A Review of Gianfranco Calligarich’s Last Summer in the City, Transl. Howard Curtis; Foreword by André Aciman (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2021) Is there a more fertile experience for literary aspirants than to be poor in a great city? Every generation of young would-be novelists searches for their own version of the Lost . . .
Read More
A Review of Haruki Murakami’s First Person Singular. Transl. Philip Gabriel (Knopf, 2021) The most significant story I have ever read was a Murakami story. I cannot say which one, only that it appears in the collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Consider this withholding a sacrament in the name of preservation: once you admit what . . .
Read More
A Review of Dariel Suarez’s The Playwright’s House In his debut novel, Dariel Suarez takes the reader into the heart of Cuba, of Havana, of the people of the island. As a Cuban American, I notice how the people of the island are often erased from the stories set in Cuba, the stories . . .
Read More
A Review of The Deposition by Pete Duval (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). I’m going to be straight with you: this is not going to be one of those neutral and dispassionate reviews. The fact is, I know Pete Duval. Not only have I chosen his work (including stories in this volume) for publication . . .
Read More
(Photo: Kate Winslet as Mare in a scene from Mare of Easttown) I was surprised, and more than a little perplexed, when I realized that Mare of Easttown is a soap opera. I consider myself well-versed in soapy television (I’m currently in the weeds of a dissertation about melodrama), but I had trouble reconciling Mare of . . .
Read More
O the brews of this season are here!They’re refreshing, both hazy and clear.So pour for your pleasure,And sip at your leisure.Let’s toast to the Summer with beer. Hops 4 Teacher (J. Wakefield Brewing, Miami FL)Hops 4 Teacher, a bright IPA,Is a honey-hued Summer vacay.After COVID sequesterAnd two Zoom semesters,It washes your grading away. . . .
Read More
“The very act of writing then, conjuring/coming to ‘see’, what has yet to be recorded in history is to bring into consciousness what only the body knows to be true. The body—that site which houses the intuitive, the unspoken, the viscera of our being—this is the revolutionary promise of ‘theory in the . . .
Read More
On this day, March 11th (which I predict by this time next year will be recognized as an International Day of Remembrance and Mourning), I’ve decided to write something entirely inappropriate, because frankly, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Those of us still lucky enough to be in the world have realized . . .
Read More
A Review of Martín Espada, Floaters (Norton, 2021). From the moment you open your copy of Martín Espada’s Floaters, you hear echoes of Whitman—and Espada’s own unmistakable, bold voice. Responding to our past presidential administration, this collection tackles the hot-button themes. In addition to being a voice for the voiceless, with booming, resonant, sinewy lines, Floaters takes . . .
Read More
Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan by Jean Daive, Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop (City Lights, 2020) On or around the 20th of April, 1970, Paul Celan walked from his apartment on Avenue Emile-Zola to the Pont Mirabeau and stepped from the bridge into the Seine, from which he did not emerge alive. . . .
Read More