“Cowboys and Samurai: Myths and Realities” by Minoru Yanagihashi. AR Press. 205 pp. $13.99.

Who better than a Japanese-American scholar who watched cowboy and samurai movies as a kid and played a Chinese man in a Western to present a comparative study of the myths of cowboys and samurai? Tucsonan Minoru Yanagihashi has taught Japanese politics and foreign relations at the Universities of Michigan and Arizona. Through history — American and Japanese — literature, TV and film, and societal perceptions, Yanagihashi here examines the mythologies surrounding these two iconic heroes, the cowboy and the samurai.

Striking is how disparately the two mythologies evolved — 900 years for the samurai; a mere 40 for the cowboy. Yanagihashi writes that true historical cowboys bore little relation to the heroic image conjured up for them: they literally moved cows and lived rough — working, living, sleeping on the trails and herding cattle to market. The code of the heroic cowboy, as the white-hatted, maverick individualist, was a fiction engendered by novelists and movie and TV producers. The code of the samurai was forged from seeds in feudal ninth-century Japan: it required loyalty, strict conventional adherence, discipline, and willingness to sacrifice self.

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Yanagihashi’s comparison is fascinating; nuanced and culturally revelatory.

— Christine Wald-Hopkins

“Life is Short, but Eternity is Forever: Remembering the Life of My Daughter, Elisa” by Terri Gastellum. Independently published. 69 pp. $14.99.

Retired elementary school teacher Terri Gastellum now lives in Nevada, but her story is quintessentially Tucson. From her first sentence, we know that Gastellum’s youngest daughter, Elisa, was killed in a car accident in 2006. This slim volume is an affecting testament to a short life well lived and a mother’s resolve to have it remembered.

From an early age, Elisa loved to sing. She also loved mariachi music. Although she’d had no musical training, she picked up a violin and joined the mariachi class at Cholla High, soon distinguishing herself as solo vocalist. Gastellum chronicles Elisa’s successful rise in mariachi festivals and competitions … remarkable for a girl who didn’t even speak Spanish. Faith and music made Elisa vibrant. A mother’s love keeps her vibrancy alive.

— Christine Wald-Hopkins

“Little Altars” by Bonnie Wehle. 43 pp. $17.

“I will never tell you everything/about myself /,” writes Bonnie Wehle in her new chapbook; “only/ snippets of the lives I’ve lived ….” But you’re tempted to try to stitch together those snippets to construct her life.. The poet’s childhood was marked by secrets (“my handsome father, the lady’s man, /the begetter of girls.”) and froideur (“…moist peach flesh/conveniently quashing speech” at “…mutely eaten meals.”). Her mother is remote and struggling (with her “tightly held mouth…, counterfeit smile.”). We get images of sibling relations, disappointment in love and the loss of parents.

This collection represents a departure from Wehle’s previous chapbook of “persona” poems, in which she spoke through figures like Frida Kahlo and Amelia Earhart. She alludes to that in “The Pretender”: “My thoughts …/ spring more easily from someone else’s mouth./I prefer to write in someone else’s voice.” But she can assume her own voice, as we see here. As Tucson poet Charity Everitt writes in her blurb, “… she carries us with her as she pieces the self together to arrive at a place of balance and wholeness.”

— Christine Wald-Hopkins

“Trouble Times Two” by Bonnie Edwards. Deadly Press. 396 pp. $17.95 hardback; $12 paperback; $2.99 e-book.

Bonnie Edwards’ ironic, smart-talking, red-headed Tucson private investigator Barbara Black is back in this novel, and she’s ready to roll. Especially since she and her new PI partner, Tec, could use the business. That two clients show up in two days is a bonanza; just who they are, less so. When strikingly handsome John Brown walks into their office, he grabs Barbara’s attention. Until he turns his head to reveal a puckered, red, full-face scar on the other side of his face. It was the work, apparently, of Brown’s now-missing wife. Whom he wants found.

Before that investigation gets fully underway, an insufferably privileged Carole Chambers shows up. Insulting Tec for his line-of-duty paralysis and Barbara for her distinguishing locks, she nonetheless hires them because she claims she’s being stalked and needs a sleuth. As both clients offer generous retainers, Barbara and Tec don’t say no.

What spins out is that Brown never really knew his wife, who becomes a threat to both him and Allied Private Investigations; and Chambers “in defense” shoots the sister of Barbara’s longest friend. At that point, the sleuthing becomes personal.

Edwards weaves the two investigations successfully, but she finishes by breaking the narrative into multiple points of view. That’s unusual; its literary success is up to readers’ tastes.

— Christine Wald-Hopkins

“An Endangered Species” by Frances Washburn. Bison Books, 324 pgs. $13.60, $24.95 Kindle.

On the Northern Great Plains, two families — one Native, one white — struggle to eke out a living during the transitional 1960s as the rules of survival evolve and threaten to swamp those who fail to adapt.

Bart Johnson is a farmer on hard times: the formula for making a profit in agriculture no longer adds up for him. As he sinks into debt, his family relationships grow toxic and he finds consolation in drink. Bart’s neighbor, Tom Warder, grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation and works at the La Creek Refuge tending a flock of trumpeter swans, taken into captivity because of their endangered status. Tom chafes under the thumb of his disengaged white superiors, who neglect the swans in ways Tom knows jeopardizes them.

Moving between the families, Washburn explores the profound effects of tradition, racial hierarchies, and dark familial secrets as experienced by her brilliantly-realized characters. On an excursion to the Wounded Knee Massacre site, Tom’s precocious daughter asks him, “Are we an endangered species?” “Not yet,” he replies. It’s a spot-on answer to the novel’s pervasive question, and as this skillfully-plotted work hurtles to its startling conclusion, it’s clear that time is on no one’s side.

Washburn is professor emeritus from the University of Arizona, where she taught literature and Native American Studies. She is the author of three previous novels, most recently “The Red Bird All-Indian Traveling Band.”

“Herman Nature” by Joel Bresler. Tuxtails Publishing, LLC, 234 pgs. $16.99.

Identity theft is no laughing matter, but in the hands of author Joel Bresler, it’s absolutely hilarious.

If hapless Herman Rabinowitz hadn’t clicked on quite so many links, his identity probably wouldn’t have been such easy pickings for cyber-thieves. In a philosophical way, he shrugs it off, reinventing himself as Paco, a Harley-riding dude and leader of the Bedouins motorcycle gang. Life off the grid has its charms, but when Paco begins to miss his Rabinowitz days, he allies himself with some digitally-literate comrades to help him take an audacious dive into the Dark Web and steal Herman back.

Read this book for its razor-sharp wit. Bresler is a master of clever dialogue, guaranteed to keep the reader laughing out loud. The author of six books, including, most recently, “Bottomless Cups,” Bresler lives in Oro Valley.

“Last Bench” by Ram Halady. Vanguard Press, 250 pg. $12.99, $4.99 Kindle.

This charming bildungsroman, set in 1970s-era India, focuses on a young man with a passion for all life has to offer, from good food and good friends to lively cricket matches. True to the example of his namesake, the wise King Vikramaditya, Vikki is a hard worker, keen to solve his friends’ problems and guide their opportunities, sometimes at the expense of his own.

The only child of a single mother, Vikki feels the lack of father and family, but luckily, his small town is filled with caring adults who look out for him. In striving to live up to everyone’s expectations, he may not always make the best decisions, but helpful guidance is available as he begins to understand his own life journey and his deep need for human connection.

With this insightful debut, Ram Halady, who grew up in India, evokes a bygone time in a far-off country with a finely calibrated ear for a culture he clearly loves. At the same time, he skillfully navigates its complexities and shortcomings, particularly in terms of arranged marriages and the regrettable treatment of women. Halady now lives in Tucson.

“Retreat from the Precipice” by Duke Southard. Wheatmark, 265 pgs. $13.95, Kindle $9.99.

October, 1962: Twinkies and Wonder Bread were kitchen staples, Walter Cronkite delivered the evening news, and the March on Washington was months in the future.

With his newest novel, Duke Southard immerses the reader in American life of 60 years ago, but nostalgia is not his goal. His focus is on the Cuban Missile Crisis, two weeks when the world stood poised on the brink of nuclear war — perhaps “the most terrifying two weeks in modern history.”

As tense discussions and brinksmanship between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev stoke public anxiety, Southard examines the impact of the crisis on three fictional families in a small New Jersey town. Their backgrounds differ, but as their lives intertwine, their shared fear of nuclear Armageddon is top of mind for all, creating a compelling narrative.

To underscore their struggles to cope with their fears, Southard intersperses reconstructed news reports, speeches and general historical facts, illustrating just how public tension was fed. Fact, as it turns out, is a powerful enhancement to a work of fiction.

The author of 11 books, Southard has received several literary awards.

The top stories from Sunday’s Home+Life section in the Arizona Daily Star.


A former English instructor, Christine Wald-Hopkins is an occasional essayist and national and local book critic.

Helene Woodhams is retired from Pima County Public Library, where she was the literary arts librarian.

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