Category: Reviews & Criticism
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In Memory of Memory, a novel by Maria Stepanova, reviewed by Sylwia Jurkowski
Organized chaos … or chaos that becomes slightly organized while the rest of it remains unbound. Surrealism’s allowance of the mind to wander into the illogical, to bathe in it, only to find the clear, unmistakable logic within. Let’s take the most basic definition of the word “memory” from Merriam-Webster, “the power or process of…
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The Autodidacts, a novel by Thomas Kendall, reviewed by Dave Fitzgerald
There is a passage in what I have come to think of as, gun to my head, my all-time favorite novel—Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion—wherein a character complains to his therapist that he thinks he might be going mad, only to be met with the following response: “No Leland, not you. You, and in…
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“Dangerously Close”: Alyssa Quinn on Nina Shope’s Novel Asylum
Some books refuse to leave you unscathed; they draw you in, grip you tight, and when you get out—if you get out—you will remain forever marked. Nina Shope’s Asylum is such a book. An innovative work of historical fiction, Asylum tells the story of Louise Augustine Gleizes, a young woman diagnosed with hysteria by the…
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“Creating a Possible Self”: Natalie Wee’s Beast at Every Threshold Reviewed by E.B. Schnepp
Beast at Every Threshold is not a collection that invites us in gently, holding our hand while we explore the world, but it is one that rewards us for taking the time to find our way in. The collection is a challenging read, equal parts devasting and delighting, defying all attempts at categorization; Wee reinvents…
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Lovebirds, a flash fiction chapbook by Hananah Zaheer, reviewed by Jordan Terry
How many ways can a heart break? Hananah Zaheer aims to find out in her debut short story collection Lovebirds, which explores the complications of “love” and the hardship and chaos that comes with the raw emotion. In the collection, Zaheer’s female characters’ responses act as catalysts for radical change and Zaheer manages to wring…
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Red Is My Heart, a collaborative novel by Antoine Laurain & Le Sonneur, reviewed by Jordan Nunes
To publicly share the details of life post-breakup would be an embarrassment for most people, but Red Is My Heart does not explore disturbing details about the relationship or the breakup. Instead we are taken into the mind of a man as he meanders through the trivial, often delirious, times of his suffering. This is…
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Weeping in the Tropical Moonlight Because Nobody’s Told Her, a poetry book by Fox Henry Frazier, reviewed by Hillary Leftwich
each new world I’d built within you wrecked, each flower wilting & infectedYou’re being protected Fox Henry Frazier’s poetry collection, Weeping in the Tropical Moonlit Night Because Nobody’s Told Her, fulfills its title’s expectations with a dreamy, surreal quality I’ve been craving in the world of poetry to come into existence. With subtle waves of images…
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The New Existence, a novel by Michael Collins, reviewed by Vincent James Perrone
Americans in their cars. Even in cities blessed with workable public transit, the car remains ubiquitous in the image of America. The highway sprawls, the careening suburban neighborhoods, the gridded urban avenues. And in our cars, we become singular, lone pod-people encapsulated and resolute in our isolation, only likely to make contact with others through…
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“Elle Nash’s Gag Reflex: An (All Too) Human Response to a Nietzschean Sickness,” a review by Charlene Elsby
The first time I saw Elle Nash actually in motion (as opposed to in the static images on social media), she was a presenter on a panel with Kerry St. Laurent, B.R. Yeager, and Burial Grid, hosted by Gallery A3 (on Zoom). The discussion was good, and they covered many significant things about interdisciplinary collaborations…
Heavy Feather Review 