Book Reviews Archive
Weather by Jenny Offill
Jenny Offill’s new novel is collection of portraits, of individual truths and national anguish, curated by a quietly unravelling woman.
Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham
In Tola Rotimi Abraham’s debut novel, two young girls see the linkage of sex, money, and religion on the path to power.
Blue Flowers by Carola Saavedra
Obsessive love is a theme as old as the Iliad, but Saavedra’s novel gives it her own enigmatic twist, joining the ranks of Latin American authors who are transforming our literary landscape in vivid, thrilling ways.
The Criminal Child by Jean Genet
Genet operated in social structures in order to subvert them, to explore and craft beauty from the darkest corners of modern civilization. While most artists can only imagine a prison sentence, prostitution, ecstasy, or evil, Genet lived through these experiences and, in some cases, sought them out.
Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
In his new memoir, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo writes his family’s story into the history books of immigration.
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
Greenwell’s novel feels at once perilously modern and coolly baroque; a Sebaldian melancholy wafts up like a fog through the spaces in his lovingly turned sentences.
Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
In Miranda Popkey’s debut novel, conversation has the power to shape the story of a life.
The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas
Vesaas’s language is rich and thickening, replete with extended metaphors that are visionary, haunting, and half-mad, recalling the ebullient, runaway brushwork of Van Gogh.
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.
Frolic and Detour by Paul Muldoon
Like Ashbery in his final collections, or Cohen in his final albums, Paul Muldoon has nothing left to prove, and can take delight simply in doing what he inimitably does. And his delight is ours.