“Crucet is endowed with the double vision that helped Richard Wright and Salman Rushdie describe the lives of marginalized people with poignancy, humor, and rich music.”
There’s Something Wrong with Sven combines imaginative leaps worthy of Calvino and Vonnegut with tragicomic irreverence of the George Saunders variety.
Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize is ambitious and clever. By turns entertaining, fascinating, and charming, it is also monotonous with its adolescent charm and fluorescent insistence.
In a place where names are lost like household objects, and white noise supplants meaningful distinctions between voices and people, why the need for singularity (or personhood) at all?
Gospel music, like its secular cousin the blues, never wallows in pity, but instead seeks to transcend pain and reach glory. Bashir’s book makes the same trip.