The FXBG Advance reviewers have selected some of their favorites from 2023. Happy reading – and watching – and Happy New Year!
Drew Gallagher
Final Resting Places edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White
Paperback $34.99
This collection of essays on Civil War grave sites and monuments, written by some of the foremost Civil War historians, is fascinating in both its scope and in the uniqueness of the gathered essays. The essay on the death and burial of John Wilkes Booth should be of interest to local readers given his capture and death in Caroline County. The essay also offers convincing evidence to conspiracy theorists that Booth was in fact killed and was not spirited away by Confederate sympathizers to live out his life in anonymity.
Stolen by Night by Steve Watkins
Hardcover $18.99
Watkins is a local author, friend of mine, and editor and creator of the “Pie and Chai,” a free online magazine that deserves your attention. Also deserving of attention is Stolen by Night. This is not an easy novel for Young Adults because it deals with a concentration camp in France during World War II, but it belongs under the banner of necessary reading lest we forget the atrocities committed by mankind against their fellow man. Watkins’ writing style is inimitable, and the story of teenage Nicolette is compelling.
Dennis Wemm
The Bridges of Madison County
Riverside Center for the Performing Arts
My favorite theater in 2023 came in the form of a thrice-told love story. The Bridges of Madison County started as a novel by Robert Evans Waller, was made into a cinematic hit, and then adapted for the musical stage. Riverside Center for the Performing Arts produced it in the fall, and it was a powerfully romantic treat.
It featured two passionate stars whose chemistry grew from real life, a supporting cast that was truly supportive and technical precision that not only drew my focus where it wanted me to look, but did not let me look anywhere else. This was the triumph of artistic production, and there was never a moment that I could take my eyes from the stage, not even to glance at my program.
Of course, good production is only the “icing.” The “cake” of a musical is the script and the score. Marsha Norman’s adaptation brimmed with the image of life. The score by Jason Robert Brown ranged from Grand Ole Opry kitsch to operatic heights.
I would probably never have sought out this show, but I’m grateful to have the chance to brag on it.
Nathan Sekinger
Me (Moth) by Amber Mcbride
Paperback $9.99
There are summer days where everything feels endless. This is the sensation created while reading Me (Moth) by Amber Mcbride, even in December.
Mcbride is a Virginia author, a professor at UVA and one who tells a lyrical story that burns while it warms. In her debut work, this verse novel combines many compelling elements: road trips, starry nights, shared song lyrics and tragic love.
So much is not working for Moth and Sani. She is too scarred from the loss of her family and broken dreams of dancing ballet: all gone after the accident. He sees and feels too much, rejected by his birth father and isolated from his family.
They don’t work in life but are perfect for each other. They bond over a deep connection to the past, Sani’s Navajo medicine man father, and Moth’s Hoodoo grandfather. They each have a greater relationship with the earth and their pasts than with others in the world.
So, they hit the road together traveling from Virginia to Arizona with equal parts hope and desperation. Each stop yields an epiphany of place and of each other. And this road trip will end surely, just as this story does, too soon and not nearly in the place where you expected it to.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Hardcover $16.99
Out of the books I have read this year, the themes and ideas from Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus have stayed with me. Garmus’s main character, Elizabeth Zott, endures frequent challenges as a scientist and single mother in the 1950’s but remains focused on her goals and learns how to both give and receive help, trust, and love. The story centers on the way that Elizabeth approaches the world and how she is confident in her own worth and vision. Ultimately, her story encourages readers to find what sustains and fulfills them and make time for it. A great read for reflection on 2023 and inspiration for 2024!
Local Obituaries
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Become One of the Elite Eighty
W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe Jackson Goes to Iowa (you may know it better as the movie “Field of Dreams,”) said it best.
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Thank you for reading and supporting FXBG Advance.
-Martin Davis, Editor
