No One Gets off Scot-Free: Jill McCorkle’s Old Crimes
This is such a powerful manifestation of fiction: as writers, much as we make stuff up, we are always writing someone’s story.
Reviews
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Sketch Book Review: Three Books About Rivers
When passionate individuals like these authors put pen to paper, they have the opportunity to create real change.
An Unsentimental Look at the ’90s: Gina Tron’s Suspect
Even her bad decisions, like lashing out at her bullies, are ones that feel relatable, if things were just a little different.
Echoes in the Gallery: Andy Young’s Museum of the Soon to Depart
...Young transforms these cities into an enigmatic museum, with galleries that reach back through time to the very essence of dust.
“It’d Be the Last Great Punk Song”: On ¡PÓNK! by Marcus Clayton
Punk is not safe, but neither is the world if you are Black or brown.
Writing in the Aftermath: Paul Rousseau’s Friendly Fire
It wasn’t until I was older and started hunting with my father that I began to understand the implications of proximity to gunfire.
One Can Be Alive Again: Madeleine Cravens’s Pleasure Principle
Cravens’s reliance on and loyalty to the image become a propulsive, vibrating force—this is a poetics of presence, of that which is tangible....
“Why Are You Still Resisting?”: On M.M. Olivas’s Sundown in San Ojuela
Olivas’s novel is a gross-as-hell ghost story and a razor-sharp vision of the present moment, a multi-narrator rollercoaster you’ll binge like your favorite television show.
Getting the Last Laugh: Alexei Navalny’s Patriot
Navalny’s tragicomic memoir, which one might also categorize as his last call to action, accomplishes the feat of keeping the reader so ensconced that they forget the person capturing every ounce of their attention, intellect, and sympathy is no longer alive.
Moving the Dialogue Forward: Jerald Walker’s Magically Black and Other Essays
Idiosyncratic and smart, MAGICALLY BLACK moves the dialog forward.
Life with a Rabbit in the Shadow of Death: A Review of Melanie Cheng’s The Burrow
Though the pandemic may now feel relatively distant, its reminder of how quickly catastrophe can become an everyday fact of life persists.
Sketch Book Reviews: What An Owl Knows
When things in the world feel particularly scary of hopeless, I find it very difficult to read books about humans.