Too Close for Comfort

By Joan Kantor

In Too Close for Comfort Joan Kantor speaks for those who all too often have no voices of their own. Her thought provoking work reminds us that we cannot close our eyes to what's happening around us. As Kantor says in a poem about the refugee crisis, "Conscience is becoming contagious . . ." I hope so. -Donna Marie Merritt, author of We Walk Together (Beech Hill Publishing Company, 2015) In Too Close for Comfort, Joan Kantor dares to visit scenes of violence, desolation and unbearable grief with an unflinching eye. Kantor particularly connects with women helpless to feed or protect their children. In "Going Home," she meets a woman travelling to Kosovo to see her sick mother, a mother who sacrificed for her daughter to get to the U.S., a mother who "worked so hard / that she never had time to be pretty / or young." In "Where Mothers Come From," she implicates herself for having spent $120 on a designer doll, only to come face to face on the train ride home with an El Salvadoran woman and her young daughter, one month in this country and filled with hope. Joan Kantor's goal is to bring world events too close for comfort and with this impressive collection, she succeeds. -Christine Beck, author of Blinding Light (Grayson Books) In Too Close for Comfort, a compelling page-turner, Joan Kantor takes on powerful themes with passion and absolute lucidity-inner city life, racism, a fractured judicial system, Sandy Hook, illegal aliens, hunger, and the seemingly perpetual presence of war. She backs down from nothing, but stands her ground with clarity and compassion. This collection is a powerfully disconcerting and entirely fulfilling read, one that, when you begin, you cannot stop. -John Stanizzi, author of Hallelujah Time (Big Table Book Company)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692677763
• ISBN13: 9780692677766
• Release Date: July 2016
• Publisher: Aldrich Press
• Length: 58 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"