Accolades
Don Barry took me by surprise. It's both strange and wonderful.​
Raymond Foye (Hanuman Books, Brooklyn Rail)
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I appreciate Don Barry and think it is original and engaging.
Larry Kardish, former MOMA film curator
Overlook is, from one angle, a pretty high-minded, hero’s-journey myth of underworld passage, return, and redemption, sourced from traditions as various as evangelical Christianity and Dante, Jungian archetypes, Kerouac, Arthurian legend, Classical mythology, and what can only be called a pop, rock, and blues theology playing continuously (on car radio and eight-track) in the novel’s background. From another angle, Overlook is a teeming Beatnik litany of all that is rent: acutely observed rust, grime, clutter, spoiled wood, lived-in car interiors, abandoned communities, broken people, and a studious taxonomy of states of defeat and intoxication. Page to page, Overlook combines pan-theological spiritual musing and a debased, journalistic grit not just in equal measure but in some kind of metaphysical equation.
John Burdick, Hudson Valley One
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Within an evocative setting, Overlook: A Rock & Roll Fable explores the what-ifs of the late great Canadian musician Richard Manuel of The Band and his encounters with the mythical characters of Woodstock, New York—as only former upstate New Yorker and journalist Paul Smart can conjure. You'll be drawn in while longing to retrace their steps yourself.
Holly George-Warren, author of Janis: Her Life and Music and other books
With Different Eyes is a heart-stabbing book collaboration by the writer Paul Smart and the artist Richard Kroehling. In a sense, it is simply a memoir, a memoir about a man and his family during the COVID pandemic. But it's a lot more than that: a realist writer holds a mirror up to society to show us plainly what's actually there; Smart holds a mirror up to himself, then smashes it, and from the shards has composed a tightly written prose poem. His paragraphs sometimes make fleeting narratives, sometimes they are memories from decades ago, sometimes they're meditative explorations of self or family. "I try to stare mortality down," Smart writes. The book is not only about death—it's about seeing the world with different eyes. This isn't a morose or depressing work, and neither is it sentimental. This book is a gift."​
Eugene Mirabelli, Heavy Feather Review
An emotionally honest book about some of the fears we all went through during the early months of the Covid Pandemic in 2020. Kroehling's dramatic visuals are interspersed throughout the blog-like entries of Smart, who writes short vignettes about his parents, his brother, his son and his fears of what our country and the world was going through. The book is a powerful reminder of those early days when we all felt such insecurity about what was going to happen next. There's a poetic quality to it that I found calming.​
Jack Rightmyer, Times Union
We all have our Covid stories, but Smart has aimed for and achieved something more lasting and profound. His prose in With Different Eyes shows a poet's mastery at distilling life's passages into words that resonate with wisdom. This book reads like a timeless consideration of deep truths.
Will Nixon, Hudson Valley One
While struggling to grasp the immense and lurking prevalence of death and abrupt changes, Smart pens each pithy page like a diary entry, giving an aching window into daily life. From the first trip to the emergency room to watching his son spend formative years inside without his friends, the stories hit uncomfortably close to home. With Different Eyes is a time capsule for the cascade of uncomfortable emotions triggered by the pandemic.
Anne Pyburn Craig, Chronogram
Barney Hoskyn's book Small Town Talk is very good but this one, Rock & Woodstock, preceded it and gives you a real insight into Woodstock from someone who knew and was there. It's a paperback and an unknown book. It was recommended to me from someone there and it is well worth a read.
Jerry Tenenbaum, GoodReads
Rock & Woodstock is well written, very interesting history of the town of Woodstock and the rock stars who made music there. I highly recommend this for anyone who has interest in the history of music from that genre and era. Recommended!
Robert Kadar, Amazon Reviews