Reviews

The MANIAC – Benjamín Labatut

by

Labatut’s most horrific writing depicts the achievements born from humanity’s weakness. . . . It’s horrifying because it’s true; it’s horrifying because it took immense effort, achievement, and ingenuity to make it so.

The New Animals – Pip Adam

by

Oh, the things that can only be whispered sideways to a knowing colleague, or thought privately in the dungeon of the mind. The human psyche, whether on the clock or off, becomes a room of funhouse mirrors facing external animus and internal self-loathing into infinity. In short: work is a drag.

January – Sara Gallardo

by

Nefer, the teenage protagonist of the slim, classic Argentine novel January, first published in 1958, is pregnant and doesn’t want to be.
[TW: sexual violence]

Open Heart – Elvira Lindo

by

What Lindo offers is not necessarily “forgiveness”—for her father, or for anyone else—but rather the privilege of being faithfully and thoroughly observed.

My Work – Olga Ravn

by

For Ravn, the pregnant body becomes a microcosmic environment tensely defending itself against the violent onslaught of the global conditions of capitalism.

Dayswork – Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

by

DAYSWORK is suspicious of the way we talk about authors, authorship, and authorial collaboration: Whose labor is recognized, and whose is elided?

The Men Can’t Be Saved – Ben Purkert

by

Just like the professions of advertising and commerce, perhaps even preaching, these men distort reality, create false versions of themselves to convince an audience they are functioning successfully.

Afterword – Nina Schuyler

by

[Virginia] never imagined that her ideal lover could be a monster, especially not of her own creation.

January – Sara Gallardo

by

Deceit, Gallardo implies here in her stunningly economical prose, does not originate in the individual act of hiding a pregnancy, but in the collective act of condemning a woman to gestate one in secret dread.

Idlewild – James Frankie Thomas

by

Teenagers . . . Are they interesting, or just irritating?