Uke Rivers Delivers

August 14, 2006
These 14 monologues are not so much short stories as Robert Browning–like soliloquies. In them, poet (Split the Lark
) and Shenandoah
editor Smith shows history dominating current Southern life. An obsessed Civil War re-enactor follows the bidding of the ghost of Stonewall Jackson, stealing the taxidermied remains of his horse in "Little Sorrel." Sybil Mildred Clemm Legrad Pascal, a docent at Lee Chapel of Washington and Lee University (the Virginia school where Shenandoah
is based), offers her own views of the general's life. In the title story, a short ukelele player, Parham "Uke" Rivers, tells his eventful life story, which involves some dirty business with his driver and nurse-lover Sunny (whose "hospital costume in the bedroom was a special treat"), but which centers on his love for the lovely, departed Stella. Smith does a credible job with his various players' down-home diction, but their tics and concerns never coalesce into character, standing out like items in a curio shop.

January 1, 2007
Stunning in its originality and offbeat characters, this collection includes 15 micro-stories, many just a few pages long, that explore Southern culture and experience through a carnival mirror. Smith has published 13 volumes of poetry, and that experience shows in his careful, almost lyrical use of language to distill a lot of story into very few words. Several stories concern the Civil War: in "Trousseau," Jeff Davis might be trying to escape the Yankees while dressed as a woman, in "Little Sorrel," a Civil War reenactor is inspired to bury Stonewall Jackson's horse properly, and in "The Docent," a prim Sybil Mildred Clemm Legrand Pascal takes you on a revelatory tour of the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University. A small gem of Southern storytelling; important for regional collections and of interest to others as well.Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA

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