A History of Violence
In After the Fire a Small Still Voice, love is a difficult, vulnerable salvation—its troubled characters aren’t sure it’s worth the risk.
Reviews
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Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys
“There’s something unique about being a member of the sex worker club, an instant camaraderie that bonds one to people who would otherwise be strangers, and this chemistry is something…
How to Leave Hialeah
“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.”
Sex and the Witty
There’s Something Wrong with Sven combines imaginative leaps worthy of Calvino and Vonnegut with tragicomic irreverence of the George Saunders variety.
On the Couch
The protagonist of this novel about addiction, therapy, and recovery, confronts many of the same issues as its author.
Take Dead Aim
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 the Eye of the Hurricane
The Louisiana Skip Horack creates is both generative and broken, salvific and ruined, marked in ways large and small by Hurricane Katrina.
The Fog of War
Robert Olmstead’s new novel demonstrates Robert E. Lee’s maxim: “It is well that war is so horrible, or we would grow to love it too much.”
Genre Trap
Spanish author Javier Calvo’s novel critiques pop culture by embracing its stereotypes
“Trouble on the way, and great joy”
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?
Fingers Through Holy Water
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.
Bait and Switch
Like a well-planned itinerary, the blueprints of James Lasdun’s stories are thoughtfully delineated, and each step feels purposeful and sure.