Reviews

Francis Moul On Roughnecks

Gritty. Rugged. Tragic. Those words well describe this novel of the early days of oil field exploration and drilling in the late seventies in North Dakota and Montana. They were the precursor to the Wild West scene of oil fracking that is playing out there today.

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 Brooke Kenny On Bermuda Shorts!

Brooke Kenny of the Montgomery Gazette and her excellent review of Bermuda Shorts is here!

“To Make The Personal Universal”

Hank Thomas On Bermuda Shorts!

True Story: last night I propped up my reading pillow with the idea of making it through a few chapters of “Bermuda Shorts,” a new anthology of short stories, some fiction but mostly of the memoir variety, from James J. Patterson, or Jimmy to his many friends. I didn’t have a lot of time for this, with a ballgame coming up, eBay trolling to do, I figured I would put in an hour or so to see what it was like. You know how busy I am…

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Grevel Lindop On Bermuda Shorts!

Grevel Lindop, of Manchester, England, Poet, Essayist, Robert Graves Scholar and editor of The White Goddess, plus DeQuincies’ Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, and one of the planet’s coolest dudes, author of dozens of books, incuding his latest, Travels On The Dance Floor, and Selected Poems, has this to say…Bermuda Shorts “has that feel and verbal texture of classic American writing about it.”

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Joanna Biggar On Bermuda Shorts!

“Happily, early on, James J. Patterson discovered that the bumpy road through life was lined with books. Clearly, somewhere along the way he pulled out a volume of Montaigne.The young 20th century rebel must have found much to admire in the French Renaissance thinker’s essays, and especially the meaning of the word essayer, to try – both as a philosophy of living and as a style for writing. The essays in Patterson’s delightful volume, Bermuda Shorts, highlight the ways in which life and literature intertwine. And, like the 16th century master, Patterson makes this literary form his own invention.”

Find her lovely blog here!

Dr. Katherine Williams On Bermuda Shorts!

“Some of the essays are the literary equivalent of the Buddhist meditation on the skull, which is meant to use the sense of impending death as an impetus to love the juicy, impermanent life at hand. How fortunate for the reader that life, for this author is music…”

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Rick Walter on Bermuda Shorts!

Lovers of the personal essay should be rejoicing in the streets at word of this collection. For readers and acquaintances of Jimmy Patterson, it is long overdue, but the author was born in Washington, D.C., where the machinery of progress is congenitally slow. So this book, in many important ways – is what all satisfying collections of autobiographical essays should be – a mirror of place.

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Myra Sklarew On Bermuda Shorts!

Poet, Scientist, Educator, Mrya Sklarew:

“It is like sitting down with a very intelligent friend and having the kind of conversation you’d always wanted to have.” Read her charming letter here…

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