Category: Reviews & Criticism
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In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, a novel by Matt Bell, reviewed by Patrick Trotti
Matt Bell’s latest offering, published by Soho Press, is his most ambitious to date. In many ways it represents his continued growth as a writer. Moving from the shorter forms (short story collection, chapbooks, and novellas) of his past Bell has put together a novel-length work that may very well be his best writing yet.…
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On an Ungrounded Earth, new philosophy by Ben Woodard, reviewed by David Peak
In a 2011 interview conducted by Bookfriendzy, when asked about why he started his multi-disciplinary journal Collapse, Robin Mackay said (and I’m doing my best to transcribe here), “There were a number of problems that it was designed to address, one of which is the problem of where philosophy can exist outside of the academic…
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A Questionable Shape, a postmodern horror novel by Bennett Sims, reviewed by Michael Goroff
Bennett Sims’ debut novel, A Questionable Shape, is a cornucopia of postmodern stimulation. A “zombie novel” that utilizes footnotes to reference Freud, David Chalmers, Goldeneye (the video game), Heidegger, Oedipus Rex, Nietzsche, Joyce’s “The Dead” (or, as Sims’ narrator muses, “The Undead”) Solaris (both the Tarkovsky original and the Soderbergh remake), and Hurricane Katrina, among…
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Sign You Were Mistaken, poetry by Seth Landman, reviewed by Ezekiel Black
In my initial reading of Sign You Were Mistaken, I experienced a sensation that I’ve never associated with poetry before. When I drive—and I assume that this happens to everyone—I zone out, and when I regain consciousness, there is the satisfaction of abridging my commute, given that I was only aware for a portion of…
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Instructions for My Mother’s Funeral, poetry by Laura Read, reviewed by Kate Kimball
What if the only compass you had to the past was a series of fragmented images of home? What shape would these images take? What sound? After assembling what you could, how would you determine a beginning, middle, or end? And later, after stepping back, what would be real and what would be imagined? What…
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Necrology, a collaborative text by Gary J. Shipley & Kenji Siratori, reviewed by David Peak
The easiest way I found to approach Gary J. Shipley and Kenji Siratori’s collaborative text, Necrology, was by beginning at the end, or, more specifically, by beginning with the appendix (written by Iranian philosopher and writer Reza Negarestani). I use the word “easiest” here carefully, because I don’t want to convey the idea that there’s…
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“Gabe Durham’s Fun Camp”: Interview and Thoughts by Joseph Riippi
So I did a little research on real-life fun camps. The Parks and Recreation in Webster, New York, offers a couple fun camps in the summertime, one for second and third graders, another for fourth and fifth graders. Camps are offered for older kids, too, but those are no longer deemed “fun.” For the youngsters,…
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Blowout, new poetry by Denise Duhamel, reviewed by Jordan Sanderson
In Blowout, Denise Duhamel jaywalks across the intersections of the personal and historical, narrowly escaping a Mack truck and arriving safely at a picnic with a new lover who has ode-worthy eyebrows. Duhamel takes the collection’s title from a line in “Takeout, 2008”: “It is already 2009 / in Bangkok, where 61 partygoers were killed…
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“Gotta Get a Gimmick: How the Galaxy SIV’s Party Tricks Turned Innovation into a Game”: Tech Essay by Zach Tarvin
Even as a devout lover of iOS, I have to give credit to Samsung—they really know how to endlessly market their product. In the coming weeks, I’m sure we’ll continue to see campaign after campaign of ads telling us why the Galaxy SIV, The Next Big Thing, is here. The problem, though, is like Samsung’s…
Heavy Feather Review 