by Karen Yvonne Hamilton, 2025
I found this book as a book read for the Key West Library Book Club. The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel (Author), Bruna Dantas Lobato (Translator)
This is an oddly written little book. I like odd. Reminiscent of Faulkner and Whitman to me in its disjointed stream of consciousness way.
Punctuation is optional. It is often difficult to determine who is speaking as the conversations run together. It took a bit of work, in other words. But I like that because it suggests to me a writer who is writing from a deeply personal space, and I want to get to know him.
This is how our minds work, is it not? Disjointed, passing from past to present to future in an instant and then back again. Like poetry, the words here in this novel are all feeling. Like poetry, the words convey all the feelings that words defy.
The themes of family and how cultural and political climates dictate (try to dictate) who we are.
How do you move in such a climate?
How do you survive in such a climate?
And given our current political climate in the United States, how do you rise above the hate, indivision, and exclusion to carve out a life that is your true life?
Ah, I could go on, but the words stand. They mean something profound, but you will have to leave your insulated world of what passes for normalcy to reach their meaning. I encourage you to do so.
Other Rivers 
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