Silver City by Jeff Guinn Putnam, 376 pages, $27 Reviewed by Karen Martin for blood,dirt & angels As a former books editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jeff Guinn knows what works when it comes to writing a crowd-pleasing novel. …

Across the years and distances words spent and irrevocable appear behind the iPhone glass that hums softly in my pocket.   And what am I to say to them? But that things have turned out all right. We both survived …

Do not mistake this god deep silence for disapproval or conceit. Or American arrogance, whatever you take that to be: I have come from Oklahoma with a banjo on my knee. Some people push the words out fast. They spit …

 I wrote this back in 1999. Near the end of the 1960s, a Gallup poll designed to sound the depths of American cynicism turned up the interesting factoid that there was but one American who could still be considered an …

Stick around to the end and your monkey plays a song.

Is it so bizarre to commemorate the anniversary of a star’s death? Americans have always converted dead celebrities into durable cultural phenomena–remember Jim Morrison on the cover of Rolling Stone : “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy and He’s Dead.” The people …

SSO YOU SHOULD NEVER READ THE COMMENTS (for Jef Rouner et. al.) In his own heart, every man is pure. What discharges is like weather unbidden and deep roiling, the product of some butterfly beating its wings in La Paz, …

I’d forgotten I’d written this. It’s from 1994 and it’s in my 1997 book The Shortstop’s Son, which you can still order online. My father was a Dodger fan. My earliest memory involves a blue and white T-shirt emblazoned with …

The Kindness by Polly Samson (Bloomsbury, 294 pages) Reviewed by Karen Martin for blood, dirt & angels The story, although a decent enough mystery, isn’t the big deal here. It’s all about texture, sensory input, meaningful details in conversations and …