Reviews
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“Fight Song,” by Joshua Mohr
Fight Song, Joshua Mohr’s fourth novel, is a suburban picaresque about a character cursed with a name that highlights his own mediocrity and the futility of his efforts: Bob Coffen.…
The Emily Dickinson Reader by Paul Legault
At their best, love and translation share some contradictions, including selfishness and generosity. Translation is impossible, or at least not very good, without a passionate desire to own the material…
“In Partial Disgrace,” by Charles Newman
To get to Cannonia, the setting for Charles Newman’s long-awaited and posthumously published novel, In Partial Disgrace, you’ll have a choice of gigs: “fantailed or tub-bodied; a chariotee, rockaway, or…
“How Literature Saved My Life,” by David Shields
Something similar about desire and resistance to desire is going on with David Shields, a core theme begun in Reality Hunger and now extended with How Literature Saved My Life. Dramatizing uncertainty, in authors Shields devours and lauds (think Geoff Dyer on D. H. Lawrence), is a new, largely nonfictional form, doggedly essayistic, bleedingly memoiristic. This genre amalgam is displacing traditional literary categories, especially the novel, “an artifact,” Shields writes, “which is why antiquarians cling to it so fervently.”
The Moon and Other Inventions: Poems after Joseph Cornell by Kristina Marie Darling
Marisa Siegel reviews Kristina Marie Darling’s The Moon & Other Inventions today in Rumpus Poetry.
Fair Copy by Rebecca Hazelton
Tory Adkisson reviews Fair Copy by Rebecca Hazelton today in Rumpus Poetry.
“Dora,” by Lidia Yuknavitch
Lidia Yuknavitch's Dora: A Headcase is an uncomfortable, edgy, affecting novel. The Chronology of Water had the same charge: take challenging subject matter and build a narrative akin to unpacking tension-wracked nesting dolls, cumulative sadness and worry with each new section.
New Shoes on a Dead Horse by Sierra DeMulder
Winning just about every national poetry slam competition there is, Sierra DeMulder’s words and poetic swagger have won untouchable real estate in my bookshelf. DeMulder’s newest book, New Shoes on…
The Word on the Street by Paul Muldoon
The Word on the Street is not Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon’s first work of writing for music. He wrote librettos for four Daren Hagen operas; Shining Bow, Vera of…
Sightseer by Cynthia Marie Hoffman
Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s excellent debut poetry collection, Sightseer, is part travelogue, part epistle, and part reclamation of the very idea of tourism. The winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book…
“The Atlantic Ocean,” by Andrew O’Hagan
The Atlantic Ocean, an anthology of essays from the past 20 years that was published in the UK in 2008, has just been released in North America, and that is the real news, as this book encompasses the breadth of depth of his oeuvre: it includes plenty of London and plenty of literature, yes, but it also covers the Iraqi war, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, James Baldwin, Hurricane Katrina, the demise of farming, metero magazines, and more.