Posts by author
Ben Pfeiffer
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“The Rainbow Troops,” by Andrea Hirata
Hirata’s romantic style, combined with attendant detail, form a controlled, cohesive vision. His passion for education and his criticism of the corporate state are tempered by humor and context, and structured around a framework of specifics: Ikal’s school, friends, and…
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The Watery Part of the World, by Michael Parker
Michael Parker’s The Watery Part of the World opens two-hundred years ago on the shores of Nag’s Head, North Carolina, a sandbank notorious for pirates who once lured ships onto the shoals for the usual rape-and-plunder reasons. Such an attack…
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Farther Away, by Jonathan Franzen
Bibliophysicists now speculate that no less than three parallel versions of Jonathan Franzen can coexist at any given moment, and the variant, some say, could be much higher. This assortment of Franzens—and how readers interpret them—can make an impartial reading…
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Nowhere Ho!
Shalom Auslander’s first novel, Hope: A Tragedy, reminds us that the world is a horrible, sad place, but luckily it’s damn funny, too.
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The Winner Returns
A 1972 novel recently re-released, Rosalyn Drexler’s To Smithereens plays with fact and imagination, memoir and fiction, in ways seldom seen in her own era.
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Make Your Own
Tyler McMahon’s debut novel relives and re-examines a celebrated musical era: grunge rock from America’s Pacific Northwest.