Posts tagged “beverly gologorsky”
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Beverly Gologorsky at the KGB bar in New York
February 1, 2010
February, 1, 2010, 7:00-9:00pm, KGB bar, 85 E. 4th St. New York, NY, 10003.
Beverly Gologorsky, Helen Benedict, and Nora Eisenberg, the war brought home an evening of storytelling about war and militarism from women’s prospectives.
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Tags: Authors, beverly gologorsky, helen benedict, kgb bar, new york, nora eisenberg, reading, the things we do to make it home, the war brought home
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The Things We Do To Make It Home at Feminist Review
January 4, 2010
From Elanor J. Bader’s excellent review of The Things We Do To Make It Home, at Feminist Review:
When Beverly Gologorsky’s powerfully written and beautiful novel, The Things We Do To Make It Home, was first released in 1999, most U.S. residents weren’t thinking about war. The Vietnam conflict had ended decades earlier, the Cold War was over, and for at least a fraction of a minute, world peace seemed possible. Then 9-11 happened, and a world without armed conflict became the stuff of pipe dreams. In short order the U.S. was involved in two wars, fighting what many see as losing battles against terrorism.
This makes the re-release of Gologorsky’s novel especially important. Unlike war stories that focus only on the soldiers’ experiences, The Things We Do To Make It Home includes the lovers and children of numerous warriors—people who have no choice but to grapple with the physical and psychological aftereffects of military life when their loved ones return to civilian life. It’s gripping material, poetically rendered.
Tags: beverly gologorsky, feminist review, fiction, reviews, things we do to make it home
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Beverly Gologorsky interviewed at AlterNet
November 20, 2009
From Beverly Gologorsky’s interview with Andy Kroll of AlterNet, on the subject of Things We Do To Make It Home:
Gologorsky: If you take a look at some of the characters in my book like [veterans] Frankie or Rod, they’re not monsters. I like my characters; I like the men. I think they have tremendous potential that was totally messed up by the war. So I had to think this part through. How can some of these men, who’ve done some horrible things, come home and these women love them? I had to really think through what made these men so damaged. And that’s when I came up with that understanding, that they had to kill without believing anymore that they were killing for any cause.
Tags: alternet, beverly gologorsky, fiction, interviews, things we do to make it home
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Ron Jacobs on Things We Do To Make It Home at Counterpunch
November 17, 2009
From Ron Jacobs’s “No More Star-Spangled Eyes” at Counterpunch:
Author and antiwar organizer Beverly Gologorsky wrote a book a couple years ago titled Things We Do To Make It Home. This book was recently released in paperback by Seven Stories Press. It is a beautifully wrought story of a group of Vietnam veterans, their lovers, families and friends set in the 1990s. Twenty years after their return from the jungles of Nam the world they live in is still littered with the veterans’ experience in combat. Like so many of their real-life comrades, the men in the story have left much damage in their wake. Simultaneously, there is a love that binds them all together. That same love reaches across the lines between suburb and city while it tears relationships into remnants barely held together by threads of memory. There is no blame here, despite the desire to find somewhere to place the despair and anger resulting from the demons that define the lives these men have lived. The women who have loved them despite their better sense, the hopelessness the men hide with drugs and alcohol and the children who wonder where there father really is even when he’s sitting in the same room are portrayed with an emotional and spiritual depth the reader won’t find in newspaper reports about veteran suicides and PTSD statistics. There isn’t a lot of hope in this novel, despite the optimism voiced by some of its characters. These are men who know they were screwed and can’t seem to figure out how to get past the war they were sent to fight. Nonetheless, they go on living life as best as they can while often unaware of the pain they cause–a pain directly related to the guilt they feel because of the injury they caused to those their commanders called the enemy while fighting Washington’s war.
Tags: articles, beverly gologorsky, counterpunch, fiction, ron jacobs, things we do to make it home, vietnam
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What’s In A Number?
November 11, 2009
I grew up in a working class neighborhood in the South Bronx, New York, where people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds lived. No one talked of soldiers or veterans as “combat troops.” It was Mike or Sal, John or Charlie. It was Millie’s son and Mrs. Harris’ grandson, Tanya’s husband and Josie’s brother, Mary’s nephew and Jane’s boyfriend; the connections go on and on.
The pro and con arguments about sending more troops to Afghanistan also go on, various plans and strategies put forward. No one, however, has mentioned the consequences of such a decision to the thousands of non-combat troops here as well as in Afghanistan. Years after the end of the Vietnam War, architects of that engagement called it a “mistake,” “misguided,” some apologized; a mistake that affected hundreds of thousands of people at home as well as in country. Are we again to wait years for historians and politicians to revisit today’s decisions? Where are the apologies for what has been done in Iraq? Haven’t we learned yet? And if not, as in Vietnam, will it be too late, I fear? — Beverly Gologorsky
Tags: articles, beverly gologorsky, fiction, things we do to make it home, veteran's day
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Beverly Gologorsky on the reissue of Things We Do To Make It Home at More.com
November 11, 2009
From More.com’s piece by Beverly Gologorsky on the re-release of her debut novel, Things We Do To Make It Home, ten years after its initial publication:
. . . When that book was first published in 1999, I was ecstatic. My first thought when I had the novel in hand was: However this book finds its way in the world, I have given these women voice. But when the book was reissued, I couldn’t help wondering if I would still like it. If I didn’t, would confidence in the work I was doing be shattered? Human beings are made of chemicals and water; writers, however, are filled with doubt at any time of day or night, including in our dreams.
Tags: articles, beverly gologorsky, fiction, more.com, things we do to make it home
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Beverly Gologorsky at the Strand, with Elizabeth Strout
November 3, 2009
On October 29, Beverly Gologorsky, author of Things We Do To Make It Home, read with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout at the Strand in New York City. Take a look below, or please visit the Strand’s YouTube channel here.
Tags: beverly gologorsky, elizabeth strout, fiction, q&a, readings, strand, things we do to make it home, videos
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Beverly Gologorsky at Blue Hill Library in Maine
October 22, 2009
October 22, 7pm, Howard Room of the Blue Hill Library, 5 Parker Point Road, Blue Hill, ME 04614, 207.374.5515. For more information, check the Blue Hill Library website.
Tags: beverly gologorsky, blue hill library, fiction, maine, q&a, readings, things we do to make it home
“beverly gologorsky” Posts
- Jan 4, The Things We Do To Make It Home at Feminist Review
- Nov 20, Beverly Gologorsky interviewed at AlterNet
- Nov 17, Ron Jacobs on Things We Do To Make It Home at Counterpunch
- Nov 11, What’s In A Number?
- Nov 11, Beverly Gologorsky on the reissue of Things We Do To Make It Home at More.com
- Nov 3, Beverly Gologorsky at the Strand, with Elizabeth Strout
- Oct 22, Beverly Gologorsky at Blue Hill Library in Maine
