Category: Reviews & Criticism

Fiction Review: Mia Carroll Reads Zeeva Bukai’s Novel The Anatomy of Exile

Zeeva Bukai’s debut novel, The Anatomy of Exile, follows the Abadi family, who in the wake of the 1967 Israeli Six-Day War, moves to America, where the complicated foreign relations of their home country continue to influence their daily lives. This work feels resoundingly timely in this moment of unspeakable violence, but it also reminds…
Book Review: Matt Martinson Reads Russell Persson’s Mix of Fiction + Essays These Threads Who Lead to Bramble

A standard element of any book review is to partially summarize a book without giving too much away, to give a sense of what others will find without telling them everything about that book. But how does one do such a thing for Russell Person’s These Threads Who Lead to Bramble, where the “sense”—the feelings,…
“Toward an Indeterminate Future”: Eric Tyler Benick on Jennifer Quartararo’s Memoir An Arbitrary Formation of Unspecified Value

“A link exists between the deficiency of our blood and our embarrassment in duration,” the Romanian philosopher and aphorist Emil Cioran says in All Gall is Divided. He continues, “Don’t our conscious states derive from the discoloration of our desires?” In Jennifer Quartararo’s debut An Arbitrary Formation of Unspecified Value, the question of anemia, both…
“Alas, Heroic Yorick”: Nicole Yurcaba Reads Timothy Schaffert’s Novel The Titanic Survivors Book Club

The tragedy of the RMS Titanic, which met its fate in the North Atlantic’s icy waters on April 14, 1912, during its maiden voyage, continues to awe, intrigue, and fascinate the general public. Modern-day disasters like the Titan submersible implosion not only renew interest in the infamous ship’s brief existence, they also reignite conversations about…
Poetry Review: Jen Schneider Reads Jeddie Sophronius’ Collection Interrogation Records

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Protest” Interrogation Records, by Jeddie Sophronius, responds powerfully to the challenge and need to redress silence and amplify attention addressed toward past harms. The documentary poetry collection offers insights into the 1965-1966 mass killings of members of the Indonesian Communist Party…
Nonfiction Review: Annie Diamond Reads Renata Golden’s Essayed Field Guide Mountain Time

In Mountain Time: A Field Guide to Astonishment, Renata Golden challenges assumptions about both the natural world and well-known human histories. She begins her essay collection by weaving together the narratives of her ancestors, Irish immigrants who came to the United States after the Potato Famine (to which Golden refers as An Gorta Mór, the…
Nonfiction Review: Daniel Barbiero Looks at Orchid Tierney’s Mad Lichen on the Surfaces of Reading

Orchid Tierney’s beautifully composed essay looking at the Tiny: Mad lichen on the surfaces of reading is like a musical piece that takes a handful of motifs from a previously existing work and resets them, interweaves them, varies them, and develops them into something new and distinctly its own. For Tierney the previously existing work…
Nonfiction Review: Kevin McMahon Reads Margaret Nowaczyk’s Essay Collection Marrow Memory

One could eschew social media, send postcards, and buy groceries with cash, and still never truly avoid the digitally isolating modern world. Despite the convenience and ubiquity of FaceTime and Microsoft Teams, it’s hard to argue that humans have ever been so removed from one other. In the span of less than a generation, we’ve…
“A Sensitive and Insightful Reflection on a Life Well Lived”: Atlanta Tsiaoukkas Reads Fancy Feast’s Essay Collection Naked

Naked: On Sex, Work, and Other Burlesques is an essay collection and memoir by veteran burlesque performer Fancy Feast, and draws on her broad and rich experiences to create a thoughtful narrative that carries valuable insights for both the burlesque virgins and stalwarts of the profession. The sheer breadth of anecdotes Feast is able to…