Category: Reviews & Criticism

Theories of Forgetting, a novel by Lance Olsen, reviewed by Joe Sacksteder

It’s cliché for reviewers to use the phrase “a _______ experience like no other.” When the experience is a reading experience, what the reviewer usually means is that the plot/characters/setting/language are particularly compelling/unique/distinctive/bold. In other words—if you read good books—an experience like quite a lot of others. But Lance Olsen’s novel Theories of Forgetting reminds…
The Static Herd, a novel by Beth Steidle, reviewed by Allegra Hyde

How do we write about death? Explain the inexplicable without sounding overwrought, cliché, false? Perhaps we don’t. Perhaps we avoid it, dance around it, mask it in metaphor until any real substance is lost. If this is the case, we might take direction from Beth Steidle, whose recent novel, The Static Herd, addresses the paradox…
Someone Else’s Wedding Vows, poetry by Bianca Stone, reviewed by m. forajter

Bianca Stone’s Someone Else’s Wedding Vows is a beautiful book. Published by the new partnership between Tin House and Octopus Books, Stone’s first full length collection of poetry explores the self from a distance in order to construct a clearer view of its movements and position within the larger world. Stone’s often passive reflections seem…
Together, Apart, fiction by Ben Hoffman, reviewed by Gavin Tomson

“The Great Deschmutzing,” the first story in Ben Hoffman’s chapbook collection, Together, Apart, begins with a gut-punch: “The first thing I want you to know is that none of us miss you.” The narrator, here, is speaking to her recently deceased father, in her heart and mind a failure. The same day he died, her…
Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow, an essay collection by Andy Sturdevanton, reviewed by Nichole L. Reber

Books about place have an almost guaranteed audience of locals who already live in that place and travelers, who may have or may eventually travel to the locale of topic. That can’t necessarily be said of Andy Sturdevant’s book about place, Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow. The 233-page collection of short pieces (called essays…
Backswing, short stories by Aaron Burch, reviewed by Jeremy Griffin

There’s this great video on YouTube of the late Kurt Vonnegut giving a lecture on story shapes. Standing before a chalkboard in a dusty brown blazer, the author graphs out some of the more common narrative arcs, the idea being that the more familiar one is with the shape of stories, the easier it is…
Going Home Nowhere and Fast, fiction by Nathan Blake, reviewed by Gavin Tomson

Nathan Blake’s first, slim chapbook of stories, Going Home Nowhere and Fast, is more of a sample than a cycle. Not only does the collection offer few overarching concerns or ideas; little unifies Blake’s style, save his drive to experiment with it. And experiment he does. From “Ward” (a post-apocalypse narrative, told from the perspective…
Beside Myself, stories by Ashley Farmer, reviewed by James R. Gapinski

Ashley Farmer’s Beside Myself has plenty of surreal imagery and an accelerated pace, but the collection feels oddly calm. It’s a book about introspection rather than bombshell plot twists. The characters are constantly turning the narrative inward, and there’s a sense of nostalgic distance in many stories—the kind of clarity that comes with time. Consider…
What Came Before, a novel by Gay Degani, reviewed by Len Kuntz

Within the first two paragraphs of Gay Degani’s novel, What Came Before, the reader is thrust into a story that sizzles: I can’t run. Can’t breathe. Dry kernels blow through my lips. I wake up sweating, legs tangled in sheets, eyes gritty, mouth dry, my brain jammed together like frozen broccoli. I rattle my head…