D R Perry: 2 books

Days of scarcity. Nights of frigid repose. A lean season reflects how the darkest corners of a creative mind are tempted to lie down in drifts of snow. Fruit of the Dead is a leathery-skinned orb, filled with seeds of discontent. Like the pomegranate, it’s best consumed slowly.

Pick these apples up, turn them in your hand, gaze, scent, bite. And, if you dare, pass them on. Golden apples blossomed, fruited, and fell in discordant seasons. Somehow they rolled home, nearly three decades gone. Gathering the windfalls of bygone years, a revelation took hold. Here lie even...