Reviewers might describe RELIEF MAP as a coming-of-age novel but I’m disinclined to characterize it as such, because the term to me implies a more histrionic change in character or situation than in the novel.
The Border of Paradise – Esmé Weijun Wang
Consider THE BELL JAR and GIRL, INTERRUPTED. Esmé Weijun Wang’s debut novel THE BORDER OF PARADISE is a different kind of narrative about mental illness.
In a world with no chill, Dynamo Island is nearly all chill.
Proxies: Essays Near Knowing – Brian Blanchfield
[Blanchfield] thus recalibrates the Cartesian cogito as a statement of uncertainty that lies at the basis of our being: I mistake, therefore I am.
“I’m turning into a human skeleton!” was particularly resonant and touches on what I think to be Agony’s universal appeal.
The Fishermen – Chigozie Obioma
THE FISHERMEN is less an allegory than a story about our desire to fit the past into one.
Studies in Hybrid Morphology – Matt Tompkins
Matt Tompkins’ Studies in Hybrid Morphology might be perused as a codex of potential trans-human identities.
The 7th Man – Melanie Rae Thon
“Someone has to die so that the rest of us shall value life more,” said Virginia Woolf, and Thon deftly animates this theorem.
OBLIVION’s task is a vital one: to recover Russia’s collectively repressed memories of the prison labor camps under Stalin.
Ways to Disappear – Idra Novey
As happens from time to time with critically successful artists, it is almost a fait accompli that the world discovers disparities between the quality of the art and the quality of the creator.