Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Carolyne Wright reviews Jackalope by Denise Low for New Letters!

Much gratitude to Carolyn Lee Wright for her extended review, "Jackalope Walks into a Bar," in New
Letters. She extends the lore of Jackalope in important ways in addition to responding to my collection of short pieces--fiction or no?--in this book from Red Mountain Press. Many thanks! And the book is a steady seller at Small Press Distribution. 
The review is an artful piece, and it includes this commentary:
"In these interstices between fantasy and creatively tweaked fact, Low keeps her tone both lyrical and light; but shining through the humor—literary and Indian inside jokes, bawdy anecdotes, and gentle fun-poking at contemporary and historical indigenous and Anglo cultural figures—are glimpses of the very real oppression to which such oblique humor is one survival response.  In “Jackalope Walks into Custer’s Last Bar,” Jaq is offered the fanciest drink (“Custer’s Custard”) and is regaled with bitter anecdotes and jokes targeting this last-in-his-West-Point-class Civil War hero, who turned genocidal criminal against the plains tribes until his final demise at the Battle of Greasy Grass (aka Little Bighorn)."