Category: Reviews & Criticism

Gabino Iglesias on The Number of Missing, a novel by Adam Berlin

September 11 is a date that will forever live in the memories of those who were alive when the Twin Towers crumbled. The devastation was felt around the world, but it touched New Yorkers in ways that only they can understand, especially if the tragedy affected them directly via the loss of a loved one.…
Chrono Trigger, nonfiction by Michael P. Williams, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

My hat goes off to Michael P. Williams immediately, for it is nothing but ambitious to write on Chrono Trigger. For one thousand readers, one thousand Hamlets; for one thousand players, one thousand Cronos. Released by Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) on the Super Nintendo in 1995, the videogame is considered one of the best JRPGs. Essays…
The Holy Ghost People, a dramatic lyric by Joshua Young, reviewed by Merridawn Duckler

Plays are like frogs. They start life in a form that scarcely seems to resemble the final product. What whirls to life on a dynamic stage is usually begun flat on the page. And, as far as writing goes, written plays don’t get much respect. The Guardian’s theater critic Lyn Gardner thinks it’s the “brazenly…
Danny M. Hoey, Jr. on Box Cutters, a fiction chapbook by Samuel Snoek-Brown

In his debut chapbook, Samuel Snoek-Brown takes readers through the lives of characters who struggle with what it means to live in and make sense of a world that seems to be slipping from the very fingers by which they try to grasp it. In language that is poetic, evocative, and lean, Snoek-Brown has managed…
Whittling a New Face in the Dark, poetry by DJ Dolack, reviewed by Jordan Sanderson

“People quot(e) / when their empathy is down,” observes the speaker of “What They Want Me to Tell You.” Never resorting to “quotes” or platitudes, Whittling a New Face in the Dark exhibits a brutal empathy. The speakers of these poems stand just inside the thresholds of dark rooms and address us in measured statements…
Dear Lil Wayne, epistolary poems by Lauren Ireland, reviewed by Daniel M. Shapiro

Although the epistolary poem has been around since the Roman Empire, it has taken a new turn with the advent of social media. Nowadays, the subjects of letters are much easier to reach; poets don’t need to be as hypothetical in communication. If we like Kevin Bacon’s performance in last night’s episode of The Following,…
Deep Ellum, a novel by Brandon Hobson, reviewed by Coleen Muir

Deep Ellum, by Brandon Hobson, follows our twenty-something-year-old narrator, Gideon, through the streets of Deep Ellum, a gloomy district in Dallas, Texas, which he has returned to after his mother’s suicide attempt. During his return, he must grapple with his sister, Meg’s, drug use and her mysterious and possibly abusive relationship with a man named…
Lake of Earth, prose by William VanDenBerg, reviewed by David Peak

The cover image of Lake of Earth shows a gemstone—its surface angled, smooth, brilliant—that seems to contain an inner light, something Machen might have imagined as harboring a human soul. This gemstone can also be seen as being representative of VanDenBerg’s crystal-clear, lean prose. Take, for example, this brief excerpt from the story “Wife of…
Book Review: m. forajter on Nicole Wilson’s Poetry Collection Supper & Repair Kit

What is a body? A person? How do we form identities when we exist in bodies we didn’t choose? How do we live when our identities clash so painfully with what the world expects us to be? How do we live when things continually happen to us? Both a reflection of body and of the…