Kathleene West
The Summer of the Subcomandante
(NOVEL)

Published by Hurricane (an imprint of InteliBooks) (will appear in November) Softcover, perfect bound, 232 pages. ISBN: 0-9711391-3-X List price: $15.95 Or, if you don't want to use your credit card, download Order Form (HTML) - (PDF)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleene West grew up on a farm in Nebraska. She is Professor of poetry in the MFA program at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and the Poetry Editor of Puerto del Sol. She lived two years in Iceland on a Fulbright Fellowship. Educated at the University of Washington and the University of Nebraska, she received her PhD in English and Icelandic Studies from the University of Nebraska/Lincoln. She has published one book of short fiction, The Armadillo on the Rug and other tales (The Seal Press) and eight books of poetry, including Water Witching (Copper Canyon Press) and The Farmer's Daughter (Sandhills Press). Her last book of poetry, Romance tercermundista/Third World Romance, a bi-lingual book translated by the author, Jesús J. Barquet and others, was published in Santiago de Cuba in 2000. With Jesús J. Barquet, she translates Cuban and Dominican poetry and gives bi-lingual readings.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Summer of the Sub-Comandante by Kathleene West moves the reader physically and emotionally from Viet Nam to Latin America to Northern Europe with an uneasy home base in the United States. West's characters are peripatetic, crossing and retreating from geographical and political borders as well as the borders of the heart. They may seem elusive, but they are sharply-drawn, appearing to be more comfortable skidding through the jungles of Viet Nam on a motorcycle or advancing into a Chiapas rain forest to find a revolutionary comandante than with social encounters in living rooms, restaurants and fenced yards. Watch them advance into the no-fly zones of relationships where love and war are equally devastating.

Through her characters' observations and perceptions West establishes a wry, often-comic, ironic tone that sharply captures the fin de siècle dance of destruction and regeneration. As her characters fall-or jump-into situations ranging from the embarrassing to the perilous, West searches for truth in our confusing world. The Summer of the Sub-Comandante ultimately values truth more than comfort. Kathleene West's enactment of the most difficult, even dangerous, situations shimmer with her poetic language and inimitable humor.

-----------

Kathleene West slips handcuffs on our imagination and in exquisite language plants a smoky kiss on our chapped lips and leads us, sweaty and panting, through muddy Viet Cong tunnels into love that momentarily cools its sizzle when we emerge in Iceland. War dogs our tracks from Angkor Wat to Chicken Itzá while we seek the proper word for the spell that will stop it--the same spell that makes love stay. West is a daughter of war, wife of war, sister of war and, finally, witness to war and to love beyond borders that speaks the secret language of the spell that will bring all the world's beloved warriors home. Enter the geography of personal enlightenment--don't forget your sun block.

--Bill Ransom, author of Burn.

----------------

Table of Contents

Prelude

Martin Luther's Children - 15

I. The Road to Mandalay

Why I'm in Viet Nam: Answer l/Cu Chi - 23
Why I'm in Viet Nam: Answer 2/Bong Sen Hotel, Saigon - 25
Why I'm in Viet Nam: Answer 3/Apocalypse Now Bar - 27
Why I'm in Viet Nam: Answer 4/Hué - 29
Why I'm in Viet Nam: Answer 8/Hanoi - 31
Phnom Penh - 33
Angkor Wat - 35
The Terrace of the Leper King - 38
The Road to Mandalay - 40
Something That Might Have Happened - 42

II. Jean Rhys in Mexico

What We Have Here - 49
Post-Revolutionary, Post-Modern, Post-Revisionist Protocol - 51
Dead Metaphors - 53
Jean Rhys in Mexico - 55
The Last Intrigue in Mexico - 57
Needles in Haystacks - 59
Pomegranate Seeds - 61
We Have Spent a Great Deal of Time with Time Left Over - 64
Candles or the Moon - 66

III. Men and Parrots

Introduction, Body, Conclusion - 71
Norse Vikings Lay Waste Many a Town - 73
Too Good to Be True - 75
Truth - 76
Dare - 78
Sons and Mothers - 80
Sunday Morning - 83
Saturday Night - 86
Borrowed Time - 87
Men and Parrots: El Paso - 89
Men and Parrots: Mérida - 91
Men and Parrots: Tikal - 93
Breaking Up is Hard to Do - 95

IV. The Summer of the Sub-Comandante

Romance Language - 99
The Third Cousin of Gabriel García Márquez - 100
Because she is allowing herself some choice - 101
White Woman's Burden - 102
The Pregnant Chicken and Other Misunderstandings - 104
Identity Crisis - 106
Dreaming Your Death - 108
Where There's Smoke - 110
The Summer of the Sub-Comandante - 111

V. Before Family Values

Escape Clause - 115
A Dangerous Age - 116
Punishment - 117
The Armadillo on the Rug - 118
They Should Worry - 120
How Grown-Ups Are Right - 124

VI. Richard Nixon Made Me Do It

Ultima Cruz - 129
Call Today for an Appointment - 131
And If You Are the Oracle - 135
Spit and Image - 138
Cravings - 140
Hand Gun - 143
My Private Detective - 146
Capitalism as We Know It - 152
Why I'm at the Rolling Stones Concert: Answer 1 - 154
April 27, 1994: National Day of Mourning - 156
May 10, 1994 - 160
Parrots and Men: Moscow - 162
Happy 1984 - 164
What People Did in the '70s - 166
The Shanleys - 169
Those Poor Devils - 173

Envoi

One More Last Frontier - 179