Reviews

Sometimes I Lie and Sometimes I Don’t – Nadja Spiegel

by

There is always the sense that Spiegel’s narrators are learning and relearning the rules of propriety; that they are struggling to negotiate public expectations.

The Things We Don’t Do – Andrés Neuman

by

The best stories in the collection are similarly masterful examples of the short form, and beautiful expeditions into the nebulous space between self and other.

Vanished – Ahmed Masoud

by

Vanished [is] a treatise on the responsibilities we have to confront the legacies of occupation, of lies, and to insist on the disclosure of history’s truths.

Silence and Song – Melanie Rae Thon

by

Silence and Song is Thon’s most radical experiment in form and lyrical expression.

Upright Beasts – Lincoln Michel

by

Michel displays a Barthelmeian penchant for the absurd and a wicked dry sense of humor.

City on Fire – Garth Risk Hallberg

by

Hallberg has at least attempted the Great New York Novel, but Hallberg has placed too much trust in the throw-weight of his subject and his pages, so the “great” is less qualitative than quantitative.

The Sleep of the Righteous – Wolfgang Hilbig

by

It is a real gift to English language readers that finally, albeit posthumously, we have the opportunity to discover and admire a portion of this wonderful writer’s oeuvre.

‘I’ – Wolfgang Hilbig

by

Who could imagine a US intelligence agent caring about Beckett?

Book Club: The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector – DAY 3

by

Day 3 of an in-depth dialogic inquiry into Clarice Lispector’s short fiction, in which her embrace of the body, linguistic innovations, and interrogations of gender, sexuality, and the limits of the human are discussed.

Book Club: The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector – DAY 2

by

Day 2 of an in-depth dialogic inquiry into Clarice Lispector’s short fiction, in which her embrace of the body, linguistic innovations, and interrogations of gender, sexuality, and the limits of the human are discussed.