Category: Reviews & Criticism

“If you can’t look away, you might as well laugh at this egg heist tragi-comedy”: Cassandra Luca on Deb Olin Unferth’s new novel Barn 8

Just as we continue to ask, “if a tree falls, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound” we might also ask, “if 500 people plan to remove nearly one million hens from commercial barns, without attempting to make a political statement, is it still a political statement?” Deb Olin…
Noreen Hernandez Reviews Michael Chin’s Story Collection Circus Folk from Hoot n Waddle

The circus exists in a foggy space between reality and fantasy. It’s a place I’ve visited in person, at the movies, or on television. My first memories of the circus include laughing with Bozo on my lunch hour from school or staring wide-eyed during a Ringling Brothers spectacle. Eventually, the luster of the performances faded.…
Noreen Hernandez on Tina May Hall’s debut novel The Snow Collectors from Dzanc Books

Tina May Hall has created a work of storytelling art in The Snow Collectors by weaving the genres of gothic mystery/ romance, the atmosphere of a lyrical poem, and a warning of apocalyptic environmental collapse. The first chapter is divided into chunks that describe Henna’s, the main character’s, background. These sections move abruptly between her…
Cassandra Luca Reviews Jonathan Blum’s short story collection The Usual Uncertainties: “A richly detailed, mixed (and eyebrow-furrowing) bag”

Jonathan Blum’s short story collection, The Usual Uncertainties, is cohesive in that each story showcases his uncanny observations; a brief paragraph sketch of one character is enough to reveal their essence. Blum can do this for houses too: “The mossy gables, the exalted peeling cornices and pale shingled walls, the quiet inclining street near the…
The Miracles, the third poetry collection by Amy Lemmon, reviewed by Leonard A. Temme

Amy Lemmon’s new book of poems, The Miracles, dedicated to her two children—her two miracles—tells the story of a smart, accomplished woman struggling with grief and loss in today’s urbane world. The book is in five sections: Prelude, Fugue, Riff – A, Riff – B, and Coda, terms that imply that music is important to…
You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue, short stories by Michael Chin, reviewed by Emily Webber

The characters in Michael Chin’s debut short story collection, You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue, are figuring out how to be in the world with others and themselves. Many of these characters’ lives are full of trauma and turmoil and the best they hope for is easier times in the future. Chin’s stories…
A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Sevaral Barbarities Lately Committed, linked stories by Jason Brown, reviewed by Téa Franco

A family of prodigal sons and daughters scramble to pick up the pieces of their once revered and established New England family in the collection of linked stories, A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed by Jason Brown. The linked stories lay out the process and aftermath of the wreckage of families,…
Story, Jennifer Firestone’s fifth book of poetry from Ugly Duckling Presse, reviewed by Dave Karp

One regular feature of contemporary writing instruction is the dictum that the writer should “tell her story,” bringing new and needed narratives to light and challenging old, entrenched ones explicitly or implicitly. Jennifer Firestone’s Story meets this challenge in a different way. The poem resists not so much dominant narratives as narrative itself; it is…
No Good for Digging, Dustin M. Hoffman’s second story collection from Word West Press, reviewed by Joaquin Macias

In preparation for reviewing, Dustin M. Hoffman’s No Good for Digging, I spent three years taking every class he offered at Winthrop University. So, I have been taking notes on what he considers important enough to teach a fiction student. Naturally, you can’t judge a writer by how well they teach or a teacher by…