This review originally appeared at Green Man Review.
We are very fond of small presses here at Green Man Review, not least because they publish some of the most interesting things out there. So, we are happy to be able to take a look at the first two offerings from A Midsummer Night’s Press, now being revived after a hiatus of some years. The press focuses on poetry, but we can already see that we will be going to some surprising places.
Lawrence Schimel’s Fairy Tales for Writers is a short collection of traditional tales transplanted into the world of writing and publishing. As a poetic treatment of the told-again fairy tale it more than holds its own, with the added bonus of some wry and sometimes acidic humor. The characters drawn are all too familiar — the Wicked Queen from Snow White who runs a writers’ workshop; the young Ugly Duckling in a family that simply has no time for his imperatives, until at last he discovers a world in which words are, indeed, things of beauty; and any number of agents and publishers in sheeps’ clothing.
It’s not all gloom — there are touches of mercy, acts of simple kindness, those who still think there is room for art that doesn’t sell (sounds like a small press to me) that provide some happy moments. I’m quite taken with this one — for a poetry junky like yours truly, this is a wonderful little chapbook, nothing radical, just good solid verse with a firm lock on what fairy tales are about.
Charles Ardai’s The Good-Neighbor Policy is something different. One wants it to be a murder mystery, but it’s not, except on the surface. A morality tale perhaps, of the darker variety — a gang shootout, the only survivor the wife of the couple under the federal Witness Protection Program, attacked at home by hit men who become victims themselves, all witnessed by a lonely neighbor who couldn’t see the key events. The question is, who killed whom?
I can’t say I’m so happy with this one, if only because it becomes a morality tale rather than a mystery. Because of that there’s little real tension, few surprises, and, although entertaining enough, the story is a foregone conclusion from fairly early on. There’s a way it has to turn out, and it does so just that way. This is not to say I have serious objections — it’s an entertaining enough piece, and as Henry Kuttner said (to paraphrase), if you’re not going to entertain people, everything else is wasted.
So, a creditable renascence for A Midsummer Night’s Press, which will be bringing out its third title in November. Obviously, a press to watch out for.
(Both from A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2007)
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