Reviews - June 2012

A review of 'Just Kids'

Raised in a poor but loving family in New Jersey, Patti Smith wasn’t happy with the range of opportunities open to her after high school. Artistic and strong-natured — she played the General in her games with her brother and sister — she got into trouble with an unwanted pregnancy, gave the baby up for adoption, quit her factory job, and took a bus to New York.

The trial of Elizabeth Willis's 'Address'

When asked about the voices that spoke only to Joan of Arc during the second session of her trial for heresy on February 22, 1431, she answered in Middle French a statement transcribed by the English-financed court in Latin that Anne Carson translates to English as follows: “The light comes in the name of the voice.”[1]

'An endless, polyglot failure party'

A review of Robert Fitterman's 'Now We Are Friends'

Founded in 2009, Truck Books is “a small press specializing in contemporary experimental writing in the avant-garde tradition” which focuses on “works that focus on a variety of objects from vernacular languages to social and information systems, production systems and capital flows.” They have published five books to date (four of which are listed on their ordering page), each of which is available as a free pdf or as a printed edition sold on a sliding scale.