5 minute read
Local Books
Sean Adams The Heap WILLIAM MORROW (A HARPERCOLLINS IMPRINT)
Reading: Sean Adams, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, Thursday, Feb. 6, 7 p.m., Free
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In his first novel, Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Sean Adams masterfully satirizes bureaucracy, capitalism and hustle culture in a way that is humorous and disturbing, while constructing an intriguing narrative that deals with the mystery of human connection.
Before it all came tumbling down, Los Verticalés was a 500-story self-contained architectural curiosity equipped with nearly everything needed for a burgeoning metropolis. “The Vert,” as it was called, was a “city that grew up rather than out, defying directional norms until the day it could no longer hold.”
The collapse of the Vert led to countless deaths and wreckage scattering across 20 acres of desert. The lone survivor, 103.1 WVRT radio personality Bernard Anders, is trapped at his soundboard in an underground studio that hasn’t completely caved in. Surviving on water trickling out of a wall and a diet of rats, he continues broadcasting over the airwaves.
Ratings soar as listeners tune in to hear about life on the inside. One of those loyal listeners is his estranged brother Orville, who hopes to reconnect with Bernard and joins the colossal “Dig” effort, where valuables are to be retrieved to finance a monument
dedicated to the Vert’s memory. The only way Orville can talk to his brother is by calling into the radio program through a phone bank.
Guilt-ridden about his lack of connection to Bernard, Orville hopes to rescue his brother—but complications arise. He is surrounded by characters who, nearly without exception, are shameless opportunists with hidden (and sometimes not-so-hidden) agendas. During his quest, he uncovers layers of deceit to unearth strange and dark secrets buried beneath the tragedy as well as those trying to exploit it.
Orville soon learns “there are greater forces at work,” as he finds himself entangled in a web of conspiracy and intrigue when a media company tries to profit off his brother’s predicament. He also encounters an outfit known as the Vocalist Cartel, “voice actors without morals” who are “willing to do anything for a price.”
The narrative is threaded with selections from a collective memoir by Vert residents who were away during the collapse, titled The Later Years. These excerpts reveal the bizarre inner workings of this social and financial experiment.
Along with gaining a sense of the massive scope and structural wonder of the Vert, readers are allowed rare inside views into the world within its walls: the class divisions between those in the inner units (the “windowless”) and those with wealth in the outer units (the “windowed”), the unexpected consequences from expansion and shady dealings on every corner.
An inventive blend of hilarity, tragedy and tenderness, Adams’ satiric vision presents a world obsessed with the myth of infinite growth and egos attempting in vain to reach such heights, where hope for humanity survives when people search for truth beyond the deceptive dimensions that keep such dangerous illusions intact. The Heap is a debut definitely worth discovering, and it’s worth encouraging others to “Join the Dig!” —Mike Kuhlenbeck
Lovar Davis Kidd Paper Planes: A Collection of Poems not Crumpled on the Floor SELF-PUBLISHED
Cedar Rapids-based dancer, educator and poet Lovar Davis Kidd started the new year by self-publishing a volume of poetry entitled Paper Planes: A Collection of Poems not Crumpled on the Floor. This collection calls to mind the author’s spoken word performances, and most of these pieces beg to be read aloud. The short book is divided into three sections: On Life, On God and On Love.
The first section moves from thoughts on growing up to Netflix to racism. The poem “Slant” offers questions with few solid answers other than “... turn your head to get a new perspective. / The question is when will it all change?” From there, Kidd turns to reflections on identity when he writes, in the poem “Racism,” “I felt like another stereotype ... / Birthed into societal injustices of a choice a white mother and a black / father
made when they laid in a bed with no thoughts of my present / tense.” He pushes on in this poem to question society and the way people view themselves and others.
On God is a 13-page section that reads more like a modern devotional than poetry, with Kidd taking scripture from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and offering meditations on the verses. In the piece “Ask of Me,” Kidd cites a verse in Psalms and then offers exhortations to his reader on how to apply this to life, writing, “Shake off the dust of despair. There’s no burden too great...” Certainly there are poetic elements at play, as in the entry “Unashamed,” where Kidd writes, “So, in this attempt to live transparent, I’ll use my conclusion to show you God’s grace is inherent.”
Again, I found myself wanting to hear Kidd perform this piece rather than read it on the page. Sometimes it is the prosody of a poem that really brings it to life, and if you’ve ever seen this author perform, you know exactly what I mean.
The final section contains the title poem, which challenges the reader with these lines: “Love demands you stay but flight is required to escape. Your folds / shaped me into this paper plane pilot and you co-exist.” The abstractions in this particular poem leave to the reader a variety of interpretations. Kidd pays tribute to his sons in “#myloveisgrowinformylesandkohen” before moving on to a lost love and his own love of writing.
While the fonts change distractingly from poem to poem, the content is heartfelt and real. Kidd offers his readers a glance into his life, his devotion and his art. In a unique twist, the book closes with several blank pages and the admonition to “Use these last few pages to uncrumple your words and let your story take flight.”
—Laura Johnson
