Category: Reviews & Criticism

Fiction Review: Kevin McMahon Reads Alexis Von Konigslow’s Novel The Exclusion Zone

Chernobyl. The name itself conjures a range of emotions and images, and my own intrigue in this infamous disaster was more than sufficient to pique my interest in giving this particular title a read. There’s a fantastic German word for the overwhelming sense of unease that’s palpable throughout—unheimlich—literally, “unhomely,” or the exact opposite feeling of…
Fiction Review: Dave Fitzgerald on Jesi Bender’s New Novel Child of Light

“All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It’s probably safe to presume that anyone reading this site with any regularity knows this line by heart. As the first of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, it sits comfortably close to the top of the ranks for most famous first lines in…
Fiction Review: Jason K. Friedman Reads Devin Jacobsen’s Story Collection The Summer We Ate Off the China

The academy has long been suspicious of literary language, considering the very concept of a privileged mode of expression privileged in other ways: elitist, exclusionary. These days fiction writers seem to agree. If they aren’t in fact autofiction, the stories you read in, yes, elite literary publications mostly try to sound as if they’re just…
Nonfiction Review: Alexandra Grabbe on Julie Masis’ Memoir How My Grandfather Stole a Shoe (And Survived the Holocaust in Ukraine)

At a moment in world history, when fascism seems to be rearing its ugly head again, the time feels right for yet another plunge into the past. Unfortunately, most people tend to forget what previous generations lived through. This is why I chose to read How My Grandfather Stole a Shoe (And Survived the Holocaust…
Fiction Review: Greta John Reads Maggie Armstrong’s Story Collection Old Romantics

Maggie Armstrong has described an “Old Romantic” as “a damn hapless fool who continually authors their own destruction by way of repeated mistakes and self-delusion.” While that may be a lovingly stern assessment of a romantic, like a woman talking to her naive best-friend, Armstrong argues her case in Old Romantics, because, well, you haven’t met…
Poetry Review: Casper Orr Reads Bianca Rae Messinger’s Debut Collection pleasureis amiracle

Bianca Rae Messinger’s first full-length collection, pleasureis amiracle, explores the timelessness of memory and desire. While reading Messinger’s lyrical prose, I oftentimes found myself reading the poems aloud, nearly singing them. The musical quality of the poetry in pleasureis amiracle begs you and I to question the importance of sound in our lives. What does…
Fiction Review: Ashley Honeysett Reads Nathan Dixon’s Story Collection Radical Red

I came to this book looking for right-wing horror. I wanted to giggle at the thing that freaks me out, instead of turning squeamishly away. Nathan Dixon has made up a cast of characters who recur from short story to short story in this collection. Some of them could probably be identified with real figures…
Poetry Review: Andrew Rihn Reads Declan Ryan’s Collection Crisis Actor

In Rocky II, Adrian is pregnant and while moving a heavy can of dog food at the pet shop, she over-exerts herself and ends up slipping into a coma. Rocky is understandably beside himself. Waiting beside Adrian’s hospital bed, when Rocky was at his most vulnerable and needing to steel himself, he didn’t go to…
Nonfiction Review: Daniel Barbiero Reads Peter Valente’s Artaud Occult Belief Guide Obliteration of the World

The third number of La Révolution surréaliste, appearing in April 1925, was remarkable for its inclusion of strident statements addressed to the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and the Buddhist Schools. Largely responsible for these items, as well as for overseeing the issue, was Antonin Artaud, (1896-1948), a recent addition to the Paris Surrealist group. In…