The Myth of Mary and the Mother of God
We encounter images of the Virgin Mary constantly: in churches, tattoos, and local news stories reporting frequent visual manifestations of her iconic form.
Reviews
2650 posts
Wrack & Ruin
Don Lee returns to Rosarita Bay with a novel that features Brussels sprouts, kung fu divas, feuding brothers, and a complex look at ethnic identity.
North of the Border
A group of Mexican teenagers encounters a bizarre America in Luis Alberto Urrea’s latest novel.
Down in the Dumpster
“What Joshua Mohr is doing has more in common with Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Haruki Murakami, all great chroniclers of the fantastic. He’s interested in something weirder than mere sex,…
All that Glitters
What was it like to be Jewish, and accused of patricide, in Holocaust-era Austria?
The Lightness of Sidney Wade
Her lightness is not merely pointing out the details of the world but showing us that without the glory of the everyday, the parsnip, for instance, there can be no…
Losing Mum and Pup, A Liberal’s Guilty Pleasure
I wonder, when a humorist writes a book not intended for laughs. When, say, the very funny satirist, Christopher Buckley, writes a memoir – say, Losing Mum and Pup –…
Do Not Deny Me
The stories in Do Not Deny Me, Jean Thompson’s new collection, are concerned with main characters whose lives are scraped bare, who live in a world flattened by boredom and…
Occupational Hazards by Jonathan Segura: An Ex-Girlfriend’s Review
I feel as if I've earned the right to review Occupational Hazards. Jonny and I have already loved and hated each other.
Six Feet Under
The protagonist of Jim Krusoe’s new novel looks for his mother—in the afterlife, or in Cleveland.
The Exile and the Nomad Are Cousins: The Rumpus Original Combo with Ana Menendez
Ana Menendez’s new novel, The Last War, deals with Iraq, infidelity, self-deception, and exile.
The Camera Never Lies
In Steve Amick’s new novel, desire is most effectively stoked by what you can’t see.