The Survivor: and other tales of Old San Francisco - A Discovered Diamond Review

 

https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.com/2017/07

 The Survivor: and other tales of Old San Francisco by Steve Bartholomew

An Easy Read, but Not an Easy Life

This 141-page selection of short stories about the Old San Francisco (first called Yerba Buena) is an easy read.

In a conversational style, Bartholomew’s main character tells the reader interesting aspects about the growing pains and tragedies of this great American city. His often self-effacing accounts about his own success and life in the emerging West are interlaced with dry wit and a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

It makes for a pleasant time spent, and whether or not there are a few liberties with the facts is irrelevant. Each of these entertaining short stories can stand alone, but the recurring characters of Hiram Courtenay and his wife Lisbeth provide continuity, and I grew quite fond of the intrepid pair as they endured fires, loss and social upheaval around them.

Indeed Hiram, although a successful businessman, can be found reaching out to those less fortunate, providing them not only with counsel but a helping hand. He owns warehouses along the docks and sees first-hand those huddled and befuddled immigrants being disgorged from the bowels of arriving clipper ships. He and his wife are quick to ask them to their home and to provide a meal.

I am still grateful I didn’t live then and there.

Definitely worth a read for those interested in life in the Old West, and in San Francisco’s past in particular.

The Sacred Sistrum of Ancient Egypt

In Khamsin, The Devil Wind of The Nile, this ancient instrument is described as being used for worship as well as entertainment.

Excerpt:

With expectant stillness at its height, [the High Priest of Ptah] intoned the old sacred chants, his rich baritone echoed by the pure high voices of his temple chantresses. The simple notes of a lonely flute rang out, a harp adding its melodic strings.

Sistrum-players rattled their papyrus stems. The beat quickened. With nothing more than belts around slim waists, the undulating chantresses mesmerized the crowd; it often fell to these lithe servants of the gods to keep the beer-drowsed audience alert.

Jim Bennett's New "Fortress: Poems 6"

At last, Canadian Poet Jim Bennett has published a new poetry book, Fortress: Poems 6. 

I was delighted to receive a copy from the author. Below is my Review of this delightful (and as usual, challenging) volume and I am proud to add his special poetry to his previous five.

 My Review:

After an extended hiatus, we can finally welcome another volume, the sixth, in Jim Bennett’s poetry collection. This one, I felt, was earthier than the previous ones, lusty and even outright sexy. There is also a bit of political tongue-in-cheek, as in ReForms of Intelligence. All encompass Bennett’s usual complexity of thought. Through his mastery, he makes one think, imagine a parallel to one’s own life. He is sly in his choice of words and verse, forcing you to re-read those poems until you get it – sometimes maybe not.

Starting out with Possession, I felt I had gone home again without estrangement of place or time. Silence is brief and profound, whereas Chorus adds a dose of sex; as do several other poems.

The book ends with Fortress of Solitude. To me, a contemplation of a waning life: reflective, sad even, resigned, yet gratified to have been witness to it.

And that is how my first reading of this 70-poem volume left me: Gratified – and most glad that I can add Poems 6 to Bennett’s previous five poetry books on my shelf. But it won’t gather dust there, for the depth and complexity of those poems cry out to be re-read and re-discovered time and again – as they will be for sure.

US: Fortress-Poems-6-Jim-Bennett

CA: Fortress-Poems-6-Jim-Bennett-Canada

Website: http://jim-bennett.ca/

A Tribute to Harriet Doerr

Invited to write about one of my favorite authors, I chose American writer Harriet Doerr; one of many I could have singled out for Helen Hollick's Discovering Diamonds blogspot.






Doerr's sparse yet descriptive style fascinates me as it is as captivating today as it was when she wrote about these Mexican adventures.

Here is my Tribute to Harriet Doerr:

https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.com/p/guest-inge-h-borg

Also, check out Helen's interesting Home Page
for recently reviewed and Discovered Diamonds by contemporary Indie authors:

https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.com/

Charmer, Conman, Kidnapper

Edward, My Bad Boy,

also appears in 4 of the
Legends of the Winged Scarab Novels

He charms in Sirocco, Storm over Land and Sea

He cons in After the Cataclysm

His bad side crystallizes in The Crystal Curse

And what happens in The Nile Conspiracy,
well -- you'll just have to read about it.

Even in Shadow Love, he is remembered
with some regret about what could have been...

How did he get to be that way?

This short novella here shows how he
spirals from charmer down to criminal.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009BQZ1JY

Excerpt

Helen, a high-powered executive and consummate professional when not enthralled by tall Brits, informed him she had to take an early morning flight to Europe and that her generosity, alas, could not extend to her home, her Mercedes and her treasured sailboat while she was away.

Edward understood, being the perfect gentleman. He returned her key, kissed her good-night, promised to call her in two weeks.

That Sunday morning, the normally fastidious Edward did not shave. He dressed in the midnight blue silk pajamas and brown leather slippers—gifts from a nice woman in Newport Beach—and confidently drove up the Silver Strand that connects seedy Imperial Beach to affluent Coronado.

A couple of homes down from Helen’s, he spied a yellow-hulled San Diego Union in a driveway. Slowing down just enough, he expertly scooped the Sunday paper up. Then he drove to a lone beach emergency-telephone he had scouted out the day before. Smoothing out a sheet torn from his motel’s Yellow Pages, he dialed the number of the first-listed locksmith. No answer. Second: No answer. The third promised to meet him at the given address within thirty minutes.

“Can you imagine? Here I am, out in the street in my pajamas. I come out to pick up my Sunday paper and the door slams behind me.” Edward’s speech is colloquial and friendly, without a trace of his usual Eton-tinged accent.

“It happens all the time,” the locksmith commiserated. “I’ll have you back in your house in no time.”

* * *