Books published by Hidden River

Hillbilly Guilt is populated with those whose lives aren't deemed important: the poor and working poor of Appalachia, who live what it is to be American.This is a book that seeks to show that we are the sum of our mistakes. Not just the little goofs, either; but the huge, world-shattering blunders that go to the core of what it is to be human. The title poem "Hillbilly Guilt"-the frontispiece and forward to the book as a whole-asserts moments of resilience if not Triumph, the chance to heal if not a deliverance from the possibility of further injury: I waved someone down who took us to a hospital.I recall he broke his nose. That it bled and bledand that he wanted me to believe what he saidhappened, had happened that way. He seemed to want not to feel what he felt at having riskedour lives for nothing. Oh, and I have to tell you: the Chevy-to-a-hospital that stopped had a Virgin Mary on its curving, blue dashboard and that plasticfigure said what it said about having a little faith.These poems exist in a kind of Twilight Zone of expectation and hope and knowing that country by a whole bunch of names. As a survivor of the Great American Beating We Give Ourselves for Falling Short, the writer invites us to live, innocent and less so-as in the poem "Lazarus, Later" Don't get me wrong. I was in a hurry to flee the tomb.Quick to step from one imperium of flesh into another.However, I paused a short while to let my eyes adjust.Not to be honored or genuflect but to let it all sink in.

Joel Martin is a twenty-four year old construction worker who lives with his mother and struggles to provide for his four year old son. Longing to break free from the bleak confines of Langley, Pennsylvania, the dried-up industrial town where he has lived his entire life, he commits a series of burglaries with his brother, Derek, in the hope of finding more. Faced with legal troubles, problems with his ex, and the possibility of being separated from his son, Joel begins to unravel, and the unthinkable occurs when his life intersects with Christopher Roche, a freshman at Waylan University. Kings Row explores class disparities as they exist today and the tragic events that inevitably unfold when people are driven by anger and resentment. Rich in character and carefully observed, Kings Row is a gripping story of two Americas growing farther apart.PRAISE FOR KINGS ROW: "In the utterly absorbing Kings Row, Jeffrey Voccola shows himself to be a master of the faultlines of class and of all the ways, large and small, in which people hurt each other. I couldn't stop turning the pages of this suspenseful novel. Kings Row is a stellar debut." --Margot Livesey, author of Mercury and The House on Fortune Street"This beautifully-paced, eloquent and suspenseful novel is full of persuasive, sharply observed psychology, sociology, and topology, and an honest voicing of working class people, male and female....Voccola writes with dead-pan lyricism, an attentive ear, and generous heart." --DeWitt Henry, author of Sweet Marjoram and co-founder of Ploughshares"From its masterful opening chapter on, Kings Row captures the divides and resentments that have brought us to this moment in America. This novel is a deep study of people unsure of their positions in their personal lives and in the larger sphere of change. Voccola writes beautifully and compassionately, even about tragedy." --Tim Parrish, author of Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, A Memoir"Kings Row masterfully deconstructs a killing deeply emblematic of the class and race issues that plague our time. With lyrical, heart-piercing realism, Jeffrey Voccola evokes our deepest compassion for these ill-fated characters, showing us ourselves reflected in college students struggling to belong, in displaced working class communities. Provocative and suspenseful, Kings Row introduces an exciting new writer to watch." --Wayne Harrison, author of The Spark and the Drive and Wrench and Other Stories

It is April, 1555, and Juana I of Castile, the Spanish queen known as "la loca," has died after forty-seven years in forced seclusion at Tordesillas. Her last musician, Juan de Granada, refuses to depart with the other servants, forcing two functionaries of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to interrogate him in the now-empty palace. But is it really empty? Or is there, as Holy Office suspects, a heretic hidden on the premises, a converso secretly practicing the forbidden rites of Judaism? Only Juan knows the answer, and his subversive tale is at once a ballad of lost love and a last gambit to save a life--and a rich cultural and spiritual tradition on the verge of erasure. "Radiant, passionate, deeply intelligent and intensely moving, this brilliant novel brings alive a place and time surprisingly resonant with our own. Love and music burn like a laser through these glorious pages."-Andrea Barrett"In The Secret Music of Tordesillas, the fabulously gifted Marjorie Sandor tells the absorbing story of a Jewish musician and his queen, both living precarious lives in the tumultuous world of the Spanish Inquisition. Sandor's lustrous prose resonates like the music she so eloquently describes and her characters are exquisitely complicated. Reading these gorgeous pages, I felt that I too had taken up residence in some castle full of dark corners."-Margot Livesey"An historical novel of striking imagination and lyricism, this sly tale of sixteenth-century Spain, with its secrets and masks involving the interrelationships of Catholics, Muslims and Jews, has an uncanny bearing on our own country's diversity tensions. It is a pleasure to have another of Marjorie Sandor's delicious fictions: she is writing at the top of her form."-Phillip Lopate"I found Marjorie Sandor's The Secret Music at Tordesillas irresistible, as appealing for its grand romantic adventure as it is for its clear-eyed exploration of culture, tradition, and identity. Its narrative-replete with hidden Jews, palace intrigue, a captive queen, a hopeless love-is rendered in a prose as intoxicating as the ancient music that informs it. This is history in the form of a haunting song."-Steve Stern

"A compassionate and imaginative retelling of a harrowing period in American penal history." Andy Douglas, Author of Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of a Community ChoirRemaking Achilles: Slicing into Angola's History explores, through poetry in the voices of those who took part, the String Heel Incident of the 1950s, when 31 inmates crippled themselves by slicing through their Achilles tendons in protest of the horrifying conditions at Angola Prison. The history of The Louisiana State Penitentiary, called Angola, is filled with atrocities, abuses, horror stories. This particular incident was coordinated by the prisoners themselves to bring attention to their treatment, and story of the Heel String Incident spread throughout the U.S., finally calling attention to the horrible conditions and the needs for reform. Poet Carol Tyx was named the inaugural winner of The Willow Run Poetry Book Award of Hidden River Arts for this stunning work. Read the praise for Remaking Achilles: "Remaking Achilles brings alive the vivid realities of Angola's history. I study Angola, ...this collection paints the horrors and injustices of time past in a way that the simple facts never do. Carol Tyx has done a remarkable job of reminding us all of where we came from and why we do not want to return." (Marianne Fisher-Giorlando, retired criminal justice professor and Angola historian)"These sterling voices pretending to be persona poems are so well researched and authentically rendered that the painful and traumatic memories of Angola will continue to haunt readers long after the last pages are sliced open and left bleeding." (Frank X Walker, author of The Unghosting of Medgar Evers)"A compassionate and imaginative retelling of a harrowing period in American penal history. With each vivid and lyrical insight, Carol Tyx weaves a compelling poetic tale depicting the effects of institutional racism and cruelty, of unimaginable hardship, but also of the human impulse to resist and seek dignity. In the darkest hours, there are sparks of light." (Andy Douglas, author of Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of a Community Prison Choir)Like the ghostly inmate who takes his place in the long line of U.S. prison atrocities, Carol Tyx claims her place in a long tradition of poets like Muriel Rukeyser (The Book of the Dead, 1938) and Carolyn Forché (The Angel of History, 1994), incorporating individual impersonations and historical documents into lines that incriminate us all. (Cecile Goding, The Iowa Summer Writing Festival) As calls for reform of the systems of punishment and incarceration grow, Carol Tyx's work will take its place among those calls, bringing the voices of the victims themselves into the chorus.

WE'LL GO TO CONEY ISLAND, a novel in stories by Barbara Scheiber, tells the story of two generations of a family, haunted by a magnetic father's endless search for love. At the dawn of the twentieth century, with only the force of his charm, intellect and "golden tongue", Aaron Gershon escaped the Jewish tenements of New York City's Lower East Side. Courting the women who loved him with promises and dreams, Aaron left a tide of longing in his wake. The stories follow his wives, his lovers and his daughter as they are swept in and out of his orbit and ultimately learn to walk their own paths.

HER STORY is a collection of essays focused on various aspects of the Great Goddess as they were experienced and understood in the pre-patriarchal world, and as they continue to be experienced in our lives today. Annabel Lindy examines the Goddess's presence and influence through topics of Greek mythology, Biblical passages, ritual sacrifice, sacred dance, modern holiday practices -- even the root meaning of wishing wells. Lindy's conversational voice and ease of delivery make HER STORY read like a letter from a friend, and convey her passionate engagement with the extensive material she has brought together here.