E.B. Boatner

1 week ago | lavendermagazine.com | E.B. Boatner

One of the books reviewed in this issue is Shannon T.L. Kearns’ “No One Taught Me How to Be a Man,” centering on his journey transitioning to his proper self. I mentioned the title to a friend who commented that he’d confronted his own dad, saying, “I had to learn this from a book!”“How do you think I learned?” his father replied.

3 weeks ago | lavendermagazine.com | E.B. Boatner

I’ve recently come across two highly engrossing books, histories of eras that shaped today’s America, each highlighting problems that concern us today. I recommend reading both, though not necessarily together, if you’ve any intention to remain optimistic about the future.

1 month ago | lavendermagazine.com | E.B. Boatner

Dwayne A. Ratleff’s “Dancing to the Lyrics,” reviewed in Lavender in 2022, was told through the eyes of a 5-year-old self, aka Grant Cole, a small, fierce intelligence navigating 1960’s segregated Baltimore, and a home steeped in its own violence, dominated by a cruel stepfather. Ratleff later commented, “The biggest problem was how to categorize the book. It is obviously a memoir, but I had to give the living plausible deniability.

1 month ago | lavendermagazine.com | E.B. Boatner

“Rabbis of the Garden State”Daniel MeltzRattling Good Yarns Press$18.95If you grew up on “Catcher in the Rye,” but were Jewish, don’t miss this yeshiva twist on the age-old problems facing a young male growing up too smart, too clueless, too attracted to a handsome rabbi — and burdened with a mom suffering similar attractions — and acting out on them.

1 month ago | lavendermagazine.com | E.B. Boatner

“Blue,” that is, the hue, creates a ninth character in the Guthrie’s latest production of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.” Set in a winter snowstorm, the frisson of murder onstage is intensified through the spectrum of chilly blues painted throughout the vast single-room set; the walls, the window trim, the blue height of the ceiling all make the viewer unconsciously pull his sweater around a bit tighter.