Commentary |
on The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, translated by Francis Steegmuller
“The collection will prove of especial value to the writer, who may take consolation from Flaubert’s self-doubts and progress always slower than he wishes, and inspiration from the transmutation of inconsequential scraps into literature.”
Commentary |
on Thin Skin, essays by Jenn Shapland
“The five essays emphasize the point that escape and separation from humanity are fraudulent concepts, no matter how far away you think you’ve gotten from it all. People — especially women — are forever enmeshed in a host of complications related to environment, capitalism, and power.”
Commentary |
on Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead
“Carrington’s life was geographically, artistically and romantically effusive, spanning continents and wars, romantic and artistic entanglements, and a profusion of creative formats.”
Commentary |
Book Notes: on Eggtooth, poems by Jesse Nathan & Grand Tour, poems by Elisa Gonzalez
“Her grand tour is never satisfied with a hop from what-I-was to what-I-am, even as those two psychic zones offer a n armature. It’s the moment of speaking that matters, and will not settle into the stasis of victimhood.”
Commentary |
on Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die, poetry by Tawanda Mulalu
‘Mulalu reminds us that song comes from the shared sorrow of breath — a sorrow that stems from an American past that bleeds into present and future …”
Commentary |
After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany by Michael H. Kater
“There’s no ‘After’ in After the Nazis but rather an excruciating push-pull between generations of musicians, writers, painters, and cineastes, wrangling over a genocide that a nation chose to forget.”
Commentary |
on Landscapes, a novel by Christine Lai
“… the recognition that just as we create art in response to our own trauma and pain, we must do so in response to broader losses, even those of our own creation …”
Commentary |
on Love and Industry and Voice First, essay collections by Sonya Huber
“She argues that a young writer at the beginning of her artist’s journey may overburden herself with the search for her ‘voice,’ when in fact there are many voices inside her …”
Commentary |
on All The Eyes That I Have Opened, poems by Franca Mancinelli, translated from the Italian by John Taylor
“… the severing wound, independent of cause, may function – as it does throughout the book – as a transpersonal source of insight, connectedness and compassion for those who open it, open to it.”
Commentary |
on I Do Everything I’m Told, poems by Megan Fernandes
“… a ‘new origin story’ of queer desire reminding the reader to look no further than their own body to celebrate these incanted states of longing, grief, wonder, and awe.”
Commentary |
on The Librarianist, a novel by Patrick DeWitt
“His novelistic strengths shine in this looser, picaresque form through which he can follow his comedic instincts without worrying too much about getting back on track.”
Commentary |
on Some Problems with Autobiography, poems by Brian Brodeur
“What gives us the authority to speak about our own experiences, let alone those of others, when memory, motivation, and intention are such fallible things? These are some of the questions that Brodeur raises.”
Commentary |
on Ravage & Son, a novel by Jerome Charyn
“… an entertaining street crime novel – but more, a story about social issues including LGBT shame, class struggle, immigration standards, antisemitism, and balanced journalism.”
Commentary |
on Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, translated from the French by James Grieve
“This volume gives readers new to Proust an approachable point of entry — a moderately long book not bogged down in announcements of lofty cultural importance — and longtime readers a new position from which to interact with Proust.”
Commentary |
Book Notes: on Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey & Out of the Sugar Factory by Dorothee Elmiger, translated from the German by Megan Ewing
“Nettel emerges as a master of not telling too much while guiding us toward a complex vision of the familiar … she withholds ‘insight’ and simply lets us witness things while deftly managing the novel’s tension.”