NewPages Blog

Guest Post by Stephanie Katz.

The novel The End of Aphrodite by Laurette Folk follows a handful of women as they experience yearning, love, and loss in the sweeping New England oceanside. The characters move through their lives as if in a dream, and likewise Folk’s descriptive, ethereal writing makes experiencing the book feel more like dreaming than reading. Even the sadness and pain the women face is rendered beautifully in Folk’s gentle care, and themes of a Catholic, Italian-American culture adds an extra layer of depth to the story.

As the book progresses, each woman’s life wraps around them like a cocoon. Shy Samantha’s cocoon allows her to transform as she tentatively embraces her womanhood and sexuality:

“She came in with a big garbage bag with the wedding dress in it and handed it to me to put in the cedar closet downstairs. I hid there, took off my clothes and fit myself inside the regality of tulle and satin, of virgin white . . . I eventually abandoned the dress for the veil and would return several times that summer, surreptitiously, to undress and pull the tulle tightly around my skin, wrapping my entire naked body.”

Etta, the titular Aphrodite, spends most of the book struggling to attach the chrysalis of herself to lover after lover. She eventually is able to fully emerge when she embraces becoming a mother and the ramifications it brings. The End of Aphrodite is perfect for readers looking to slowly amble through a story, pausing to meander down a few subplots before making their way back to the denouement. Readers longing for more of Folk’s distinctive voice can pick up her first novel, A Portal to Vibrancy, and her book of poetry and flash fiction, Totem Beasts.

The End of Aphrodite by Laurette Folk. Bordighera Press, April 2020.

Reviewer bio: Stephanie Katz is a librarian with the Manatee County Public Library System and editor in chief of award-winning 805 Lit + Art. She was selected as a Library Journal 2020 Mover & Shaker for her work with 805. She is the author of Libraries Publish: How to Start a Magazine, Small Press, Blog, and More. She blogs about creative library publishing at LiteraryLibraries.org.

Guest Post by Raymond Abbott.

Recently I came upon a paperback copy of the novel 1984, George Orwell’s classic. I first read it easily fifty years ago. I remembered well the overall theme, a fictional account of the totalitarian government that existed in England in 1984, and well before that date.  What I didn’t recall were the particulars, the details, the events, the various characters, even the main character’s name, Winston.

I found the story engrossing for the first 100 pages, almost what one might call a page turner. Then the narrative slowed way down, almost stopped,  at least for me. This happened with the introduction of Julia, Winston’s lover.

What I noticed this time through is just how hostile Orwell is toward women. I quote a line (and there are others). He writes, “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nose out of unorthodoxy.”

Hard to imagine getting such words past today’s gatekeepers, many of whom are women. I say lucky for Orwell that he published when he did, late forties, or there might not exist a 1984 novel for me to reread.

1984 by George Orwell. Secker & Warburg, June 1949.

Reviewer bio: Raymond Abbott lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Once in a while his prose is published. He used to be a social worker working among severely mentally disabled adults in Louisville.