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Music and Mind-Bending in David Mitchell's 'Utopia Avenue'
Woven into Utopia Avenue David Mitchell stitches a subtle critique of the impacts of the pot-heavy, lysergic-immersed, and heady music's ambitions on pop culture, moral choices, and even tripping itself.
09 Jun 2020
Books
Cordelia Strube's 'Misconduct of the Heart' Palpitates with Dysfunction
Cordelia Strube's 11th novel, Misconduct of the Heart, depicts trauma survivors in a form that's compelling but difficult to digest.
04 Jun 2020
Reading Pandemics
Pandemics and Trumpian Echoes in Miller’s 'Blackfish City'
When we can't turn to the federal government for the truth, sometimes we need to turn to fiction. Sam J. Miller's Blackfish City maps a pandemic in a post-United States future.
11 May 2020
Books
Schisms and Connections in Sahar Mustafah's 'The Beauty of Your Face'
With The Beauty of Your Face, Sahar Mustafah pens an emotional and rich journey, laden with awareness and intrigue.
08 May 2020
Reviews
Remember to Come up for Air When You Read 'They Say Sarah'
Debut They Say Sarah is a vivid impressionistic novel that churns the entire emotional spectrum.
07 May 2020
Books
Class, Craft, and the Cost of Ambition: An Interview with 'Lake City' Author Thomas Kohnstamm
While Lake City masquerades as a social climber satire that is really something else, author Thomas Kohnstamm is an open book about his intentions in his work and his hopes for his city.
05 May 2020
Books
'The Cold Last Swim' Plunges into Alternate Hollywood History
Junior Burke knocks James Dean's bad-boy-gone-too-soon off the iconic pedestal in his latest book, The Cold Last Swim.
30 Apr 2020
Books
Mieko Kawakami's 'Breasts and Eggs' Is a Feminist Masterpiece
Fearless in its demand for accountability, transcendent in its honesty, Mieko Kawakami's Breasts and Eggs breathes life into feminist literature and throws down a gauntlet for other writers to aspire toward.
29 Apr 2020
Business
J.M. Coetzee's 'The Death of Jesus'Uses Cervantes' 'Don Quixote' as Subtext
Whereas J.M. Coetzee's writing regularly utilizes parables, The Death of Jesus purposely destabilizes. It dazzles in its ability to present profound questions while challenging the reader to remain critical and question the meaning derived from any and all parables.
20 Apr 2020
Books
Percival Everett's 'Telephone' Offers a Timely Lesson
Telephone provides a case study of a family dynamic shaken by illness, what can be controlled, and what must be accepted.
06 Apr 2020
Books
Finding Harmony Amidst Discord: 'The Mountains Sing'
A Vietnamese family's song resounds over the effects of decades of tumult in Nguyen Phan Que Mai's excellent novel, The Mountains Sing.
23 Mar 2020
Books
'Miss Iceland' Is a Brilliant Novel of Sexism, Homophobia, and the Writing Life
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's Miss Iceland Is at once a poetic, light-hearted narrative and a sharply edged social critique that is caustic and righteous in its portrayal of the enduring nature of sexism, misogyny and homophobia.
12 Mar 2020
Books
Joan Didion's Crystal-Clear Vision Only Got Better with Age
Reading the Library of America's comprehensive anthology, Joan Didion: The 1960s & 70s, is like walking out of the rain and into a time warp.
11 Mar 2020
Books
Is Solipsism Art? On 'The Exhibition of Persephone Q'
Jessi Jezewska Stevens' debut novel, The Exhibition of Persephone Q, is filled with exciting ideas and quirky characters, but the book's surfeit of style can't make up for a lack of personality or perspective.
06 Mar 2020
Books
Racism's Trauma Reverberates Across Generations in 'Your House Will Pay'
Steph Cha's depiction of systematic racism in Your House Will Pay is compelling, attesting to the complicated social structures at play.
27 Feb 2020
Books
'American Dirt' Now That the Dust Has Settled
Though the bluster has asserted the opposite, Jeanine Cummins' prose in American Dirt washes away the gore and grime to show the human faces that make up the migrant crisis of the Western Hemisphere.
18 Feb 2020
Books
'Night Theater': Surgery, Corruption, and Chekhov
The well-timed choreography of Vikram Paralkar's Night Theater leads us to interrogate the unfamiliar notes of our personal harmonies.
11 Feb 2020
Books
Who Can I Be Now? Picking Through Mat Osman's 'The Ruins'
Mat Osman's mystery, The Ruins, turns excess into artistry.
29 Jan 2020
Books
Ian McEwan's Brexit Satire, 'The Cockroach', Leaves Little to the Imagination
With his latest, The Cockroach, the otherwise masterful British novelist Ian McEwan proves that too much cleverness can kill satire.
21 Jan 2020
Books
'The Opposite of Fate' Embraces Life, However Inopportune
In The Opposite of Fate, Alison McGhee humanizes the abortion issue in a way that is unexpected and heartening.
16 Jan 2020
Reviews
A Life of False Positives: Jac Jemc's 'False Bingo'
The stories in Jac Jemc's False Bingo are wound tight, propelling the reader to ambiguous and nerve-wracking ends.
15 Jan 2020
Books
They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears
In They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears, Johannes Anyuru puts readers in a state of mind similar to that of his confused characters while offering an engaging challenge.
08 Jan 2020
Books
A Bookish Teenager Finds Herself in Laura Taylor Namey’s 'Library of Lost Things'
In Laura Taylor Namey's Library of Lost Things, teens find security and significance in themselves as works in progress.
11 Dec 2019
Reviews
Jami Attenberg Explores Patriarchal Fallout in 'All This Could Be Yours'
Through a familial lens, Jami Attenberg offers a thoughtful and often darkly funny exploration of Trumpian patriarchy in All This Could Be Yours.
09 Dec 2019
Books
Nell Zink Points and Jeers in 'Doxology'
It's deflating to find Nell Zink, a master of witty dialogue and pithy description, making so much space in Doxology for her inner cranky white liberal.
04 Nov 2019
Books
On André Aciman's Psychodrama of Flirting with New Beaus While Brooding over Old Flames, 'Find Me'
André Aciman's long-awaited sequel to Call Me By Your Name, Find Me, isn't so much an extension of the previous book's queries about romance and sexuality as it is a work of convenient revisionism.
01 Nov 2019
Books
Debut Novel 'Older Brother' Straddles France, Syria, and Sibling Suspicions
In Mahir Guven's debut novel, Older Brother, a young Frenchman's return to his country from war-torn Syria derails his older brother's life.
22 Oct 2019
Books
Graphic Novella 'Stunt' Seeks Escape from Perpetual Entrapment
Like the title letters, the physical format of Michael DeForge's Stunt creates a kind of cage holding the main character inside rigid panels.
09 Sep 2019
Reviews
On Helen McClory's Parasocial Love for Jeff Goldblum in 'The Goldblum Variations'
Metatexually dazzling yet absurdly soothing, Helen McClory's The Goldblum Variations will put a dent in your bad vibes.
06 Sep 2019
Reviews
Cecelia Ahern's 'Roar' Reinforces the Normativity It Attempts to Subvert
Roar's strength is found in its depiction of empowered women, yet Ahern mistakenly centralizes a normative vision of feminism while reiterating the patriarchal control that silences her female characters' voices.
06 Sep 2019
Books
Where He Goes, His Barrio Goes: An Interview with Author Gabino Iglesias
There's a lot to be angry about, these days, and Gabino Iglesias writes a lot about rage.
05 Sep 2019
Books
'Famous People' Splashes in the Puddle of a Shallow Pop Star
When our protagonist is calm and reflective in Justin Kuritzkes' Famous People, there's a sense of potential intelligence beneath the shiny surface.
19 Aug 2019
Reviews
McGinley's Darkly Comic 'Foggage' Explores Incest in Rural Ireland
As seen in Foggage, Patrick McGinley's fiction reveals a writer whose worth lies in his ability to balance perverse humour and human pathos on the cutting blade of his perfectly turned phrases.
16 Aug 2019
Books
Short Stories: Siblings
Whatever the plot lines of a work of fiction, if it features siblings as important characters, various rich themes are mined. This issue of Short Stories brings forth the sibling-inspired works of Martha Bátiz, K Anis Ahmed, Jenny Zhang, Lidudumalingani, and Kseniya Melnik.
29 Jul 2019
Books
All but One Speak up in Julia Alvarez's ¡Yo!
In a new edition to the sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, ¡Yo!, Julia Alvarez structures the story of a writer and her voice by allowing everybody but the writer herself to have a voice.
16 Jul 2019
Books
A Mother Who Eats Her Young? 'A Prayer for Travelers'
Equal parts gritty and subtly heartening, tragically jarring and emotionally resonant, Ruchika Tomar's debut A Prayer for Travelers is one of the strangest and most enjoyably wrought coming-of-age stories to appear in recent years.
16 Jul 2019
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