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Also this issue: A-Plus ICA Exhibits Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art of the 1970s New Edge Mix Performance Series Reich and Wrong |
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January 16-22, 2003
artpicks
Haley, the heroine of William Kowalski's The Adventures of Flash Jackson, calls herself "a stuntman trapped in a female body." She has a lot of time to think about being "trapped" after she breaks her leg in a tree-climbing incident and is forced to spend a summer indoors. Her predicament brings her closer to her grandmother, something of a mystic, and closer to being set free than the mere sawing-off of a cast can accomplish. Of the book's theme, Kowalski says, "If she's trapped, it's really due to her own perception of the situation. She resents the superficial aspects of being a girl, which is what she's learned from her mom -- dresses and things like that. Her struggle is finding out what true strength is. Strength is not the ability to knock people over or throw them through windows, but the act of creation and being creative, and that's what she's learning." Kowalski writes female characters with the attitude that men and women have more in common than set them apart. "Men and women want the same thing, which is to be loved and satisfied and content. It's not that much of a stretch." The Adventures of Flash Jackson perfectly straddles the line between being young and knowing everything, and learning life's lessons by falling off the roof. Kowalski's prose combines the intelligence of Madeleine L'Engle with the brute force of Hemingway.
William Kowalski will read Mon., Jan. 20, 7:30 p.m., free, Chester County Book Co., 975 Paoli Pike, West Chester, 610-696-1661.
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