Many critics have called the book “quirky,” which is perhaps unavoidable when the author layers uncomfortable and even disturbing scenes with levity.
The Angel Esmeralda – Don DeLillo
It is that journey from not knowing what other people want to not knowing what oneself wants, a journey into greater depths of uncertainty, that brings all of DeLillo’s talents and perceptions into fruition.
From the Mouth of the Whale – Sjon
Sjon’s Jonas is God’s champion, and his novel shapes its narrative antecedent into an experience that is utterly and beautifully different.
Trouble is, when you start observing, you start seeing all the mistakes. CHILD WONDER is the story of a person teetering on the brink, trying to figure out “how to lose one’s innocence without losing one’s soul.”
The Map and the Territory – Michel Houellbecq
Readers should be grateful, not disquieted, for these provocations.
Mary and Mr. Fox begin to not only write stories together, but to inhabit them as well, and as Mary transforms Mr. Fox from author to subject matter, she slowly exposes to him his own brutality.
How does a journalist end up being more insightful than a host of experienced experts? Michael Lewis asks common-sense questions and doggedly pursues those to which no one can give him a sensible answer.
The Book of Life – Stuart Nadler
Nadler shows that a book of life is not grandiose; it can be simply an amalgam of life’s banalities.
Buffet World is experimental poetry’s answer to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, interspersing verse renderings of “fun facts” about the food industry (at times troubling, at times whimsical, at times both) with found images of artery-clogging comestibles.
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.