Halal Pork and Other Stories
Filled with a slew of social critiques and riffs on popular Muslim and American iconography, Cihan Kaan’s first collection of short stories, Halal Pork, is decidedly Muslim-American but also conflicted,…
Reviews
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The Bee-Loud Glade
Steve Himmer’s The Bee-Loud Glade is a rubber-band, stretching from nature to virtual reality and back.
Leopardi, to the Moon
A concise and erudite presentation of and meditation on the complex and solitary figure of Leopardi, it is also an exploration of the major themes and forms of the poems…
And Then Lapsed Ordinary
I found myself intrigued by all of the energy surrounding what people seem to be calling a renewed energy in Heaney’s work.
The Free World
In David Bezmozgis’s first novel, the Krasnansky’s, a family of Soviet émigrés, wait in Italy for permission to move to North America, the Free World referenced in the book’s title.
Night Soul and Other Stories
The idiosyncrasy of James McElroy’s prose has been a stumbling block for his readers, but his new collection, Night Soul and Other Stories, feels true to their author, every turn…
You Know Butterflies’ Semaphore Graces It
Why We Make Gardens abounds with… lyricism and in doing so may serve as explanation. We make gardens and poems and art to achieve gentle charms of word and life.
You May Say Fist, You May Say Teeth
The unsentimental and honest display of Levin’s attitudes towards loss – her own losses as well the ways that others grieve their lost loved ones – is both moving and…
Other People We Married
Emma Straub’s debut collection of stories, Other People We Married, is full of quirky, thoughtful, resonating characters and has earned her comparisons with Lorrie Moore.
The Mother Who Stayed
Laura Furman’s new concerto of stories, The Mother Who Stayed, ties its parts together in an illuminating and subtle fashion.
The Icy Hand of Love
In Double Shadow, suffering puts its hypothermic hand on the backs of all living creatures. In that sense, it might help to think of it as a spiritual book, a…
I Knocked On the Walls, In a Circle
The Chameleon Couch proves itself an expertly crafted book from a poet peaking in his awareness and execution of all the tangled dialectics that manifest in his art.