Motel Chronicles – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave I was drawn to playwright Sam Shepard’s Motel Chronicles because I have a love of photos and descriptions of old motels.

🖊️📚🖋️ Today's review is of Sam Shepard's Motel Chronicles!

The feeling of being lost on highways and in the liminal spaces lit by neon — written in journal entries, short essays, very short stories, poetry.

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Suzanne and Louise – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave Suzanne and Louise are Guibert’s two aging great aunts who lived alone together in an apartment for more than forty years.

🖋️📚 Today's review is of Hervé Guibert's Suzanne and Louise!

Not every life follows the same path. Guibert is a gay man that is dying of AIDS. His great aunts Louise and Suzanne have each other.

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Forbidden Notebook – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave Forbidden Notebook begins when Valeria Cossati, a bourgeois housewife with a part-time job, buys a notebook from the local tobacconist.

🖋️📚 Today's review is of Forbidden Notebook!

This is a powerful story of identity and just how women are stripped of it. Cossati doesn’t even feel comfortable in her own mind and her thoughts.

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The Fate of Mary Rose – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave In the Fate of Mary Rose, Blackwood uses crime to explore both violence against women and female-perpetrated violence.

🖋️📚 Today's review is of Blackwood's The Fate of Mary Rose!

Blackwood examines the impact of violence against women through the forces that fuel Cressida’s increasingly severe mental illness.

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Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave Cookie Mueller is one of those people that become the embodiments of specific times, places, scenes, and stories.

🖊️📚 Today's review is of Cookie Mueller's Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black!

Mueller is an embodiment of specific times, places, scenes, and stories.

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At the Bottom of the River – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave It’s important that one does not expect completely linear stories when one picks up At the Bottom of the River.

Today's review is of At the Bottom of the River!

It’s important not to expect completely linear stories. These are somewhere in the space between prose and prose poetry.

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The Weary Blues & The Ways of White Folks – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave I was especially excited to see that this collected volume included a book of Hughes’ poetry, The Weary Blues.

Today's review is of the @everymanslibrary.bksy.social collection of Langston Hughes' work!

Often, it is the perfect union of opposites. Harsh and beautiful. Joyful and full of grief.

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Neighbors and Other Stories – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver is her first and only collection, published in 2024 though Oliver died in 1966 at only 22.

Today's review is of Diane Oliver's Neighbors and Other Stories!

Oliver died in 1966 at only twenty-two years old. Though the book is new, the stories are classics.

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The Harlem Book of the Dead – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave The Harlem Book of the Dead is a sampling of the work of James Van Der Zee, who was both a conventional as well as a funerary photographer.

This week on the blog is a book that is recently back in print — The Harlem Book of the Dead with photographs by James Van Der Zee, poetry by Owen Dodson, and an interview by Camille Billops.

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Vegas – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave John Gregory Dunne’s Vegas is describing Dunne’s dark season. He’s forty-two and feels unmoored in his career and his life.

Today's review on #oldpaperandcats is of John Gregory Dunne's Vegas! #booksky #bookreview
I think it’s a pretty common experience to have a dark season. I remember how lost I felt in my twenties, when school was over and everyone started to ask me what was next.
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