Category: Reviews & Criticism

“A Small, but Strong Cup of Coffee”: Patrick Trotti Reviews How to Shake the Other Man by Derek Palacio

Derek Palacio’s debut book, Nouvella Book’s most recent, is top notch and reaffirms everything I’ve already thought about the in-between novella form. How to Shake the Other Man is a beautiful meditation on love, brotherhood, identity, and boxing. Palacio, who has a story forthcoming in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013 collection, has staked a…
Is That You, John Wayne?, flash fiction by Scott Garson, reviewed by Kelsie Hahn

Scott Garson is a writer who captures moments, and it is here that his new collection, Is That You, John Wayne? excels. Individual moments are the stars of these stories, similar to the micro shorts in his previous collection, American Gymnopédies. The moments are quiet but powerful. The characters are unself-conscious. Most of all, they are…
Penny, n., a novella by Madeline McDonnell, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

Penny, n. tells of Penny, a girl who grew up being told she was pretty by her mother. Penny discovers she is not pretty, and at thirty, worries. Worries worries worries. She takes a job at a bar, she meets Guy, the lexicographer. Guy moves in, invents clever, nauseatingly sweet pet names. Then, one day,…
Pretty the Ugly, poetry by Jillian M. Phillips, reviewed by Erin McKnight

Pretty the Ugly, Jillian M. Phillips’ collection of poems, poses with its very title the question of whether the contained poems will center on the ways we see the world, or the means and methods we use to manipulate ourselves in order to look better to those who see us. From the first poem’s last…
“The Lifespan of a Fact: Why D’Agata’s Truth Wins,” a book review by Jill Davis

I am seeking a truth here,” John D’Agata boasts in an essay he wrote for Harper’s, “not necessarily accuracy.” The subject of the essay: Levi Presley, a Las Vegas teenage resident who jumped to an early death from the brink of the Stratosphere amid the blinding lights of downtown Vegas. However, due to the numerous…
Brief Nudity, poetry by Larry O. Dean, reviewed by Jordan Sanderson

The effect of brief nudity depends on the context. Sometimes, it’s sensual; sometimes, it’s embarrassing; sometimes, it’s funny. No matter the context, it allows a glimpse of what is always there but seldom seen. The poems in Larry O. Dean’s Brief Nudity reveal the world as it scampers from the shower to the bedroom, as…
Fondly, two novellas by Colin Winnette, reviewed by Ben Spivey

When Fondly arrived in the mail I tore open the package and stared at the cover for a second, looked at the back and thought, Yes that is an exploding face. I did not know what to expect from this book. I quickly found out that Fondly was not just a single book but two…
Any Deadly Thing, stories by Roy Kesey, reviewed by Ryan Werner

Sometimes I remember that the world is big. I remember this in the context of thinking about how the world is often small. In reading Roy Kesey’s short story collection Any Deadly Thing, I thought often of the places his characters go, both geographically and emotionally. This idea of distance takes the reader to South…
The Skin Team, a novel by Jordaan Mason, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

Jordaan Mason’s The Skin Team is designed to strike—at first—as a coming of age story circa Perks of Being a Wallflower or The Fuck-Up. There’s riding bicycles, there’s reading diaries, eating licorice, hanging out in treehouses, following train tracks, sharing the first cigarette, sharing clothes, cutting. There’s ample surreptitious teenage sex on mattresses in the woods.…