Bad personality, bad prose, and sexism aside, the narrator’s anxieties about how to novelize history are legitimate.
The Land of Decoration – Grace McCleen
Judith’s preoccupations with death are more about her longing for a perfect world, one that she creates in miniature on the floor of her bedroom and calls “the Land of Decoration.”
The mélange of information is surprisingly coherent and unflaggingly intense.
There are books that you possess, and books that possess you. Clearly, THREATS is the latter.
The Ruins of Us – Keija Parssinen
A novel about place written for people who are not from that place.
Rather than leaving readers to guess what has been left out, as in a news article, Rare Earth forces readers to filter reality through its virile, imaginative expanse.
Though it might sound like a disservice to say that the stories feel a bit formulaic or even repetitive, it’s actually more of a backhanded compliment.
The Coincidence Engine – Sam Leith
THE COINCIDENCE ENGINE cycles through different levels of weirdness before discovering that it wants to be about struggles we have with ourselves.
Reading Glaciers is a bit like having a self-conscious friend, reluctant to reveal anything too personal, too embarrassing, too human.
From The Memoirs Of A Non-Enemy Combatant – Alex Gilvarry
This five-foot-one, flamboyant Filipino man has been designated a “Non-Enemy Combatant,” a victim of unfortunate, often hilarious, and mind-numbingly idiotic circumstance.