Paper Lantern & Ecstatic Cahoots – Stuart Dybek
For all the stories about love and broken hearts that exist, Dybek does more than add his Chicagoan twist.
Wolf in White Van – John Darnielle
It is about life being hard, getting much worse, and then living with the practically unthinkable. Wolf in White Van is a tragedy.
Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky – David Connerley Nahm
As dazzling and unsettling as a lone firework suddenly bursting — then just as quickly vanishing — on an otherwise dark, quiet night.
Sweetness #9 – Stephen Eirik Clark
The intentions of a Rembrandt and the team that created Sweet Maui Potato Chips can never be that far apart, it seems.
An Instrument for Leaving – Monika Zobel
On the page, Zobel’s memories become psychedelic portraiture.
The Temporary Gentleman – Sebastian Barry
Against what the balladeers would tell us, nationalism has never been an all-in sentiment among the Irish.
Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore – Walter Mosley
The cathartic rutting that spices Mosley’s crime series is abandoned here for the everyday mechanics of industrialized desire.
The main pitfall of the book is very similar to the main problem porno generally has: after a while, it becomes predictable and boring.
The Shimmering Go-Between – Lee Klein
To privilege surprise and suspense seems to reject the value of the possibility of critical distance, to render sacred the immersive entertainment value of story and perhaps most significantly to devalue the potential of re-reading.
The Last Days of My Mother – Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson
Drinking novels are familiar, death of a family member novels are familiar, dark comedies, familiar, but Last Days brings something new: a mother and son with absolutely zero boundaries.