Books published by Plain View Press, LLC

Though a novel, Bringing Vincent Home reads like the finest memoir, so authentic and convincing that at times I found myself turning back to the title page to be sure it was a work of fiction. Rarely does a book of any sort touch me as this one did. Madeleine Mysko has created a vivid, beautifully written, and deeply personal piece of literature.Tim O''Brien, author, The Things They Carried, and Going After Cacciato (National Book Award Winner)Madeleine Mysko''s portrayal of the burn ward, of the suffering soldier, and of the afflicted families and efficient caregivers, are real and riveting. As more and more soldiers are injured and disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan, as more and more families are called upon to tend to or bury their loved ones, Mysko''s novel comes not only as a wake-up call but also as a soothing balm. This is a viscerally wrought and redemptive tale, difficult to put down, and impossible to shake from the memory.Cortney Davis, author, Leopold''s Maneuvers and I Knew a Woman, editor, Between the Heartbeats: Poetry and Prose by Nurses and Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by NursesMadeleine Mysko writes evocatively about the virtues of a cradle Catholic who deals with an alcoholic husband, a politically energized daughter, an unjust war, and a changed church. With an eye for the telling detail and a great compassion for all her characters, Mysko traces the journey of a woman who struggles with tragedy and gains wisdom. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lieutenant Governor, the State of Maryland, author, Failing America''s Faithful: How Today''s Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing their Way.

Catholic priest Casimir "Fr. Jake" Jakubowski reaches the retirement age of 70, yet wishes to continue his Michigan ministry. As a favor to Santa Fe's Prelate, the Archbishop of Detroit offers the liberal Fr. Jake a temporary post in Providencia, a New Mexican village on the Rio Grande. A local pastor, the saintly Fr. Jesús Mora, is ill, yet he and most villagers resent the appointment of an outsider to their church of San Isidro―only auto mechanic Armando Herrera and teacher Cynthia Plow befriend Fr. Jake. Within a month, Fr. Mora is murdered; evidence suggests he might have been involved long ago in a satanic Black Mass. When amateur archaeologist Plow uncovers corpses of Union and Confederate dead at the ruins of a nearby Civil War fort, she also finds a more recent female skeleton. Detective Sonia Mora investigates that death along with her priest uncle's murder and that of a woman parishioner found dead in a sleazy motel. Tex Houston's film company, Pentacle Pix, arrives to make a documentary of the fort and village, yet he has bought quitclaim deeds to the land and now owns Providencia. He plans to rebuild the village as a tourist's horror set for his ghoulish virtual reality B films. Tex promises residents big money, yet they fight the quitclaims: his truck is torched and Fr. Jake's church set afire in retaliation. Fr. Mora's death has set off a chain of deadly discoveries that will engulf Fr. Jake, a sadistic deacon, the parish finance officer, an old curandera woman, the communes of both Pentecostals and anti-government survivalists, and Civil War re-enactors of the 1862 Battle of Glorieta Pass. Noyer artfully weaves the story of Fr. Casimir 'Jake' Jakubowski, displaced from his comfortable parish in Michigan and thrown into an impoverished New Mexican village. The liberal priest's life becomes a mirage as a politically driven bishop, a dysfunctional pastor, a flimflam Texan filmmaker and a fundamentalist commune collide with the old Spanish ways of rural New Mexico. A brilliantly crafted exposé of a clash of cultures. Page Erwin, Author Bones of Contention: A Maine Mystery Hilliard and Harris, 2008 Noyer is a natural story-teller. An artist by training, he has created an amiable character in Father Jake, who helps solve the mystery of a fellow priest against the backdrop of contemporary crisis in the Catholic church, a satanic mass and the reenactment of the Civil War Battle of Glorieta in New Mexico. Noyer knows of what he writes, keeping his readers hoping for another Father Jake mystery before too long. Ronald Modras, Author Ignatian Humanism, Loyola Press, 2004 With an artful mesh of page-turning excitement, indigenous folklore, and historical detail, Noyer, author of the A.D. 5th century Getorius and Arcadia Mystery series, serves up another compelling literary adventure with his New Mexico-based thriller, Ghosts of Glorieta. Lisa Polisar, Author The Ghost of Mary Prairie University of New Mexico Press, 2007 A fifth century Nick and Nora crack secret codes, enjoy an impromptu maritime adventure, and hang out with gladiators in their second mystery caper.... Noyer's enthusiastic curiosity is effectively channeled through two attractive protagonists: a smooth narrative with fascinating historical detail. Kirkus Reviews, The Cybelene Conspiracy, 2005

Michael Messner, already known for his nuanced explorations of masculinities in sport, here humanely explores the evolving, often confusing dynamics of masculinities between three generations of boys and men. This candid memoir will make engrossing reading for both seasoned scholars and newcomers to gender studies. Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo''s War, Emma''s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq WarFor decades, feminist scholars, memoirists, and novelists have explored the lineaments of mother-daughter relationships, yet the world of fathers and sons has garnered relatively little attention. In his closely observed memoir, King of the Wild Suburb, noted Gender Studies scholar Michael Messner opens up the affective terrain between fathers and sons, and in the process deepens and complicates our understanding of masculinity.Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American CultureMichael Messner''s reflections on coming of age in the pivotal Sixties deftly captures the fault lines that separated so many young men and women from the lives of their parents and grandparents. It was, perhaps, easier for young women to rebel and choose careers over homemaking than it was for young men to opt out of a culture that made war, guns, and hunting the anchors of manhood. King of the Wild Suburb helps us understand how masculinity has changed, albeit still precariously, making it possible to maintain a fidelity to one''s past while passing on to the next generation a freedom to explore new ways to be a man.Jan E. Dizard, author of Mortal Stakes: Hunters and Hunting in Contemporary America

Ute Carson manages to find universal truths in ordinary things, and clothes them in language that is at once beautiful and profoundly universal. The result is a music that sings in our very core. Leticia Austria, Poet The author employs a number of poetic tools to convey her thoughts, including wonderful imagery and simple yet effective phrasing. Harmony McGlothlin, Publisher & Editor Grace Notes Books and Editor-in Chief of Notes Magazine A gladness for life and family is countered by occasional poem lines of survived horror. Such lines render the poet steeled in mind and intensely honed to mankind's fallacies. Ute Carson's Just a Few Feathers is a collection one wants to keep close by and refer to often. Kaye Voight Abikahled, The Poetry Society of Texas, Counselor for the Austin Area

Haunting, beautiful, mysterious, magnificent, terrible, and so moving. This poet-shaman's theme of myth and memory and violence and abuse and what's real and what isn't, is powerfully informative, is restorative. "Turning, you ask me to come/into your dream as a witness." This is what Karolyn Redoute's Prayers of the Shaman asks of us and the reward for doing so is the solace that all great poetry gives. I remember a number of these poems years after I first read them. "read my glass heart/unbury me." Sharon Doubiago Author of My Father's Love and Love on the Streets In Prayers of the Shaman, Karolyn Redoute forges her spell, and takes the reader deep into a world where myth and reality are united. Her imagination breaks down the invisible boundaries between the mundane and the extraordinary, and we see, through her sharp and compassionate eyes, how the world might be if it were made by poets and dreamers. There is a delicate balance here - love hinged with pain, sanity weighed against madness, magic mingling with the emptiness of the prairie. What Redoute gives us, finally, is a world where we might live, flaws and flourishes aside, just simply live, and uncover the beauty that surrounds us. William Reichard Author of Sin Eater "that is how the shaman sings / fragments first and then belief" Karolyn Redoute's poems are melancholy, born of woman, earth and sky. They look back, and forward with longing. A humble spirit, forming prayers. Redoute's words: cold, snow, grief, bone, blue, blackbird, hawk, raven, rock, desert, plains, fire, and wind, myth, and dream. Words that deliver us to other worlds. Sherry Quan Lee Author, Chinese Blackbird and How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman's life

The Way Home is a compelling book filled with colorful characters and dramatic images. Widerkehr writes of a difficult, yet deserving father, the plights of fragile mental patients, life's beauty and transience - all with a keen eye and compassionate heart. Craig Lesley, author of Burning Fence and The Sky Fisherman Widerkehr takes us along on journeys through a family member's mental illness and his father's tenderness and cruelty. When his accountant father dies, Widerkehr writes, "I can't divide zero into you and not get infinity." These poems, set in the gray rains of an un-pacific northwest, take us "far away, not on a road, maybe deeper." Peggy Shumaker, author of Gnawed Bones and Just Breathe Normally These sophisticated and gorgeous poems are enlivened by a large spirit, one which fully examines a life marked by both celebration and loss. Widerkehr draws clarity from "a gibberish of twisted roots," and honors the people who have been the fabric of his life. The entire book can be read as a troubled, loving prayer that values the world. James Bertolino, author of Finding Water, Holding Stone "Actions speak louder than words," says the father in one of Richard Widerkehr's poems. Fortunately for us, that can't be the poet's motto. Richard's words possess their own sort of quiet power in poems that surprise with their quirky originality, and their own evocative climate. In a note of irony, Widerkehr, in The Way Home, with only his words, says goodbye to that father. Lynda Schor, author of The Body Parts Shop and Seduction I don't know why this book is so unique and special, but it is. It's not one detail laid down after another, or the shock of tragic events, that captures the reader. It's Widerkehr's voice, his searing questions, his vulnerability, the honest details, Yiddish quotes, surprising images and ultimately the forgiveness that runs through these poems that make them unforgettable. Widerkehr is a poet who knows his craft and his heart. This book delivers both. Gayle Kaune, author of Still Life in the Physical World Richard Widerkehr's poetry comfortably links nature with the cognitive world. Since poets are known to use language as a shortcut to the soul itself, I believe these poems can become essential to readers. I think Widerkehr got it right. Anita Boyle, author of Bamboo Equals Loon

When Professor Robin Greene tells a freshman composition class about her scholarly interest in women's narratives, Samantha Henderson, an African American student, invites Greene to meet her grandmother and to listen to a series of reel-to-reel tapes that both Samantha and her grandmother insist should be part of the official WPA archive of ex-slave narratives. Intrigued, Greene accepts the challenge of authenticating the recordings, but after a full year of unproductive exchanges with historians and archivists, a frustrated Greene decides to transcribe the tapes and to publish the resulting narrative so that readers may judge for themselves if the tapes are-or are not-authentic. In her transcription, Greene presents the first-person account of Sarah Louise Augustus, who comes of age during the Civil War and whose story involves a head-on collision with the moral ambiguities of slavery. Readers follow Sarah Louise as she becomes Augustus-the name she assumes when she takes control of her destiny. Her story begins in the antebellum period and unfolds as Augustus recollects a brutal war and its social carnage. Readers also discover the connections that bind Greene, Sarah Louise, Samantha, and Samantha's grandmother-for these women, surprisingly, share much in common. As a work of historical fiction, Greene's account focuses light on black feminism, on race-specific reactions to historical inquiry, on sexuality and rape, and on the quest for identity. And Greene, who in "real life" teaches English and Writing at Methodist University, becomes Professor Greene, the fictional narrator whose story frames the narrative and whose own scholarly need for authenticity and precision nearly costs her more than she is willing to lose.