Amy Brozio-Andrews
Freelance Writer | Book Reviewer
Selected clips
Dastgah: Diary of a Headtrip by Mark Mordue
(Book review for Absinthe Literary Review, Summer/Autumn 2005 issue)
"From his walking tour of Cimitière du Père Lachaise in Paris, the final resting place of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde among many others, to crashing a Rolling Stones after-concert party in Turkey, Mordue’s writing style is intimate and bare, never just re-telling a tale but taking the reader along for the ride. His short vignettes share more clearly than any ethnographic description in a traditional travel guide the day-to-day life in places most of us will probably never get the opportunity to see: who drinks coffee in Tehran and why; the unexpected sight of a Nepalese woman’s face when her shawl slips out of place; what to say when running into Patti Smith in a grocery store; thoughts on taking a rickshaw in Calcutta."
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Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates
(Book review for Melt Magazine, January 2005)
"In Missing Mom, Joyce Carol Oates turns her observant eye to the subjects of
loss and grief. Thirty-one-year-old Nikki Eaton doesn't regularly give much
thought to her mother. Nikki is hip, sexy, writes for the local paper, and
enjoys a salacious relationship with a married man, much to the dismay of her
widowed mother Gwen. She figures she knows all there is to know about her
mother-- that what she sees on the surface: her kindness, trusting nature, and
willingness to demure to others on just about everything-- is all there is. At
least, that's how she and her older sister Clare treat Gwen.
"It's not until Gwen's awful murder at the hands of a paroled drifter that Nikki
realizes that her mother had a depth and breadth beyond anything she'd imagined.
Sparring with Clare over everything from the murderer's trial to clearing their
parents' belongings from the house, Nikki, floundering in her grief, finally
decides to move back in to her mother's house, at least temporarily, infuriating
Clare."
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"What a Writer's Children Learn"
(Humor essay published by Absolute Write, 2005)
"My grandma had one of those kitschy little framed plaques at her
house when I was a kid, one of the really seventies ones with the big-headed
kids and Day-Glo colors. It was a reprint of Dorothy Law Nolte's 'Children Learn
What They Live,' and it offered that kids' behavior is a reflection of the
attitudes they are exposed to. I was reminded of it recently when I witnessed
some appalling behavior from an adult in front of his child in public. Then of
course, I started thinking about what my kids might be learning as the children
of a writer. If Nolte's right (and I suspect she is), then boy, are my kids
going to be in trouble…"
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