-year-old son Alex, to Thrumcap Island in Halifax Harbour. The Island, however, harbours secrets, some from the former keepers, some from when the military used the island for military practice, and some from Hugh’s past. Carol Bruneau’s writing has always fascinated me, and this novel from her back catalogue is no exception. She builds tension and suspense in her unique way. Well worth finding a copy, you won’t be disappointed. (Contributed by James M. Fisher)
Saints Rest Book Launch
The SAINTS REST Book Launch “tour” continues with a stop in Fredericton at Gallery 78 (the oldest private art gallery in New Brunswick!) Saturday, March 29th at 6pm. I’m told that there will be copies of all three books of Luke’s there, and Westminster Books will be selling them.
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Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
