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By: Ulmer & Berne LLP

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Patty Shlonsky

Latest from From Briefs to Books

“The Vixen” is a sort of coming of age story that takes place in the 1950s, during America’s struggle to assess its morality in the McCarthy era. The novel, in many but not all ways, revolves around the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1953. Simon Putnam narrates the story and has just graduated from Harvard with a degree in Folklore and Mythology. Despite a reference from his renowned professor Robertson Crowley, Simon is rejected from a…
“Whereabouts” is a short novel that follows the solitary life of a middle aged woman through her daily movements from place to place. The novel consist of 46 chapters, each of which is a different place. Through her regular activity we learn a great deal about the life of the unnamed protagonist, who is a 45 year old university professor. The novel begins with the main character seeing a close male friend on the street.…
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“A bank robbery. A hostage drama.  A stairwell of police officers on their way to storm an apartment. It was easy to get to this point, much easier than you might think. All it took was one single really bad idea.” Anxious People is the story of a bank robber and the bank robber’s hostages. Or maybe it’s not. Anxious People is a story about suicide and unexpected connections. Or maybe it’s not. Anxious People…
“Deacon Cuffy Lambkin of Five Ends Baptist Church became a walking dead man on a cloudy September afternoon in 1969. That’s the days the old deacon, known as Sportcoat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient .45 Luger in the face of a nineteen-year-old drug dealer named Deems Clemens, and pulled the trigger.” Sportcoat is 71 years old and well known in the…
“Interior Chinatown” is a creatively conceived story of the difficulty of being Asian in America. The story is told by Willis Wu, the adult son of Chinese immigrants. Willis is an actor, usually playing minor roles and longing to be “Kung Fu Guy.” “Ever since you were a boy, you’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy. You are not Kung Fu Guy.” Willis’s parents were also actors, playing minor parts throughout their lives and otherwise…
Stella and Desiree Vignes are twin sisters born and raised in Mallard, Louisiana and inseparable through childhood. Mallard is not exactly a town but more of a place with an identity. “The town had never actually been a town at all. State officials considered it a village but the United States Geological Survey referred to it only as a populated place.” Mallard was unique, “A town that, like any other, was more idea than place…The…
“Leave the World Behind” is a dystopian novel that feels all too real. Something is happening but no one seems to know what. Clay and Amanda, average New York City dwellers, have rented a luxurious house on Long Island for a much needed vacation with their two teenage children, Archie and Rose. Amanda found the house on Airbnb, where the owner suggested that the renter “Step into our beautiful house and leave the world behind.”…
Hamnet is a story of family, loss and overwhelming grief. The story begins with an historical Note advising the reader that “Hamnet died in 1596, aged eleven. ~Four years or so later, the father wrote a play called Hamlet.” The story begins at Hamnet’s home in Stratford, where his twin sister Judith has fallen extremely ill, the house is empty and Hamnet is desperately seeking help. “This moment is the absent mother’s: the boy, the…
“Homeland Elegies” is a complex, part novel, part memoir about an American Muslim’s complicated relationship with his country and his family. The novel begins with a letter from the author to his readers, explaining the intent of the novel. “I wrote Homeland Elegies in something of a fever dream after my mother passed away, and after Donald Trump’s election…I wanted to remember what it was that brought them here…fifty years ago…Above all, I wanted to…
“The Cold Millions” is a big (figuratively speaking) beautiful work of historical fiction. The story revolves around the very real 1909 organizing and fundraising campaign of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Spokane, Washington and the also very real activities of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The story begins with the shooting death of a policeman, Alfred Waterbury, while investigating a burglary in one of the wealthy neighborhoods of Spokane. This shooting causes the somewhat…