A Review of Simon Frost’s Reading, Wanting, and Broken Economics: A Twenty-First-Century Study of Readers and Bookshops in Southampton around 1900 (State University of New York Press, 2021). Studies in the field of book history hold a perverse fascination for me. I can never approach them solely as an academic, for the . . .
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Look, I’m alive. And this park, Wright Park it’s called—a scrappy woodland just a half mile down the road from my home—is alive too, living and dying at once, whether I’m there to see it or not.—from “Wildflower Season,” Volume 62, Issue 3 (Fall 2021) Tell us about one of the first . . .
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Still it keeps encroaching, the prickly dread, waiting past midnight as sleep comes in stutters, until you quit trying. As branches scratch tree songs at your windows and shadows scurry like mice across the sills. Because time is ticking down. An inevtiable end approaching, the unmarked cars turning onto your street, their . . .
Read MoreJoin Gina Apostol, Omar El Akkad, Shailja Patel, and Joseph Earl Thomas, alongside Roy Scranton and Noy Holland to launch MR’s Climate issue. To celebrate the launch of our winter 2021 special issue on the climate crisis, the Massachusetts Review is pleased to announce a reading with contributors Gina Apostol, Joseph Earl . . .
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When someone is brought back from an overdose by Narcan, it can be a violent business: the body goes into immediate and intense withdrawal, and it can feel like you’ve had the shit kicked out of you. The person may be confused and terrified, and so it seems a reasonable repsonse to . . .
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As soon as the lamp was lit at six every evening and the chickens fluttered down from the cacao and jackfruit trees, Father would leave/ He wore shabby military fatigues, boots as large as my legs, and an antique amulet on which was inscribed an Angelus that only Father could read and . . .
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Dragi Nane, On this side of the pond, it’s Veteran’s Day, so I decided to write you a letter. Since we last talked, I’ve been planning to follow up, and since the main issue is surely not ours alone, I’ve decided to make it an open letter. Perhaps a few others might . . .
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(Children and teachers in the Village of Dong Loc, Vietnam, where there are memorials to children and road workers killed by American bombing. Photo by Doug Anderson.) Happy Veterans Day, brothers and sisters, especially those of wars that turned out to be unjustified and incompetently led. I speak from the Vietnam generation . . .
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First, in complete silence, the yellow wall in my room cracks, spreading its spiderweb threads as quickly and as slowly as is possible only in a dream. Chills are crawling down my spine; hot flashes throb into my head. This is panic, fear, terror—a preverbal, pre-Russian sensation that as yet has no . . .
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(The African American Cultural Center in Brunswick, Georgia. Photo by Bubba73) Editor’s Note: With this exploration of the tension between privilege and vulnerability, we renew our collaboration with the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program. In September 2020, a panel of local scholars responded to the current violence and racism in the US . . .
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