Commentary |
on In Praise of Fragments, poetry by Meena Alexander
“Fragments of memory, of place, of home and the meaning of home, of mother and grandmother and the generations of women connected through blood and literature: ‘She is a bitter crystal that never shatters.'”
Commentary |
on Seeing The Body, poems and photographs by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
“The boldness of Griffiths’ presence at times may lead one to forget how much terror and how many ‘properties of law, custom, and reference’ are being transcended. But she will remind you.”
Commentary |
on To Remain Nameless, a novel by Brad Fox
“Pared-down prose, taut pacing, candid tone, and global street-sense combine to create the aura of progression — but Fox is loyal to the density of reality, not closure.”
Commentary |
on Summer Snow, poems by Robert Hass
“An ancient question echoes through many of his poems: How to offer praise when one sees nothing worth praising? Or, rather: How to praise when lamentation — or curse — seem more appropriate modes?”
Commentary |
on Death In Her Hands, a novel by Ottessa Moshfegh
“Vesta’s lonely narrative appeals to us for companionability — but the longer we stick with her, the more we must consider the possibility that if she is just making things up, then we are accomplices.”
Commentary |
on American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise by Eduardo Porter
Porter asserts, “The America that built the most prosperous working class the world had ever seen collapsed into a heap of pathologies simply due to a lack of empathy.”
Commentary |
on Breasts and Eggs, a novel by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
” … an unusual and disarming approach to what women want — or at least what three particular Japanese women want while underscoring the differences between their desires and notions of happiness.”
Commentary |
Out of Silences: on Nervous System by Rosalie Moffett and Post & Rail by Erica Funkhouser
“These two stirring collections show us that, faced with silence, uncertainty, and unfathomability, poets are often born — in part from the need, in Funkhouser’s words, ‘to supply the words themselves.'”
Commentary |
on The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, a novel by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
“A romance, a political thriller, an historical narrative — all bundled in a surrealistic novel. But though the concept is surrealistic, the writing isn’t …”
Commentary |
on On Lighthouses, nonfiction by Jazmina Barrera, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
“Barrera ‘collects’ lighthouses as a way to escape from feelings of isolation and loneliness … Most of her stories about lighthouse keepers focus on their desolation and seclusion.”
Commentary |
“A Wall Around the Word”: on Far West, poems by Floyd Skloot
“Although he confronts the ravages of a chronic illness that is not only painful but disorienting, his eloquence persists … This is a gathered strength and composure, reserved and expended for the sake of the poem.”
Commentary |
on Camille in October, a novel by Mireille Best, translated from the French by Stephanie Schechner
“Best once said that she conjured her main characters to advance a normalisation of lesbianism, to portray these desires and challenges as instantly recognizable – even while peering directly at their unique situations …”
Commentary |
on Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth by Benjamin Taylor
“He told Roth that their friendship made his life worth living, and Roth replied that the same was true for him. But despite these mutual declarations, Taylor’s disappointments and resentments simmer.”
Commentary |
Ambiguity as Happiness: on The New Sun Time, poems by Ish Klein
“Klein’s work is as interested in the overheard as it is the spoken — that is, the collaborative, performative space of language”
Commentary |
on Ensō by Shin Yu Pai
“Pai transforms the challenges she encounters — deaths, losses, disappointments — into opportunities to become closer to life, to what is important, what is joyous, what is wise …”