Rose Solari’s Review of “Million Dollar Red” Lands on the Front Page of Lit Pub

As with every chapter in Million Dollar Red, “Abortos” is written to be read as a self-contained story. Aside from the obvious commercial value of this structure — the stand-alone nature of the chapters makes them ideal for promotional excerpting — it also allows Powers to pinball about in her life story. Instead of following a single linear path, the reader scrambles through Powers’ memories with her, alighting here and there for a tense and telling anecdote.  What is lost in such a form is the sense of perspective that a more linear framework would allow. But the book mirrors the hectic, arbitrary twists and turns of the writer’s life.

Chief among these is a chance meeting in a Scottsdale bar with Ray, a costume designer in town to work on the Michelangelo Antonioni film, “Zabriskie Point.” Ray and Linda become a couple, and before long she is traveling with him, meeting a series of artistic and cultural luminaries who she finds alternately intimidating and inspiring.  One of the latter is Kathleen Cleaver, wife of Black Panther co-founder Eldridge Cleaver, who powers meets when Antonioni is filming the group in New York. Cleaver provides the narrator with a powerful life motto: “Imagination is the most powerful weapon we have.”

As Powers makes her way from LA to New York, the pace pics up, along with her artistic aspirations.