Category: Reviews & Criticism

“Len Joy’s Debut Novel American Past Time Reflects Small Town America in the Mid-twentieth Century” by Gay Degani

“They cruised down Main Street, past the Tastee-Freeze and Dabney’s Esso Station and the Post Office and the First National Bank of Maple Springs and Crutchfield’s General Store. At the town’s only traffic light, he turned left toward the highway. At the edge of town they passed the colored Baptist Church with its nearly-tended grid…
The Blast, a novella by David Ohle, reviewed by Nick Francis Potter

It is not without merit that David Ohle’s last name rhymes with “holy.” For all intents and purposes, Ohle is the patron saint of a kind of psycho-dystopian absurdity that is at once brutal, hilarious, and weird. Sainthood, however, has been late in coming for Ohle. His first novel, Motorman, first published by the venerable…
“How You Get That Way?”: Candice Wuehle on the Ultravacant Poetics of Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is a smart artist, a self-styled “gangster Nancy Sinatra.” She references Whitman, Plath, the Beats; wears and sings about heart-shaped sunglass as though she herself is a vintage cover (sonically, visually, textually) of Lolita. But it’s really only on her unreleased songs that she also sings about the murderous dark side of…
Leave Luck to Heaven, nonfiction essays by Brian Oliu, reviewed by Phil Spotswood

Born in 1991, I grew up watching my older brothers play original Nintendo games—living vicariously through them, who in turn were living vicariously through the heroes of the games. It was as if I grew up looking through a double-paned glass, and only when they had left for school could I step into that mysterious…
The Rusted City, poetry by Rochelle Hurt, reviewed by Justin Carter

I have a friend from Youngstown, Ohio, so when I first opened up Rochelle Hurt’s The Rusted City and found the book’s dedication was for the city, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Youngstown’s been through some tough times, which has earned it spots on lists like Buzzfeed’s “Bleakest Places on Earth” and Comcast’s “Top…
“The Banal and the Beautiful”: Sam Slaughter Reviews Alan Michael Parker’s The Committee on Town Happiness

I’ve got ninety-nine problems but this book ain’t one. Seriously, though, in Alan Michael Parker’s new collection of ninety-nine linked stories, The Committee on Town Happiness, it is hard to find an error in his ways. The stories all follow the titular committee, who oversees Generic Small Town A. In said small town, the committee…
Every Kiss a War, stories by Leesa Cross-Smith, reviewed by Justin Brouckaert

In the opening lines of “Hold On, Hold On,” a character named Violet offers what could be a manifesto for Leesa Cross-Smith’s debut collection: My husband, Dominic, got angry the second time I ran away. Because I promised I’d never do it again and because I didn’t have a reason. Because I didn’t need a…
Rigger Death & Hoist Another, poetry by Laura McCullough, reviewed by J.Y. Hopkins

Rigger Death & Hoist Another is Laura McCullough’s fifth book of poetry (not counting two chapbooks). It is a collection of material previously published in a wide array of venues, sometimes reworked and retitled. While some take a more abstract turn, the poems are generally straight-forward, though not always simplistic. The statements are linear and…
Galaga, nonfiction by Michael Kimball, reviewed by Matt Weinkam

Let’s say you’re interested in reading a book on Galaga. Remember Galaga? Let’s say you’re a lifelong fan of the 80s bug-shooting arcade game in which case of course you remember. You spent your childhood in the local arcade feeding a pocketful of quarters into the machine and maybe you never got the hang of…