Reviews
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In Search of Free Union
Free Union is much more than a small Virginia town. It is also the choice involved; the choice to go back to the land, the choice to settle with a partner, father children, and find both comfort and discomfort in…
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The Beautiful Nightmares of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
Prior to launching The Rumpus, during our test phase, we ran this incredible, thorough, and thoughtful review of Roberto Bolano’s 2666 by Michael Berger. Today seemed like a good day to bring it back. – SE
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The Rumpus Original (Supersized) Combo with D.A. Powell
How do you supersize a Rumpus Original Combo? That’s easy—just take a book review and an interview with the author, and add a Rumpus Original Poem to it!
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We Are Each Other’s Spiders
Burnt Shadows is the most admirable new novel I have read in a long time, a work of astonishing naturalism, wisdom, and grace.
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A Girl Asleep in a Dream of Herself in a Dream
Gothic dreamscapes and hypnotic investigations of the self beguile the reader of Monica Ferrell’s debut collection.
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More Than Just a Tussle
Skirmish kneads the world’s dough through peculiarities that maintain the engagement with strangeness and the fortune of language, both as a path to richness and to predicting what will be.
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Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
A new and heralded collection of short stories digs to the heart of obsession, isolation, and strangeness.
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The Rumpus Original Combo: Colson Whitehead
A review of Sag Harbor, followed by an interview with Colson Whitehead—or, as we like to call this literary twofer: The Rumpus Original Combo.
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Your Money or Your Life
Denis Johnson strips bare and shucks the pump in his fast-moving literary noir, Nobody Move.
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The Emperor’s Children
Joanna Smith Rakoff’s debut novel follows a group of friends through the trials and triumphs of post-college life in New York.
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Through the Past Darkly
Brian Teare’s second book sorts through the past and charts a new path for the future of poetry.
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The Withdrawal Method
In his introduction to the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Ben Marcus writes that the best contemporary fiction synthesizes the heartfelt and the innovative.