Reviews
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A Vowel Away From Master
These poems often resist the reader in the same way his speaker resists his father, but the book’s exploration of such distance creates a closeness between the reader and the poems, and the speaker and his father, that’s almost too…
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Heartlands
Four debut authors—Josh Weil, Skip Horack, Holly Goddard Jones, and Amy Greene—paint varied pictures of the South they know.
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A Window’s for Looking Into
Robin Ekiss’s debut collection of poems explores the relationship between the past and the present with strength, clarity, and emotional intimacy.
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Sleeper’s Wake
John Wraith’s penis is a neat literary device. It provides character depth and motivation, and is central to every plot twist in the book.
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A Squared-Off Landscape Representing the World
A Village Life is the work of a mature poet looking out at the world from a window, but now concerned with the larger cycles in which she participates, instead of the singular life in a petri dish.
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Waterworld
Loss and longing sit side-by-side with unexpected humor in Laura van den Berg’s stories, reminding readers of the strange things we encounter every day.
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Iron Chef
A jilted lover expresses her lust, hatred, and remorse through exquisite courses of caviar, duck, and tongue.
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What Is an Anthem
A poet doesn’t review the poems in G.C. Waldrep’s Archicembalo—she listens to them.
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One of These Things is Not Like the Others
Stephanie Johnson’s microfiction creates rich subtext in few words, making each story complicated and true, and each character alive and familiar.
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Not-So-Ancient History
A first novel set in modern Zimbabwe begins: “Two days after I turned fourteen the son of our neighbor set his stepmother alight.”
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You Caught Me
Tao Lin’s characters are constantly connected, yet physically detached. The technology they live and breathe often seems less mechanical than its users.
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But Not for Long
Michelle Wildgen’s second novel traces the residents of a sustainable-food co-op through crises, adjustments, and reinventions.