"Essentially Beach takes away the main thing that's made Bond films international hits for five decades - the vicarious jolt of escapist adventure they provide for our ho-hum lives. So how does Bond cope with this smothering dose of reality?. Readers will have to peruse The Last Temptation of Bond, an imaginative pastiche of poetry, prose and playwriting, to see ... Read morewhether the one-time spy gets his action-packed life back." Lana Michelin, Red Deer Advocate, March 15, 2013 "[Kimmy Beach] has a tremendous skill at drawing readers into whatever world she is creating - we see the characters, we hear them and our senses are starkly aware of their surroundings. Readers truly feel close to what's going on. Honestly, there is little that can compare with her boldness as an author and creativity as an artist. Each word feels like it has been carefully chosen, but at the same time the text clips along with a completely natural feel." Mark Weber, Red Deer Express, April 10, 2013 "The poet's fifth collection is an exploration of [James Bond's] essence, the alchemical composition of his fictional (and physical) allure. The Last Temptation of Bond, however, is far more than an erotic exploration of a beloved character; it is also an examination of the limits of that character, the points at which Bond might become fractured and undone. Beach explores Bond at his most vulnerable, at moments of self-doubt, loathing, failure, and fear (the same way Scorsese treats Christ in the film alluded to in the collection's title). Beach is no stranger to exploring seductive pop-culture figures in her poetry.... She handles Bond even more intimately, wriggling her fingers into the fault lines of his psyche and gleefully ripping." Natalie Zina Walschots, Quill & Quire [Full review at http://bit.ly/17ndxbx] #2 on the Calgary Herald's Bestsellers list (Fiction) for the week of June 29, 2013 "As a publication within U of A Press's Robert Kroetsch poetry series, the book's freedom of movement among genres and voices honours Kroetsch, who would have appreciated both the elevation and the reduction (but not the demise, Bond is eternal) of the cultural hero. The cover (Roberto Conte's angel) is stunning.... From the start, through highly detailed second-person, as well as third-person prose, Beach pulls her readers into the world of Bond and his women.... The power of this book is its confident enjoyment within fictional and imaginative realities.... The book calculatedly engages its readers on an experiential level and demands readers' responses not only to its content but to the ways the content is delivered. Its light touch is always tongue in cheek..." Cornelia Hoogland, The Coastal Spectator, June 29, 2013 [Full review at http://coastalspectator.ca/] "Red Deer's Kimmy Beach offers her best book yet in The Last Temptation of Bond. In something resembling an experimental thriller/romance novel, Beach's long poem satirizes the pop-culture figure of James Bond.. The Last Temptation of Bond is smarter, funnier, sexier and perhaps even more plausible than any Bond film." Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press, July 27, 2013 [Full article at http://bit.ly/1btKwg0] Quill & Quire asked readers to submit their favourite Canadian titles of 2013, and while the results featured a breadth of authors and publishers, some clear winners stood out, such as The Last Temptation of Bond! http://bit.ly/1jpH8Xj "In this book of wonderful poetry on all things Bond, Beach invents a few what-if situations and also a very exciting but mysterious woman she calls One." Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, February 18, 2014 [Full post at http://bit.ly/1cdzQOe] "In a penetrating, violent, sexy, and often hilarious apocalypse, a world-famous superspy meets his demise at the hands of an audacious, painstaking poet. Kimmy Beach fuses popular culture and narrative poetry to astonishing effect in this, her fifth book. Feasting on the tropes, traps, and types of the James Bond mythos and doubling back on the incendiary narrative of Nikos Kazantzakis The Last Temptation of Christ, Beach and her cast of loved-and-left Bond Girls dismantle the man and his mysteries. Fans of Beachs tenacious poetry and readers seeking redemption in explosive narrative and fearless wit will love this book."
Zane Hannan
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"This is Beach's most mature and sophisticated book yet and one that lends itself to different readings whether as entertainment, a feminist text, or a sophisticated play of intertextuality.... I woke with a smoker's cough and a vicarious hangover after reading these poems." FreeFall, Vol. XXIV, No. 1
Bruce Hunter
FreeFall
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