Author: Heavy Feather
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“All Was Lost”: Robert Crooke Reviews Men in My Situation, a novel by Per Petterson
A real-life tragedy haunts this beautiful, touchingly honest novel by celebrated Norwegian author Per Petterson. The event in question is a fire that in 1990 destroyed the Scandinavian Star ferryboat during an overnight voyage between Norway and Denmark. This profound catastrophe, which claimed the lives of 159 passengers—including Petterson’s parents, a brother, and a nephew—has…
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“If There’s a Window—a New Possibility”: Allison Wyss Talks to Mary Lynn Reed
Mary Lynn Reed is a fiction writer and mathematician—but I’ve learned she’s also a photographer, shark-level pool player, and ace bowler. Her debut collection Phantom Advances has a bit of all that. It’s a deep exploration of questions of identity, sexuality, and gender—with a sharp focus and a lot of heart. She and I talked…
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“I Cherish the Act of Sentencing”: Marcus Pactor Interviews Lance Olsen
Lance Olsen is one of America’s most formally inventive and intellectually stimulating novelists. Few writers have been as consistently excellent over the past thirty-plus years. In that time, he has evolved from a cutting-edge sci-fi writer into a wizard of form and narrative, infusing his singular works with poetically imaginative language as well as a…
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Caw Caw Phony, 21st-century nature poems by Michael Sikkema, reviewed by William Lessard
Saxophonist and composer Marion Brown mapped the pastoral for avant-garde jazz. “Afternoon of a Georgia Faun,” the title piece of his 1971 album, explores deciduous sonics beyond the jagged urbanism of Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and his own late 60s work. In an interview for 1973’s “Notesto Afternoon of a Georgia Faun: Views and…
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NSFW, a new novel by David Scott Hay, reviewed by Dave Fitzgerald
Dystopian fiction is so hot right now. Hot like teen vampires before it. And child wizards before that. Hot like Chris Pine, and Michael B. Jordan, and J-Law. Hot like a Ron DeSantis book-burning. In Florida. In July. Hot like our annually warming planet. Speaking as someone who read The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New…
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“Ghost Fingers,” a Haunted Passages short story by Justin Carter
Sometime in the 1940s, a school bus in Horton, Texas, was hit by a train after stalling on the tracks. One week later, a truck stalled in the same spot. As a train bared down on the truck, the driver braced for impact, but the truck slowly rolled down off the crossing, just seconds before…
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Book Review: “The Company of Strangers, Jen Michalski’s Collection of Tiny Heartbreaks and Keen Hopes” by Rosalia Scalia
Jen Michalski’s newest book, The Company of Strangers, gives us 194 pages of tiny heartbreaks and keen hopes. In a collection of 15 short stories, we see a slice of America through an array of characters who strive to manage and navigate complex lives, and at times, unexpected, heartbreaking events that befall them with the…
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“The Harmonic Structure of a Life”: Ryan Nowlin Reviews The Unwanted Sounds, a poetry collection by Lorraine Lupo
Writing letters to Lorraine Lupo over a period of three years was an extension of our friendship. Also, we engaged in dialogic literary criticism. Every time I sat down to write in response to a letter from Lorraine, not only did I reflect on what was happening in our current lives but also what I…
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Zachary Kocanda Reviews Kevin Maloney’s Novel The Red-Headed Pilgrim
How far would you go to live the life you imagined for yourself when you were young and anything was possible? To avoid working for your dad’s friend’s company for the rest of your life and hating yourself? Kevin Maloney’s new novel, The Red-Headed Pilgrim, chronicles the misadventures of the titular man-child—also named Kevin Maloney—on…
Heavy Feather Review 