A review of The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay (Algonquin Books, 2019) The 2019 Conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs concluded this spring, after nearly six hundred panels, readings and celebrations, and over eight hundred vendors and literary presses on display at the book fair—all crammed into three . . .
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A review of Moxie by Alex Poppe (Tortoise Books, 2018) Scott Hamilton was wrong when he said that the only disability in life is a bad attitude. In fact, you ask many self-described disabled people, a bad attitude is just our other disability. That’s why, when an abled writer puts a disabled character at the . . .
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Kill Class by Nomi Stone (Tupelo, 2019) Living as we do in a time of ceaseless, overlapping wars, I would venture that most Americans believe that we know how soldiers prepare for war, through basic training and boot camp, the persistent physical trials of young men to ensure their strength. In order to . . .
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A review of SADAKICHI HARTMANN: COLLECTED POEMS, 1886-1944, edited by Floyd Cheung, Little Island Press, 2017. Despite approving nods from Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, Karl Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) remains one of the most eccentric—some say, dilettantish—figures in American literature. In that crepuscular, liminal era between Victorianism and Modernism, Hartmann held court . . .
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A review of Accomplice to Memory, by Q. M. Zhang (Kaya Press, 2017) Editor’s Note: Given that this magazine was the first to publish pages from Zhang’s book, and that, since that time, the author has herself joined our masthead as fiction and nonfiction editor, this magazine certainly can make no pretense to . . .
Read MoreIf you’re reading this blog, one of two things can be assumed: either that you made a point of seeing the new Spike Lee film this past weekend, during the first anniversary of the march on Charlottesville, or that you’ve read at least a review or two, and so already suspect that . . .
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I am posting this blog entry on 6 August 2018. At 8:15 a.m. local time, exactly seventy-three years ago, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This is a fact. In three days we are going to commemorate the seventy-third anniversary of the . . .
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A review of Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales, translated by Peter Bush (NYRB Classics, 2017) Joan Sales’s Incerta glòria is a novel about precariousness. Its account of the Spanish Civil War, refracted in the experience of various characters living in Barcelona and on the Aragonese front in 1937 and 1938, draws its power and beauty . . .
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A review of Girl, World by Alex Poppe (Laughing Fire Press, 2017) For better or for worse, “feminism” is in fashion. Spunky shirts proclaiming feminist slogans have become mass-market staples, allowing anyone (who can afford it) to “try on” feminism in a dressing room. Celebrity feminists tweet one-line proclamations to show their support . . .
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A review of The Year 200 by Augustín de Rojas (Restless Books, 2016) Cuban author Agustin de Rojas’s The Year 200 forces American readers to grapple with their assumptions about Cuba, communism, and the human condition. The novel’s Spanish publication in 1990 and English publication in 2016 line up with potentially crucial turning points in . . .
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