Anne Hellman’s Novel ‘The Indecipherables’ Is Pure Cinema
The Indecipherables, Anne Hellman’s pastiche of Hitchcock’s, Lynch’s, and Serling’s respective oeuvres, is a successful homage to “pure cinema”.
literary fiction
Michael Bracewell’s Pop Fantasy ‘The Smiths: A Novella’ Is a Stunning Evocation
Michael Bracewell’s latest novella is a Proustian, circuitous meditation on the 1980s zeitgeist, shaped by personal recollections of the Smiths.
‘The Coast of Everything’ Is Not a Puzzle to Be Solved But a Process to Inhabit
Guillermo Stitch’s metafiction The Coast of Everything is the sort of book that makes you feel simultaneously more intelligent and more illiterate.
‘Only Smoke’ Obscures Fiction and Reality
Juan José Millás’ Only Smoke explores the relationship between meaning and observation.
Eric Puchner’s ‘Dream State’ Mirrors Life’s Haze
In Eric Puchner’s Dream State dramatic plot points bob upon a flat-line surface rather than rising, reflecting the rhythm inherent in actual human life.
Roger Célestin’s ‘The Delicate Beast’ Will Devour You
Prolific writer Roger Célestin presents in his debut novel, The Delicate Beast a timely tale of how autocracy will devour you once the process has begun.
The Best Books of 2024
PopMatters Best Books of 2024 include a broad range of nonfiction, many books on music, short fiction, a novel that turns a Mark Twain classic inside out, and much more.
Music in Haruki Murakami’s ‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’
In Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls, music’s presence and absence are central to the concrete and metaphysical spaces the characters migrate between.
Lindsey Drager’s ‘The Avian Hourglass’ Is Wonderfully Weird
While navigating many odd circumstances, Lindsey Drager’s The Avian Hourglass provides a continuous stream of consciousness; scientific, literary, and philosophical.
‘Pedro Páramo’ Is a Masterpiece that Resurrects and Welcomes the Dead
In our world, we irrevocably control the dead and their narrative. In Juan Rulfo’s masterpiece Pedro Páramo, however, the dead control their narrative.
Faulkner Bares His Fangs: Vampirism in ‘Sanctuary’
William Faulkner’s unproduced film script, ‘Dreadful Hollow’, was not his only foray into the fantastical, as 1931’s Sanctuary tells its twisted form of vampirism.
‘Calling for a Blanket Dance’ Sews Together a Story of Single Fatherhood
Calling for a Blanket Dance stitches an intergenerational quilt of rich themes: gift-giving, second chances, reclaiming culture, family loyalty, and the indelible search for a home.