Pigeons on the Grass – Wolfgang Koeppen
Capturing a world of postwar American bravado and shaky transatlantic alliances, PIGEONS ON THE GRASS may encompass a bygone cityscape, but its inclusion of a troubled yet triumphant interracial relationship feels resonant to our current moment of international reckoning with racial injustice.
I did not read Lauren Oyler’s debut, FAKE ACCOUNTS, for fun, and I won’t say that’s what it turned into, because that would be something adjacent to a lie. I read it for the discourse.
Nina Power’s Platforms is a strange little book, a curious mixture of letter, poem, and meditation.
The Irresponsible Magician – Rebekah Rutkoff
The “I” is unstable, multiple, and identity is fluid in Rutkoff’s book of stories and essays, as she plays with the genres of fiction and autobiography.
Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography – Edgar Garcia
Garcia upends the distinction between diurnal intellection and nocturnal visions and free-association.
Blue Light of the Screen – Claire Cronin
Horror is not a numbing agent, but a proposal, an opportunity to meditate upon the method and medium of fear.
One reason to single out Cowling’s work is the frankness with which her scenarios deal with the acute agony of the present moment.
The Ancestry of Objects – Tatiana Ryckman
Ryckman brings the reader along through an exploration of the surprisingly overlapping territories of grief, sex, and religion.
Terminal Park – Gary J. Shipley
TERMINAL PARK stages the failure of systems of value and restraint that will be inadequate in the face of human desperation
Erin Elizabeth Smith’s clear focus and ability to weave together several threads to tell a woman’s story is one of the great strengths of this collection.