Shining a Light on Sins of the South: A Review of Han VanderHart’s What Pecan Light
In What Pecan Light VanderHart seeks to address “the white ghosts / of the South” by bringing them to the light for all to see.
Reviews
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A History That Looks Forward: The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
. . . there are still, and always have been, other ways [of living].
A Brutal Look at Black Girlhood: Bethany C. Morrow’s Cherish Farrah
Farrah’s not a "good" victim, but does that mean she’s not a victim? More importantly, is she allowed to be both a victim and an offender?
Quiet Revolutions: Yanyi’s Dream of the Divided Field
The speaker leaps—across the vastness of the divided field, graced with old bodies, discarded relationships—and lands.
Memory Re-Drawn: Julie Doucet’s Time Zone J
Fish swim out of a head of hair, menstrual blood rains down, anonymous faces smirk: The comics of Julie Doucet have always been subversive, sly, and honest.
Sketch Book Reviews: The Red Zone by Chloe Caldwell
An illustrated review of THE RED ZONE by Chloe Caldwell.
Just An Ordinary Apocalypse: Sasha Fletcher’s Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World
The radiant engine of this novel is neither plot or character but rather the thick bundle of arcs and associations working in tandem: angels and birds, wolves and castles, unions and debt, seasons and wine and cooking and love.
Teaching the Ineffable: Learning to Pray by Yahia Lababidi
. . . in the end, the poem is its own witness to something indefinable with which the poet is engaged. Whatever the poet thinks it is, the poem itself is the vehicle, the container, describing itself and gesturing beyond its words.
A Utopia of One’s Own: Heaven Is a Place on Earth by Adrian Shirk
. . . utopia is a living, breathing, imperfect thing that expands and grows with us. It’s always a reflection of our individual selves, of the larger communities we choose, and of the time and place we are born into.
Perfectly Made and Frighteningly Fragile: This Boy We Made by Taylor Harris
We must learn to see the divine even in our sorrow
“Do You Hearest?”: A Review of Ova Completa by Susana Thénon, tr. Rebekah Smith
Where are you, Susana Thénon?—which I think might mean: How does Thénon achieve something more than evasion and isolation with all of this wandering around? Does she land somewhere?—“In a room where if I am I’m not or I am who cares”
No Way to Avoid Things Mattering: A Dream Life by Claire Messud
The placement of a marquee tent at a party or the tension between the caterer and a housekeeper take on outsized importance.