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The Best American 2014 Series

Summer Wakes the Bear Who Sleeps

Summer wakes

Just got Summer Wakes the Bear Who Sleeps by Aaron Youngren and Charles Perrault in the mail for review. It's a book of poetry, one-act plays, sermons, and essays from St. George Rides the Dragon Press. Intriguing. Aaron is pastor of The Line in Chicago.

“Ah, now I see. For this she sleeps. She sleeps the winter gone, as do all of her kind. She sleeps for rest.” “No. The sleep she has chosen is a sleep without rest, a sleep tormented, a sleep that ends in death.” So begins an exploration of human frailty through the lens of fairy tale, image, one-acts, ritual, and poetry. Along the way: volunteerism as modern indulgence and doubt as modern fundamentalism; a father who tries to be a brother, and a brother who won't let him; a heretical text; a ship's captain who wants nothing more than to leave his wife and children. “So you have done all, you have sent all, and still she did not turn. There is nothing more to be done.” “No. There is still one more to send.”