Book Reviews Archive

Songwriting and Poetry in Sadie Dupuis’s Cry Perfume

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Sadie Dupuis’s poems read like they would make interesting songs. These would be songs not of the finger-picked, delicately confessional coffee-house sort, though, but of the spikily asymmetrical, disjunctive sort, with guitar solos that sound like automobile accidents.

The Perils of Freedom in How to Turn into a Bird

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How to Turn into a Bird María José Ferrada Tin House | December 6, 2022 Ramón, the protagonist in How to Turn into a Bird, is not like the others. He left his job working long hours at the factory. He no longer lives within the thin walls of

Inhabiting Past Ancestors in Animal Life

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Animal Life is a subtle and stunning work for anyone who has felt the impact of an ancestor, who has lost themselves to a past that feels like their own.

A Fierce Feminist Take on the Troubles in Factory Girls

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Michelle Gallen’s novel enriches the Troubles narrative with a fierce cast of young women determined to reject the violence of their youth.

The Peculiar Ritual of Poetry Readings in Douglas Kearney’s Optic Subwoof

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By looking at the institution of poetry readings, the peculiar ritual in which the poet is both the priest and the sacrifice, Kearney goes where other writers should follow.

The Reflections in Li Zi Shu’s The Age of Goodbyes

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As Li Zi Shu’s new novel rotates through three storylines in every chapter, it is soon clear that the objective is to glimpse how the truth of each is reflected, refracted, and twisted in the other two.

Prince and the Remaking of Image in Hilton Als’s My Pinup

Who could be a better guide to Prince—to his polymorphous sexuality, his gleeful dismantling of the racial compartmentalization of American popular music, his seemingly effortless sprezzatura as a performer—than Hilton Als?

Motherhood and the Myth of Closure in Vigdis Hjorth’s Is Mother Dead

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Hjorth has masterfully written a family drama where no reunion takes place and a thriller where no blood is shed. Her prose keeps us on edge, puncturing breathless sentences that stretch to half a page with four-word questions that undercut everything she previously said.

Navigating Identity Across Continents in Vanessa A. Bee’s Home Bound

Vanessa A. Bee’s new memoir is story of an ambitious and bright young woman doing her best to navigate a complicated transcontinental existence.

Disappearing Bodies in Elizabeth McCracken’s The Hero of This Book

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To be visible or invisible in the public eye, the novel implies, is not a choice one makes. Readers who delight in forthright and fearless stories of complicated women, told through the eyes of other complicated women, are sure to find joy in McCracken’s new novel.