Imagining a Worst-Case Scenario: John Vaillant’s Fire Weather
The boreal forests around the town do habitually burn, and its residents were used to seeing flames over their skies in summer months.
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rumpus review
20 posts
Animal as Metaphor: Erica Berry’s Wolfish
Living entities, with whom we cannot communicate fully, seduce us in their majesty.
Recollections of a Non-Existence: Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X
“There was no con. There was no crime. There was only fiction.”
The View from the Backstretch: Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch
Though this account is full of wounds, losses, and hardships, the Sonia who emerges herein speaks of them with the kind of sinewy, bracing directness you would expect of a complete stranger sitting across from you at the bar.
Yearning and Wandering: Tiff Dressen’s Of Mineral
The earth is fertile ground for seeking one’s roots and connection to others.
Holding On and Letting Go: Rebecca Aronson’s Anchor
Gravity is what tethers us to the earth and to those we love, but it is also what we are constantly trying to escape. Anchor is about both these states—the holding on and the letting go—and the tension between them.
The Sense of Words: Reverse Engineer by Kate Colby
. . . language is duplicitous. To be broken is perhaps to be part of a process (or a metaphor for life), where to bend (and survive) also leads to being broken. In this context, the word “broken” in “Reverse Engineer” might well point to a hard-won success.
Take Your Divagations Seriously: Geoff Dyer’s The Last Days of Roger Federer
The Last Days . . . has nothing much to do with tennis or with Roger Federer, who appears sparingly in these pages . . . [nor is it] “intended to be a comprehensive study of last things, or of lastness generally.”
The Art of Attention: Jill Christman’s If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays
“If you really want to look at someone, then your only option is to look at yourself, squarely and deeply.”
Indiana Anomie: Budi Darma’s People from Bloomington
a portrait of the American tendency to keep the suffering of others at arm’s length as if misfortune were contagious, or to ruthlessly eliminate it entirely
Not One Thing, But Many: A Review of Cynthia Cruz’s Hotel Oblivion
How would that candy taste in my mouth? How would that blue chiffon offset my dark hair and plain features? How would the world look to me through the eyes of this woman and this one and this one? What else could oblivion mean to me, if not for the living as many?
Survival and Hope: Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
You Made A Fool organically makes the argument that friendships can be just as important and fulfilling as romantic relationships.