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The Ice Beneath the Earth - by Brian Ascalon Roley Ascalon Roley (Paperback)
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Highlights
- Brian Ascalon Roley's poetry collection, The Ice Beneath the Earth, is an exploration of the intergenerational effects of the violence of war, illness and occupation on individual lives and families.
- Author(s): Brian Ascalon Roley Ascalon Roley
- 58 Pages
- Poetry, American
Description
Book Synopsis
Brian Ascalon Roley's poetry collection, The Ice Beneath the Earth, is an exploration of the intergenerational effects of the violence of war, illness and occupation on individual lives and families. The collections' personas and characters, who belong to the Navarro clan of his previous works, live in the shadow of the intertwined histories, at times violent, of the United States and its former colony in Asia, the Philippines. Set in the Philippine diaspora in the United States, and in the Philippines itself, this collection spans the 20th Century and explores this history's aftereffects on the level of personal lives. The characters in these poems grapple with the challenges of disability, illness, and caregiving, as well as their effects on familial relations, in the context of the complex interplay between these countries' entangled cultures.
Review Quotes
PRAISE FOR BRIAN ASCALON ROLEY'S WORK
Praise for Ambucade
"In this collection, Brian Ascalon Roley transports you into the painful world of a father coping with a son's disability. It is a lament, a rage, and at the same time a love story between a father and his son. This is a wringing read, interesting and satisfying."
-Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, award-winning author of When the Rainbow Godess Wept
Praise for The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal
"Roley's debut in FilAm literature-in American literature, more properly-was auspicious and important. He dramatized (for the first time in novel form, I believe) the plight of thoroughly assimilated and Americanized immigrant young men of Philippine ancestry...American Son is brilliantly written. Roley is one of the most adept writers I have read at using spare descriptions for crisp characterization...Roley's The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal is an appearance equally auspicious to American Son: a demonstration of the prowess of this writer in the middle of a strong literary career. ..Roley's American Son and The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal should be required reading for all of us in the diaspora, but don't read it like it's required! Enjoy."
-Vince Gotera, poet and editor emeritus of the North American Review
Praise for American Son
"Two half-Filipino brothers can pass for white, but their mother cannot; painful conflicts are in store for everybody in this complex exploration of racism in California, starting in 1993, a year after the Rodney King Riots."
-New York Times editors (an Editor's Choice and Notable Book of the Year).
"Heartbreaking...American Son is a gripping book,"
-Aleksandar Hemon writing in NY Times Book Review
"Roley writes with assurance, grace and insight, and he plays expertly with our perceptions and expectations...the result is both explosive and illuminating."
-Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times Book Review (a Best Book of the Year)