Category

book reviews

Navigating Reality: Review of Molly Reid’s "The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary"

September 24, 2019 | blog, book reviews

By Grace Timko The Rapture Index: A Suburban BestiaryBy Molly Reid220 pp. BOA Editions. $17.00 The stories in Molly Reid’s debut collection, The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary, resonate with readers through an overarching sense of nostalgia and moments of discomfort. Reid has the distinct ability to navigate dualities—the real and fabulist—both in theme and in style....

The Fearful Beauty of 'Anything': Review of Lee Martin's "The Mutual UFO Network"

November 29, 2018 | blog, book reviews

By Emma Stough The Mutual UFO NetworkBy Lee Martin300 pp. Dzanc Books. $26.95 The legion of characters populating Lee Martin’s forthcoming collection The Mutual UFO Network cause a reader to question humanity’s place among the stars and planets. Martin favors the wanderers—those navigating the untidy shambles of lost love, of families cracked and broken apart, of past and...

Unguided Girlhood: A Review of "The Blurry Years" by Eleanor Kriseman

October 23, 2018 | blog, book reviews

By Christine McSwain The Blurry YearsBy Eleanor Kriseman160 pp. Two Dollar Radio, $15.99 In The Blurry Years, Eleanor Kriseman depicts the particularly tumultuous but ultimately universal growing pains of Callie, a bright young girl living in Florida with her flighty, alcoholic mother. Against a rotating backdrop of run-down motel rooms, the homes of short-term boyfriends,...

Piecing it Together: Review of "Because: A Lyric Memoir" by Joshua Mensch

September 18, 2018 | book reviews, news

By John L. Byrne Because: A Lyric Memoir By Joshua Mensch 144 pp. W.W. Norton & Company, $22.95 At once a personal account of actual events and a lyric journey through the formative years of a young boy, Joshua Mensch’s lyric memoir, Because, unfolds a tale about the impact of childhood sexual and psychological abuse....