Between Eden and the Open Road

Featured Book Review: Between Eden and the Open Road
Philip Gaber (Author)

“Between Eden and the Open Road by Philip Gaber is a collection of free verse poems that explore persistent and life-eroding human qualities: angst, longing, spiritual agony, all-encompassing frustrations, drunkenness, disappointments and all manner of neuroses. Many of the poems deliver. “I think my life’s story needs a rewrite”, is the piece that has the most structure. It is crisp; the unsteady rhythm is somewhat secured by the unusual near-rhyme scheme. The book is essentially an exploration of human emotions. Characters visit brothels, hold conversations with optimistic tramps, fail in relationships, make half-hearted attempts at therapy, suffer through circumcision and become entranced by the impromptu chalkboard sketches of Pablo Picasso. Characters are aggrieved by their failings, and then resolve to keep failing.

Between Eden and the Open Road is dedicated to those for whom it speaks, and this book is undoubtedly meant to speak to a segment of the population that feels unyielding despair over life’s failures. Many of Gaber’s observations descend into trite coolness. There is a rugged, dive-bar, whiskey soaked motif in most of the poems.Those who love tales of debauchery and regret will appreciate the scope of Between Eden and the Open Road. The book will certainly speak to its pain and whiskey-loving readership loud and clear.

Between Eden and the Open Road
Philip Gaber (Author)

ISBN: 978-0615585864

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