Book Reviews

alexander Maksik The Long Corner

EUROPA EDITIONS

alexander Maksik’s new novel The Long Corner—out May 17, the fourth release from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad—skillfully explores the intersections of capitalism and dictatorship, cliché and originality, art and life. By the end, the reader is left to question if these things are opposites at all, or if they are more entwined than we ever imagined.

Set a year into the Trump administration, The Long Corner follows Sol, a depressed New Yorker living a stagnant life. Once, he was a journalist writing profiles on some of the most famous visual artists in the city. Now, he is resigned to writing slogans for an advertisement agency, much to his grandmother’s disappointment. At an especially dull work party, Sol is approached by a strange woman who invites him to the Coded Garden, a haven for visual artists led by the eccentric and mysterious Sebastian Light. At first Sol turns the offer down, but when tragedy strikes, he decides to embark on the journey in an attempt to reignite his long-lost passion.

Filled with colorful characters, dry humor and unsettling situations, The Long Corner is a Rorshach test for a reader’s own views on government, nobility and the self. Much like the paintings Sol experiences in the book, the longer you look, the more you learn about the chaotic yet familiar world Maksik has built here.

The role of the Trump administration has chiefly occupied my mind since finishing The Long Corner. The stage has been set quite deliberately, and we go in assuming that Sebastian Light will be our DJT stand-in. While that’s not entirely correct, it isn’t incorrect either. Maksik subverts absolutes in this book time and time again, and he does so with who our villain is as well.

This may just be the point. In a world where opposing ideas end up being one and the same, we are encouraged to find the gray area in everything Maksik presents. Perhaps rather than making a comment about politics or art, Maksik is trying to say that things are rarely as they seem.

Because this book is centered around visual art, it feels only right to compare it to a painting. Reading the dialogue feels like looking at Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” and hearing the words spoken by those nocturnal diners. It is pretentious but fearful, forthcoming but evasive—yet more gray areas that Maksik fills his pages with.

As heavy as the topics are, I cannot overstate how funny this book is. Maksik has found the key to an effective thought-provoker: Don’t let them go too long without cracking a smile. Through Sol’s dry commentary on the absurdity happening around him, we are able to find light in the very dark pockets Maksik allows us to peek into. And frankly, it’s necessary. A less talented writer would have emitted the humor so as not to distract from the point, but in novels as in life, we must find something good to break up the cruelty and randomness.

My little English major heart fluttered all the way through this one. It had me yelling across the apartment to my partner as mysteries were uncovered, characters were betrayed, edens set on fire. Perfect for a deep-thinking book club, I guarantee you won’t be able to keep your thoughts to yourself. —Lily DeTaeye

Gary Kelley

Bach and the Blues

ICE CUBE PRESS

The third week of November, 1936. Thanks to a brief story on National Public Radio, illustrator Gary Kelley learned the odd synchronicity of that moment, and decided to spin it into a graphic novel, his second, following 2021’s Moon of the Snow Blind. Like that first foray into the medium, Kelley brings his considerable talents to bear on history, this time taking inspiration far from his home in Iowa.

Bach and the Blues, released May 1, looks at the considerable impacts of two very different musicians, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson, who coincidentally were both recording seminal albums that same third week of November, 1936, while the world was unraveling around them. Johnson traveled from his home in Arkansas to a hotel in Texas; Casals also made a trek—to London, England, to record at the now-iconic Abbey Road Studios.

Kelley, whose bio reveals no formal study of history, once again manages to find a certain elegance through his ability to pluck specifics from the past and identify the echoes. In this case, there is so much more reverberation between the largely dissimilar lives of these two men than just this one coincidence and the skill with which they performed.

This book does a heart-wrenching job of universalizing Casals and Johnson’s experiences and helping to situate the reader in time with reminders that the tragic rise of fascism in Europe was parallel to the ignominies experienced by Blacks in the American South in the early part of the 20th century. The example of Jesse Owens, superstar of the 1936 Olympics in Germany who was among the non-Aryan athletes Adolf Hitler chose not to acknowledge or celebrate, is used to great effect to illustrate the fact that the evils faced by both Casals and Johnson were truly one and the same.

The differences between the two musicians are many, and Kelley, in his brief biography of each, makes this clear. Johnson lived only 27 short years; Casals, who was 35 before Johnson was even born, died at 97. Cellist Casals made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 27, which guitarist Johnson would have matched had he not died an early, violent death.

But both enjoyed a vast popularity early in their careers, and no doubt both felt the weight of fame. That weight, especially considering the time in which they lived, is evident throughout Kelley’s work, in heavy lines and powerful use of darkness.

I had been anticipating this book since I first saw Kelley mention it on social media months ago, and it did not disappoint, except in one respect. The book is entirely in black and white, and while it is undeniably beautiful, the tease of colors on the cover left me wanting more. My hope is that Kelley will eventually release full-color prints from the pages of this story, because the color work on the cover, especially how the title is set, is phenomenal.

These stories have only a single formal point of connection, but Kelley’s formulation of the era in which both Johnson and Casals lived is painful in an awakening way. His curiosity is evident throughout the book; if he employs research assistants, I envy them their work! And I can’t wait to see what moments in history pique Kelley’s curiosity next. —Genevieve Trainor