by Walker Rutter-Bowman

David Nutt

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And while I’m lobbing around so many crass generalizations, here’s one more: All of us are beholden to some larger tyranny or coercion, real or imagined, that is ever ready to crush us.

The Knack of Doing – Jeremy M. Davies

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In fiction, it’s more fun when the watch, after pages and pages of diligent ticking, explodes, starts screaming, or shoots poop out of its dial — does something, anything, to upend the pattern or upset the conceit.

Inherited Disorders – Adam Ehrlich Sachs

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An inheritance, then, is just another way by which fathers and sons disappoint and misunderstand each other.

Fates and Furies – Lauren Groff

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Groff gives herself a generous budget for histrionics of language. If it’s guilty of excess, well, recall the wailing and breast-beating, the hair-pulling and eye-gouging of the Greek tragedies.

Lurid & Cute – Adam Thirlwell

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Thirlwell’s achievement is in creating a character who is difficult — nay, impossible — to like, and yet, like Humbert Humbert, propulsive.

Turtleface and Beyond – Arthur Bradford

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He’s like Buster Keaton, but without the rubbery grace and stoic sobriety.

Shark – Will Self

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Jaws without the shark.