Book Review: Ugly to Start With by John Michael Cummings
Ugly to Start With by John Michael Cummings. © 2011 Vandalia Press. ISBN 9781935978084. Paperback. 168 pages. Source: review copy from publisher.
Back Cover Blurb: Jason Stevens is growing up in picturesque, historic Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in the 1970s. Back when the roads are smaller, the cars slower, the people more colorful, and Washington, D.C. is way across the mountains – a winding sixty-five miles away.
Jason dreams of going to art school in the city, but he must first survive his teenage years. He witnesses a street artist from Italy charm his mother from the backseat of the family car. He stands up to an abusive husband – and then feels sorry for the jerk. He puts up with his father’s hard-skulled backwoods ways, his grandfather’s showy younger wife, and the fist-throwing schoolmates and eccentric mountain characters that make up Harpers Ferry – all topped off by a basement art project with a girl from the poor side of town.
Review: With a voice reminiscent of Raymond Carter, Cummings brings the small West Virginian town of Harpers Ferry to life through the eyes of a teenage boy. Ugly to Start With collects thirteen short stories that showcase different vignettes from Jason Stevens’ adolescence. The language is straightforward, allowing the reader to enter easily into Jason’s world. By using stand-alone but interrelated short stories instead of a novel, the reader comes to see how small, sometimes seeming insignificant events can shape a history. Observations are made casually and their weight is not apparent until seen in light of the grander scheme. While the stories individually are well crafted and worth seeking out, I think they can be appreciated even more in the larger context of this collection.
Back Cover Blurb: Fashion editor Karen Wheeler thought she had it all: a glamorous job, a handsome boyfriend, a fabulous home, and an even more fabulous assortment of gorgeous shoes. But not all is as it seems, and on an impulse she decides to wave good-bye to her glamorous city lifestyle and go it alone in a run-down house in rural France.
After traveling the world for two years, Ayumu Takahashi and his bride decide to settle down in Okinawa, Japan. Not one to settle for the traditional routine, Takahashi comes up with the idea of a self-sustaining community. While initially this might seem a fairly simple task, he and others interested in the project quickly discover that people are not so willing to part with their property. Finding backers willing to support the project financially also proved difficult at times. Island Story presents the tale of how the Beach Rock Village was imagined and then realized.
For once the promotional blurbs didn’t lie. I was on the edge of my seat and unwilling to put the book down. Without giving away key elements of the plot, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven chronicles the around-the-world-in-a-year ambitions of two recent college graduates in 1986. They begin their adventure in the People’s Republic of China which “had been open to independent backpackers for roughly ten minutes.” Without the comforts taken for granted in 2010 – cell phones, the internet, even the widespread use of English – they quickly find themselves in situations far beyond their capabilities.
