This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Sean Akerman is a writer of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Born in the lakes region of central Maine, he moved to New York City in 2006, where he earned a PhD in social / personality psychology from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Over the course of his teaching career, he held faculty appointments at Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College. His books include: the novel, Outposts (Threekookaburras); the novella, Krakow (Harvard Square Editions); the poetry collection, The Magnitudes (Main Street Rag Publications); and a study of exile, Words and Wounds (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). He lives in the North Woods near Lake Superior's south shore. Currently, he is seeking representation for a novel manuscript about ten years in the life of a con-man.
contact: akerman.sean@gmail.com
Reviewed by Jack Messenger for Readers' Favorite
The prologue to Sean Akerman’s Krakow discloses the novella’s intriguing premise: a character, who may or may not be the author himself, has found in his New York apartment two short journals written by the previous tenants – a young man and woman whose relationship is crumbling apart. The text of these journals forms Krakow itself, which commences with the man’s account of events and then the woman’s. The journal entries describe the squall of emotions and shifting behaviours of each individual, their complex interactions and inchoate longings, the significant interventions of friends and family, and the pervasive influence of the past – past relationships in particular, but also the Past as a ghostly, monumental weight pressing down on the Present.
Krakow is an intensely literary text that rewards the reader's close attention to the nuances of thought and feeling experienced by the struggling couple, described with hermetic, elusive prose. Akerman is particularly skilled in delineating the distinctive voices of his protagonists, as well as their conflicting perspectives and needs. The woman’s journal entries are especially impressive: her self-understanding and powers of self-expression contrast vividly with her partner’s chopped-up, disconnected evasions and retreats. Krakow is also a New York story: the various quarters of the city, its streets and bars, the girdling ocean, are an enfolding presence, pierced only by a moment’s betrayal in another city and, above all, by a mysteriously significant visit to Auschwitz, the connotations of which are powerfully suggestive. Devotees of the contemporary American literary movement will respond with enthusiasm to this exemplary novella.
