Unsolved Mysteries

Poetry. Fiction. Drama. Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Marie Buck’s new Roof Book UNSOLVED MYSTERIES collects a group of short prose pieces that mashup stories from the television show Unsolved Mysteries and her reminiscences growing up in rural South Carolina. Buck’s work unravels not only the mysteries of the tv series, but also how American popular culture portrays the working class. The violence of the lives and deaths of people named Dexter and Kari Lynn in the tv show inspire in Buck ambitions for social justice, revelatory sexual engagements and hope for clarity in documenting what really happens to people in contrast to the cleaned-up versions of more commercial narratives. Buck keeps hoping people will be alright, but she knows they died in pain and their deaths cause unending sorrow to their families. Such clear and poignant social texts are rare among today’s poets, especially when they converge honesty and sympathy. Readers will find no sentimentality in UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, but they may find themselves.