Poop and Bumfuggery

Part I: Bumfugging

So "Poop and Bumfuggery" is perhaps not the best title for a post about two really very lovely reviews that have come in over the past several days, but I had to do something to win back your love. Poor Thirsty! So content-parched—so dry—so, yes, so constipated of late. But no more! The gates have flexed, the skies openeth, and content shall be, let's say, regular, from this point forward. (Which is not to imply that good reviews are the Metamucil of publicity blogs: heavens. That would be taking the metaphor too far.) 

Er. Anyhow and bibliobowels aside, readers of the Star will have noticed that Malarky got another ace review courtesy of Georgie Binks. It commences: "When the kids leave home and you’re left talking to yourself day in and day out, it’s comforting to let someone else’s inner monologue take over your brain." 

Malarky-catharsis? 

Awesome. 

Even better, perhaps, is the pull quote: "A fascinating voyage into the mind of a woman embattled ... absolutely beautiful."— (Those of you who have read Malarky will know where the bumfuggery comes in.) And for the full review you can of course click here. 

Part II: Poop

This post's colonic trajectory is owed in part to a review that came in this morning from momosyllabic, which is the blog of a mother, a self-confessed scatologist, and a friend of Alice Petersen. I'm not sure Alice is going to be super-thrilled about me spreading the word even further—sticking my virtual heels in it I guess—but, thanks to momosyllabic, there's a now an oh-bollocks-sitting-in-poop story circulating about her on the internet. Yup. Happily the review that goes with it is pretty swell: 

[All the Voices Cry] presents characters humbled by circumstance ... These women are fantastically ambivalent even as Alice has them experience the most profound emotional moments in human life .... There are fantastic words evoking far-flung locales ... Alice Petersen’s plots move with a quick, light foot through the most embattled terrain of human relationships.

What's that? The book is fantastic? Yep. In fact it's fantastic twice over. Adjectivally and adverbially fantastic. And as for the poop story, well, you can go roll in that sh!t on your own time. (Myself I'm a fan of any review that can get poop, Keats, and the word "plangent" within two sentences of one another.)