Reviews
-
The Resistance of Memory
Ander Monson attempts to move beyond “the singular authority of ‘I’ in nonfiction,” exploring new possibilities for the memoir form.
-
Faith in Withheld Meanings
What do nuclear waste, suicide, and Las Vegas have in common? John D’Agata searches for meaning in the heart of Yucca Mountain
-
The Intricated Soul
Sherod Santos’s poems demonstrate profound, unwavering discipline, a restless ear, and a commitment to witness. He is serious but never pompous, substantial without being ponderous.
-
No Lights, Nobody Home
Alex Taylor’s collection of stories set in Kentucky channels Southern greats like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.
-
Assorted Poems
Susan Wheeler manages to navigate a wide terrain of both content and form while maintaining the interconnectedness of one of the less lame concept albums ever produced.
-
My New Job
If you’re a fan of experimentation, silliness, and fucking–and what reasonable human being isn’t?–you’ll find things to like about My New Job.
-
We Are Never as Beautiful as We Are Now
“I think that the greatest analogy between baseball and writing, or even life, is that the game is designed for its players to fail.”
-
Just Because You’re Paranoid…
David Aaronnovitch’s survey of global conspiracy theories ably debunks chestnuts old and new, but avoids closer analysis of what inspires them in the first place.
-
Life Is Not Karaoke Booth
In this debut novel, an American woman running from personal tragedy falls headlong into the confusions and solaces of Japanese culture.
-
King of a Hundred Horsemen
As with much French poetry, the idée fixe of King of a Hundred Horsemen concerns the problematics of desire, and several of the passages are so euphonic in the original that quoting from the translation may lessen the overall effect…
-
Straight Outta Nebraska
In Jami Attenberg’s new novel, a woman flees her comfortable life and finds a mixed bag of possibilities in Sin City.
-
The Best of It
Kay Ryan has been compared to Emily Dickinson, and I like to imagine Dickinson and Marianne Moore reading her with sly commiseration. Unlike some poets with recognizable styles, Ryan does not write the same poem again and again, and her…