Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours – Luke B. Goebel
Short sentences are followed by half-page, single-sentence paragraphs that read like David Foster Wallace channeling Hunter S. Thompson.
Volodine’s writers, as it turns out, write because they must kill.
The Luminol Reels – Laura Ellen Joyce
You can afford to read The Luminol Reels, which runs a slender ninety-seven pages, multiple times. Plan on doing so.
We Are the Birds of the Coming Storm – Lola Lafon
Lafon’s is a novel that asks, in certain ways, not to be reviewed.
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.