Ben Casey Days - Softcover

Ratner, Rochelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0979241677 ISBN 13: 9780979241673

Publisher: Marsh Hawk Press, 2008

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Poetry. Rochelle Ratner, who died in early 2008, completed BEN CASEY DAYS, her twenty-third book, before her death. It is a landscape of moments in which headlines from news media are transformed into psychological snapshots with the power of lucid dreams. "It is a work of quiet genius, a cocoon that contains Ben and Ken [her husband], you and me, and the author herself, who emerges from it like a rare butterfly, one of a kind; read it and glimpse the colors of a remarkable soul"--Paul Pines. Other books by Rochelle Ratner available from SPD include BALANCING ACTS, COMBING THE WAVES, BEGGARS AT THE WALL, and HOUSE AND HOME.

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About the Author

Rochelle Ratner lives in New York City. Her books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). An anthology she edited, Bearing Life: Women's Writings on Childlessness, was published in January 2000 by The Feminist Press. Links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com. (February 2006, December 2006). See also "Books" link in Lunarosity Menu. (In Memoriam, 2008).

Review

Ben Casey Days is a landscape of moments in which headlines from news media are transformed into psychological snapshots with the power of lucid dreams. We watch a man whose wife is about to have a mastectomy haunt a department store exhibiting a wall of silicon breasts; the growing anxiety of a clown attempting to entertain a child succumbing to anesthesia; a group of would-be brides battling cancer suspect their real groom might be the Angel of Death. The five sections of the book, MAN, WOMAN, BIRTH, DEATH and INFINITY, taken from the 1960's TV series, Ben Casey, suggest the tensions of opposites as a condition of life. The author, battling terminal cancer, locates on Ebay a Ken doll in a Ben Casey suit. Conflating the healer, Ben, with her husband, Ken, she reaches out to both. Ben Casey Days is a parting gift. It is a work of quiet genius, a cocoon that contains Ben and Ken, you and me, and the author herself, who emerges from it like a rare butterfly, one of a kind; read it and glimpse the colors of a remarkable soul. --Paul Pines

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