The chair of the graduate writing program at USC, Muske-Dukes has written novels (Life After Death) and poetry collections (An Octave Above Thunder); her new offering is an odd medley of essays whose observations range from fresh and enlightening to pretentious and irritating. By tackling the relationship of poetry (an "art made of consciousness") to Hollywood (a world made of images and illusions), Muske-Dukes puts a new spin on the familiar art's-connection-to-life inquiry. "Slouching Toward a Brief Literary History of Southern California" delivers the titular promise, touching on the "poetic motifs" of the Chumash Indians, L.A.'s drive to "unmake history," the "poetry karaoke" of some public readings and the work of poet Kenneth Rexroth, who came to represent "something close to a uniquely Californian identity." If it sounds confusing, it is: Muske-Dukes has so many ideas to express (often without transitions) that readers may feel as if they're standing on a fault line of logical thought. "I Married the Icepick Killer" marks a break from the theorizing (and from sentences like "for the poet who is helping shift the emphasis from emotion recollected in tranquillity to emoting rendered in amplification, the reward is the muse's cell phone number"); it is a brief, sweet meditation on her marriage to the late actor David Dukes, while "Destino," which charts their meeting, is even better. "Let Me Play the Lion Too" is an elegy to Dukes, a pastiche of interview excerpts, eulogies and snippets of their lives before and after they met. There are a few gem-like moments here, but Muske-Dukes's book ultimately fails to cohere as an argument or entertain as a memoir. Agent, Molly Friedrich. (On sale Aug. 13)
