'Glory Goes and Gets Some,' Plus More

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Aug 18, 2000

For several years I have admired the quality books published by a small literary house in Minneapolis. Coffee House Press takes chances, publishing new fiction that would find trouble getting a home with a New York commercial publisher. Coffee House, run by a dedicated staff headed by the friendly and respected Allan Kornblum.

Coffee House doesn't publish very many titles in a year, but I've come to realize that quality counts for much more than quantity. If your budget is so many dollars, which will allow you to print only a few titles, then those books must be good ones. It's a formula that works.

Being published this September is the first book by Emily Carter, who currently makes her home in Minneapolis. This collection of connected short stories, Glory Goes and Gets Some ($20.95) shows every indication that Ms. Carter stands on the launching pad of what could become a significant career.

As the writing instructors nationwide so often say, "Write What You Know." The book consists of related short stories dealing with the life and times of Glory. In her mid 30s, fresh from drug rehab for alcohol and heroin, Glory finds herself in Minnesota having learned she is HIV-positive.

Those details about Glory's life mirror those of the real life author. It's not surprising, because these stories have an authenticity that goes beyond the average research done for similar material.

Glory experiences the heights and horrors of 12-step recovery, with the author in firm retention of her sense of humor despite the bleakness of life that faces her heroine.

Bart Schneider, editor of Ruminator Review, writes of Carter that she's "a writer of breathtaking originality whose inventiveness with language assures that whatever she writes will be interesting. . . "

Reading the work of Emily Carter will elicit grins and giggles. As a writer, she's something special. You may find yourself, upon finishing this book, wishing you could somehow share a couple of black coffees with this truly excellent writer.

Fathers and Sons

Here's another debut novel. Allen Watt's future might be more in the realm of screenwriter than novelist.

Diamond Dogs (Little Brown, $23.95) could almost be a screenplay and that surely will be the final outcome for this endeavor. It tells the familiar tale of father and son, who step cautiously while learning to reach a sort of peace.

The son, a teenager, attends a party in which too much booze is consumed. He decides to drive home and the inevitable accident occurs. To the son's surprise, his father, sheriff of a county near Las Vegas, acts to protect him and to divert investigators who seem determined to pin the blame on someone.

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