‘One Deadly Summer’ and the Boundaries of Desire and Mania
There's almost never a moment in One Deadly Summer that doesn't recall a crushing nostalgia, using tone and texture to evince a sort of empathetic longing.
novel
The Pragmatic Sorcery of Madeline Miller’s ‘Circe’
Circe, the exiled sorceress and minor goddess from Homer's Odyssey, responds to the myth of Odysseus by telling us her version.
How Fragile Relationships and Plans Can Be in Cara Hoffman’s Running
Running is a disconcerting, moving, and ultimately treasurable novel whose rich, lived-in world and remarkably complex and empathetic protagonists remain alluring from start to finish.
Single White Females: How Far Will an Incomplete Woman Go to Obtain Her Sense of Self?
Much in the way the women of Persona and 3 Women assimilate into lives of their objects of affection, the women of Single White Female experience a similar fatal mutualism.
Paul Auster’s ‘4 3 2 1’ Has Flashes of Brilliance But Doesn’t Transcend Its Genre
The four lives of Archie Ferguson do not add up to more than the sum of their parts.
Home Alone: Laird Koenig’s ‘The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane’
Novelist Laird Koenig managed to capture the world of children with an exactitude that is rare nowadays. His children are often sagacious -- and sometimes they're sociopaths.
Don’t Sign the Lease Just Yet
The journey in Housebreaking is gripping even though the payoff is light.
Sandra Newman’s ‘The Country of Ice Cream Star’ Is a Heavy Read
There’s talk of war, rape, disease -- all things we associate with the worst of adulthood. But Newman never lets us forget that these are children.
The Campus Novel as Gonzo Mayhem
His Ph.D revoked, a man fueled by anger returns to an institution he despises in Primordial: An Abstraction.
‘Shotgun Lovesongs’ is One Big Nostalgic Ballad
Nickolas Butler’s golden-toned Bon Iver-inspired novel about four friends in a small Wisconsin town has gorgeous intent, but too little purpose.