Category: Reviews & Criticism

Graphic Novel Review: Julia Mae Ftacek Reads How to Survive in the North by Luke Healy

Like the frigid plains it’s set in, Luke Healy’s graphic novel How to Survive in the North is quiet and full of introspective beauty, placing its cast of vibrant, believable characters against a looming red sky with nothing but their bodies and misty breaths, speechless in the face of their shared predicament. And the book…
Fiction Review: James W. Davidson, Jr. Reads Stephen Dixon’s Late Stories

In Stephen Dixon’s intricate story cycle Late Stories, author and retired university teacher Phil Seidel exists alone in the Baltimore home where he and his late wife Abby raised their daughters. Though Phil exercises at the YMCA, shops at the local market, and occasionally dines at his favorite restaurants, he struggles to venture any more…
Book Review: Jacob Singer on My Life as an Animal by Laurie Stone

My Life as an Animal, a collection of interconnected stories, offers a unified voice and perspective, producing the feel of a loosely constructed novel. While the stories focus on a few topics and themes—Laurie’s relationship with Richard, her family and life in New York City, and her pseudo-exile in Arizona—each topic addresses something within the…
“Abstract Grotesquism”: Daniel Miller Reviews Nathan Jurevicius’ Graphic Novel Birthmark

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Both whimsical and grotesque, Nathan Jurevicius’ latest graphic novel Birthmark is a take on an age-old story—that of the hero’s quest. The book’s cover reflects this: our hero, a tooth-like creature with tied-up hair, rides a grub through fiery-orange leaves, his eyes intently forward. The grub’s cuteness,…
C.F. Lindsey Reviews Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames, a new novel by Stefan Kiesbye

“Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames have no place in children’s games.” This haunting nursery rhyme drips with dread and foreboding, and establishes the tone for Stefan Kiesbye’s novel. Set in a small German village, the book is a shining example of classic Gothic literature, but spun with a modern twist. Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames is indeed…
Yi Lu’s New Poetry Collection Sea Summit, reviewed by Robert Young

It’s always important to read outside your boundaries, to encounter diversity of thought, and to broaden your literary horizons. Reading translated literature is a great way to do this. An often underrepresented part of literature, translated literature can, especially to other writers looking for technique to borrow, provide a whole new perspective and outlook on…
Robert Dean’s Novel The Red Seven Reviewed by C.F. Lindsey

Grit, outlaw-cowboy justice, and blood, lots of blood; these phrases come to mind when discussing Robert Dean’s novel The Red Seven, following the tale of a cowboy bounty hunter on a hunt for vengeance. After the brutal mutilation and murder of his family—the Masterson clan—the renegade known as “The Ghost” saddles his faithful mount and…
Fiction Review: Gwen Werner Reads Fat Girl, SKinny by Amye Archer

The first time a boy called me fat, I was at the public pool in fifth grade. I’d chosen a one-piece tie-dye number from JCPenney and Emily, my oldest friend, had a two-piece blue suit of which I was endlessly jealous. That summer we spent every summer day together, in and out of the pool,…
Fiction Review: Paul Albano Reads James Tadd Adcox’s Repetition

James Tadd Adcox’s novella Repetition is a hypnotic, deeply funny, yet strangely affecting journey through sadness, archaic conflict resolution, Kierkegaard, and hosting an academic conference. It’s an exploration of repetition and dreams and the ill-fated, inexplicable childlike ambitions forever-incubating inside us. It’s really good, is what I’m trying to say. The protagonist (also our unnamed…