Two New Books By Fresno Writer, Jessica Seymour

The Untold Secrets of a Single Mom

By Jessica Seymour

Publisher: Tate Publishing (August 16, 2016)
Publication Date: August 16, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B01LWU13RP

Jessica Seymour’s, the Untold Secrets of a Single Mom is a familiar story of a single working woman that unexpectedly gets pregnant. The pregnancy is unplanned which causes additional struggles in Seymour’s life. During the time of the pregnancy Ms. Seymour is working at a local overnight gas station/convenient store and living with a roommate. Her life is fairly typical of a young woman paving her way through life. The relationship with the child’s father ends soon after and Seymour is left to prepare and raise the child on her own. Soon Ms. Seymour’s life takes unexpected twists and turns and she is left to navigate as best she can. Seymour tells of each event, but fails in showing. In memoir writing scenes of the writer’s life should be vividly depicted and imagery created that allows the reader to become emotionally involved and sympathetic to the character. Unfortunately, the writing was very scattered and the scenes did not flow so seamlessly. The book is labeled as an autobiography, but should be called a memoir instead. Autobiographies typically cover in chronological order the entire life of said writer, whereas, a memoir focuses on a specific aspect of a said writer’s life. In the Untold Secrets of a Single Mom, the center focuses on a brief period in Seymour’s life as an adult. The small booklet reads like a memoir but lacks the consistency in storytelling and one easily gets lost in confusing sentences littered with grammatical errors and poorly used words.

I wanted to like Seymour’s book, but it fell short in every way possible. While reading the book, I couldn’t help but feel as if Ms. Seymour was sitting across from me nervously telling how the events unfolded in her life and that is where the problem began for me. Seymour’s writing seemed nervously written and rushed, as if the story was not easy to get out, and I can understand that writing personal accounts may be difficult. Yet, it is the writer’s responsibility to show and not tell by writing their memories and accounts with accuracy which, in turn, creates great storytelling. Often writers do this by creating realistic scenes in detail and inviting the readers to imagine the events unfolding. The ability to create this relationship between the reader and the memoir allows the reader to have an emotional interest for the character to succeed (think Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt). The lack of the above mentioned is likely what caused this short book to fail for me. The untold Secrets of a Single Mom left many secrets untold.

Reviewed by Anthem Book Review

Trapped by Jessica Seymour

Seymour’s Trapped was written entirely different than her memoir the Untold Secrets of a Single Mom. It seemed like a completely different writer. In Trapped, Seymour is bold, unafraid and each sentence is well sculpted. Trapped is a fictional tale of a young woman named Kim that falls for a man she believes can save her. Kim is a lost soul when the book begins, she is experimenting with drugs and pole dancing and surrounded by questionable individuals.

When she meets Sam, she believes she has found her way out and a chance at a life of normalcy and stability. Trapped quickly turns into a cliché story of love and deceit and the inevitable karma that comes along with it.

However, it is a fun read and will have you rooting for the main character Kim by the middle of the book. There were moments in the suspenseful novel where again the writer would have benefited from showing and not telling. Otherwise, it was a huge improvement from Seymour’s memoir and suspenseful thriller writing may very well be her calling. Trapped is a page turner to the very end.

Reviewed by Anthem Book Review

#smartpeopleread

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THE NORMAL SCHOOL

The Normal School on my kitchen table. Photo Cred: Francine Ramos (me). 2014

The Normal School’s current issue is pretty freaking amazing. There are a ton of great stories and little “subscribe” messages that are just so clever it will have one scurrying for a subscription. The front and back of the magazine is as always gorgeous.

The short story Tiny And Ray by Kate Krautkramer is so beautifully written. I just loved it. God, but Ray, o boy, Ray… why did you have to be such a shitty dad? Why did you need to let your son down time and time again and lie in such a terrible fashion and stunt his life and bring Tiny to tears? Why does this image have to be the last image readers are left with (sob, sob). I scribbled on the top of the page, “NOOOO, WTF”, in protest as I finished reading it.

Poor Tiny, his spineless mother abandons him and surely I thought his father would be a better example. Tiny and Ray seem like such realistic characters that you immediately want life to work out for them, especially for Tiny.

Krautkramer creates a wonderful tale of a father and son that begins with an ounce of hope, fills it with bad parenting, a slouchy soul of a father, a son in need of positive direction, discarded old tires and lies and ends it in complete sadness.

Clearly, I enjoyed this story most.

Joe Bononmo also writes a compelling take on Sylvia Plath and The Beatles and the possible connection or non-connection between the death of a poet and a band recording music on Abbey Road around the same time.

Page 39 of The Normal School had me spend my entire week intrigued and reading in silence than aloud a short story by Amy Hempel, as recommend by Adam Braver. In “On Reading Amy Hempel” Braver writes that he assigns his undergraduate students Hempel’s, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried and tells them this..”is the story they all should aspire to write”.

So, as one who listens to instruction, I searched for a copy of Hempel’s short story and read it. I then, reread it and put it down. Then picked it up and read it again, this time aloud, then in silence, and then marked the pages up with words. I have told everyone in my household I want to read it to them aloud. I even called my mother mid-morning on Friday while I was at the office and said I must read this story to you.

Hempel’s In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried is so damn terrific and profound and perfect and moving and life that every living soul should read it and then have it read aloud to them. It embodies life and death and the sorrow of being unable to do anything about the two for those we love. Perfection, pure perfection.

As always, I recommend YOU pick up a copy of the latest issue of The Normal School, it is worth it.

By Francine

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CV LUXURY (yes, in Fresno)

Fresno has a CV LUXURY magazine and the above picture is of its May/June issue. I really don't know what to say about this magazine but I will try. First off, its pages are very thick and glossy and there are a ton of ambitious females with supermodel poses attentively peering into the camera, wearing high fashion attire.

CV Luxury's editor is David Manning. On its Facebook "About" it lists a pretty lengthy list of what demographic it would like to reach- 43% that vacation outside the US in the past three years- 60% of their target market will spend a significant amount on clothing and accessories, the list goes on, along with the precise percentages displayed next to the desired clientele. It also reads that this magazine is meant to inspire, enrich and entertain.

Well, I read it. I found it was full of nice advertisements for local businesses, which is great. It also has photos of big fancy shin digs and lots of happy people from Fresno, which again, I think is great. The one thing and only thing I personally found, entertaining, enriching and inspiring is a Q&A with Fresno Builder, Darius Assemi. Assesmi has done great things for Fresno and its future. I really enjoyed this piece. Ann T. Sullivan Whitehurst did a great job with the questions.

The problem I have with magazines such as this one is that there is so much advertisement on the glossy thick pages that there is no meat, all fluff and no meat (meat being the knowledge, the enriching mentally part). But I guess it is not aiming to become that type of magazine. It is a luxury mag. In Fresno, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas, a magazine to fit all Fresnan's fancy is important. So if this strikes your fancy, subscribe to CV Luxury. Help put and keep Fresno on the map. Support Fresnans trying to do something!

Happy Reading

~Francine

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the NoRMAL SCHOOL, Current Issue

Founding Editors: Sophie Beck, Steven Church, and Matt Roberts

I do not know if this mini-review even belongs in the section of "Fresno Writes". Fresno Writes is to include writers that are born, raised, have passed through Fresno, or are named Fresno, not really named, but just somehow Fresno linked. The NoRMAL SCHOOL is Fresno linked but sadly not one of the twenty-six writers published in the magazine are from Fresno, nope, not one.

Maybe no writers from Fresno submitted work. Maybe some did but it wasn’t good enough. Who knows? I sure don’t. Nevertheless, I read the entire thing except one story because the title threw me off and sounded gross and unnecessary.

Of the many I read some are really great. Judith Cooper’s The Fall of Man is astounding. It is wonderfully written and such a real story. I enjoy a story that seems real, like the character or characters sounds familiar. In Cooper’s tale, Alberta, her mother, Adam and lil bro all seem like people one would meet in everyday life. The Fall of Man tells the all too familiar story of a daughter doing her best to separate herself from the life her mother once lived. Yet, in doing so she unknowingly treads the same path her mother did, in just a slightly different way.

Once I finished reading Cooper’s story I flipped to the back of the magazine to get a little info on this Cooper. It turns out that Judith Cooper attended the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop where she received her MFA. I have such admiration for that school and its graduates. The University of Iowa births some of our best writers, Ken Kesey and Paul Harding, just to name a few are graduates of the program. Now Judith Cooper’s name will be added to list of talented writers that hail from that school.

BJ Ward writes a poem titled “Resurrection”. O boy, that is a powerful poem. I read that plenty of times. Read, dissected, memorized lines, read it again to my youngest son, who really did seem uninterested, but I think somewhere deep down he enjoyed it in his four-year old mind. I just ordered Ward’s Jackleg Opera which is a collection of his poems from 1990-2013. BJ Ward lives in New Jersey and for more info on his work and him visit his website @ www.bjward.com.

There are other good stories about whales, music and bread in the current issue of the NoRMAL SCHOOL. As always, I was pleased with this issue. I only wished I read one story or poem from a Fresno Writer. Fresno is teeming with willing and ready writers to be published and it is unfortunate that Fresno’s Best Literary Magazine puts out an issue that doesn’t include one.

Lastly, the cover picture is a treat. A perfect image to start off with- a monster reading in a diner. Morgan Schweitzer is the creator of the cover. My four-year old may not have been so keen stopping his Power Ranger battle to hear me read him "Resurrection", however he was quick to stop and carefully examine the cover from front to back in awe and exclaim in his boyish charm, "O cool monster!". So, go buy the issue. It has something for us all, even toddlers will enjoy it!

Happy Reading!

Francine

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Book Review: "Manana Means Heaven"

Mañana Means Heaven

by Tim Z. Hernandez

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published August 29th 2013 by University of Arizona Press

I wished I was on her bus. A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. The announcer called the LA bus. I picked up my bag and got on, and who should be sitting there alone but the Mexican girl. -Jack Kerouac. excerpt from On the Road

"A young white man sat at the counter puffing away. He was scribbling something on a sheet of paper." (on first seeing Jack) Bea Franco, excerpt from, Manana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez

***

For the past 5 days, I have been reading Manana Means Heaven like a drug addict. Stealing free moments, while my family were eating, thinking, talking; while on break at work, sitting at my desk, the book hidden under my keyboard, stealing words and sentences, reading with desperation. When the black, hard covered book was not resting between my hands, I longed for it. Just an hour ago, I completed the book. Its savory words filling me with hope, then hollowness deep within the pit of my belly because I longed for Jack and Bea to once again reunite. I imagined that this was a piece of fiction I had read before, the kind where the girl from the rough side where poverty is worn like a cheap piece of gold that turns one’s neck green, the kind where this girl adorned in "less fortunate", gets the guy that loves her like a fairytale and the story ends, happily. Then I remembered, what I heard and knew of "The Mexican Girl" Terry and Jack Kerouac and the hollowness grew. They were never reunited.

Tim Z Hernandez creates a world from Terry's perspective of meeting Jack. Hernandez delves into the darkest parts of her life of abuse, poverty and tells of the gripping complex relationship between Bea and her father Jesus. It is so real that often times I couldn't help but feel like I was sitting across from one of my Tia's being told the tales of the campo and los machismo Tios' of mine.

Throughout the book, there were so many familiar places and spots that I have drove by, walked through, and knew so personally that I felt a kinship to Bea and her life seemed to closely resemble the lives of so many Mexican women from the Central Valley. Hernandez writes of Bea preparing Menudo, of her longing for her children, of her putting on a smile when her son enters the room as if joy and not pain from being pounded with her husband's fist did not scar her beneath her skin. The heart of a mother and the trusting innocence of a woman who remained resilient throughout the entire 227-page book is clearly evidenced.

While fleeing her abusive husband fate brings her an unexpected encounter with a white man on a Greyhound bus. This encounter changed her life, his life and affected the lives of numerous readers across the globe that read, On The Road. Their relationship is told as such a sweet connection. I would be so brave as to venture out and use the rubberstamp term of “soul mate”. Bea enthralls Jack. She is like no one he has ever encountered. He is often so interested in her that he is constantly saying to her when she rants on about her life, “Go on”; as if to say I want more, tell me more about you. His sentiment is exactly how the reader feels while reading Hernandez’s “Manana Means Heaven”. Go on. A beautiful love is revealed in the book. A love story brought together by the randomness of life and glued together by the vast differences that bind 2 souls together.

We now know that Jack wrote about her long after they were separated. We now know that Bea wrote him for years, always ending the letters with, Love & Kisses Jackie Boy, Yours Always Bea. A love brought together on the road but separated forever by life. Hernandez brings them together again. Then softly separates them as they were in life. He carefully recreates a story so many of us have questioned. He gives a reason for why Jack stayed all those days, living in a tent, toiling in the fields of the Central Valley, the reason- Bea Franco.

Clearly, this is not Jack's story. His story was written in his book. This is Bea Franco's story and what a story it is. She is bigger than the book. At the end of it all, I don’t think I even remembered it was Jack Kerouac the literary god that was Bea’s “Jackie Boy”. We are on her road and what a wonderfully woven world Hernandez creates. However, fictional it will gently draw you in and keep you there until it is done with you. Then it will linger, as it is now.

I admire Tim Z. Hernandez as a writer. I am so thankful that he included his interviews with her and her family. It really brought it all together in the end. Hernandez is a powerful storyteller. Sweet Bea and Jackie, a young love rediscovered.

Happy Reading!

~Francine Ramos
Anthem Book Review

#mananameansheaven #beafranco #timzhernandez #books