Book Review: Please See Us

BY LAURIE ROCKENBECK

Caitlin Mullen’s debut novel Please See Us takes genre norms, chews them up, and spits them out into a gripping literary thriller. This ambitious work delves into a myriad of societal issues—trafficking, bullying, motherhood, drug abuse, mental health, inadequate foster systems, and misogyny.

In the prologue, we are introduced to two nameless women lying together as described by a distant omniscient narrator. If this were a movie, it would begin with a long shot of an airplane flying an advertising banner low over a decrepit Atlantic City. The camera would leave the plane as it swoops around to the back of a grungy pay-by-the-hour hotel and focus on the two women who are “laid out like tallies in the stretch of marsh just behind the Sunset Motel.”

TCR Talks with Rene Denfeld

BY FELICITY LANDA

The Butterfly Girl is Rene Denfeld’s second novel in the world of Naomi Cottle, a private investigator who is drawn to cases of missing children. Naomi’s knack for finding these children has earned her the name “The Child Finder,” but her need to pursue them stems from the one cold case in her own life: the missing sister she left behind when she herself escaped captivity as a child. When Naomi sets aside her work to finally find her sister, she meets Celia, a lonely homeless child abandoned to the streets. Celia is running from her abusive stepfather and hiding amongst butterflies, her imagined guardians and the only place she feels safe. Naomi and Celia continue to collide throughout a shocking series of events in Naomi’s search.

Denfeld’s own experience as a homeless teen has led to an incredible life of advocacy, from her career as a public defender helping victims of trafficking, to her life as a foster mother of twenty years. Denfeld is no stranger to the hardships of abandoned children, and she cares for her characters as fiercely as she cares for those off the page who turn to her for aid.

Denfeld has written a tense, page-turning, crime novel that leaves readers feeling connected to her characters and their stories in an intimate way. Naomi and Celia dig through their haunted pasts, even while they uncover the truth of the present. The Butterfly Girl is a book that lingers, alive with hope as much as it is streaked in sorrow. Denfeld and I spoke about the importance of how we fictionalize trauma, the way she discovers her stories, and the beautiful and inspiring life she has led that motivates her writing.

TCR Talks with Steph Cha

By Collin Mitchell

Steph Cha is the author of four novels including the Juniper Song mystery series (Follow Her Home, Beware Beware, Dead Soon Enough) and most recently, Your House Will Pay, a highly-anticipated and well-reviewed book about the aftermath of the 1992 L.A. riots and the relationship between the Korean and African-American communities. Steph Cha spoke about the narrative possibilities of crime fiction at the UC Riverside Low-Res MFA December residency. I sat down with her afterward to talk about Los Angeles, Palmdale, writing different races, and a little about food.

The Coachella Review: One of the things I like about your books is your appreciation for Koreatown in Los Angeles. You’re from the Valley. What was your relationship to Koreatown like growing up?

Steph Cha: Koreatown was probably what I thought of as L.A. because we lived in the suburbs and we would go into L.A. for dinner or go to the market because a lot of the stuff was there. My grandma lived in Koreatown, so when we went into Central Los Angeles it was to go to K-Town. It was always a major part of my map of Los Angeles, but I didn’t necessarily know the surrounding areas.

Book Review: The Butterfly Girl

By Laurie Rockenbeck

The Butterfly Girl, Rene Denfeld’s second offering in her Naomi Cottle series, explores what it is to be lost versus invisible in a gritty thriller set in Portland’s Skid Row. Denfeld does a masterful job creating a compelling narrative by alternating views between two main characters—Naomi and Celia.

Naomi Cottle was once a lost child, and her work as a private investigator is focused on finding other children. She comes to Portland to search for her sister and has vowed not to take on any other cases until she finds her.

Celia is a twelve-year-old girl who has run from an abusive home.  It is through Celia’s eyes that Denfeld shows the starkest separation of the two worlds in which these characters live. Naomi is part of what Celia thinks of as day people as opposed to those who live and die on Skid Row. When Celia first encounters Naomi, it is with the same suspicion and loathing she holds for all day people:

The woman clearly did not belong here, not in these days of sea creatures washed up onshore. What happened in the night was meant to stay secret–like what had happened with her step-dad, Teddy. Celia had made the mistake of telling. She had found out that the people of the day don’t want to know what happened in the night.

TCR Talks with Helene Stapinski

BY: Lindsay jamieson

 

Helene Stapinski is a best-selling author of three memoirs: Five Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, which has been made into a documentary; Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair with Music; and her latest, Murder in Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy. Her essays have appeared in several anthologies, including Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up.

Book Review: Maria Hummel’s “Still Lives”

BY D.M. Olsen

It’s the opening night of Still Lives at the Roque Museum and it’s the buzz of the art scene in Los Angeles. It’s also the wildly anticipated return of Kim Lord, who has conjured up a twelve-piece exhibit portraying the murdered bodies of famous victims including Elizabeth Short, Gwen Araujo, Chandra Levy, and Nicole Brown Simpson. The only issue is, Kim Lord never shows up.