Author Archive

Decoding the Silences in Corregidora

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Gayl Jones’s 1975 book positions language as an apparatus of control and power, a weapon used to continue cycles of oppression. It contends that silence—both literal and metaphorical—can create a future untainted by the past.

Seeking Meaning and Survival in Something Wonderful

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Jo Lloyd’s story collection ripples with intelligence and heart . . . she writes brilliantly about both the past and present, locating humanity’s most elemental anxieties in misbegotten characters who want, above all else, to find a way to keep living.

The Allure of Scapegoating in Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

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In her new novel, Rivka Galchen explores insidious philosophical terrain with incisive intellect and humor, once again proving herself to be one of contemporary fiction’s sharpest minds.

Searching for an American Epistemology in Lost in Summerland

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Barrett Swanson’s essays rigorously interrogate the intersection between capitalism, masculinity, and the “gnawing sense of purposelessness” pervasive in our country’s psyche, while also adding an undeniable empathetic and interpersonal dimension that satisfies a reader’s desire for emotionally specific narrative intrigue.

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

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Caleb Azumah Nelson’s highly anticipated debut celebrates Black art and explores generational trauma.

Tomorrow They Won’t Dare to Murder Us by Joseph Andras

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Complicating conventional Western perceptions of terrorism, Joseph Andras’s debut novel subverts colonial morality and interrogates a philosophical dilemma that is still very much alive in our contemporary consciousness.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

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Leonora Carrington’s novel revels in inconclusive ideas, surreal reimagining’s, and the peculiarities of human consciousness . . . The novel eludes any whiff of definitiveness, instead layering ideas and questions atop one another like blocks in a Jenga tower. Naturally, Carrington forces the reader to withdraw the first block.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel continues her project of examining the immeasurable possibilities available in a single life.

All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal

Vulnerable and wise, Hrabal’s gorgeous memoir subtly probes the depths of a fragile, troubled psyche, turning a subject as potentially benign as pet ownership into a platform of interlocking drama and introspection.