Mirrorlands: Russia, China, and the Journeys in Between – Ed Pulford
Pulford’s persona in this book, like all other Englishmen interested in Russia, is Anthony Burgess manqué.
A nod to communism doesn’t make fashion political, it makes it nothing more than collage.
Mostly Dead Things – Kristen Arnett
What Arnett’s debut aspires to is the act of holding, tightly and gently all at once, to the mostly dead things, and not letting go.
My Mother Laughs – Chantal Akerman
Akerman’s “I” is more like an eye, a camera lens — it is what it sees, and what it sees itself doing.
Something Like Breathing – Angela Readman
The attraction of Angela Readman’s SOMETHING LIKE BREATHING is in the distance between two girls negotiating their youth, not necessarily involved, but proximate to and observant of each other.
What nihilism describes are the effects of living within a collapsed universe.
In order to access truth, poetry must “deviate from that which is familiar.”
The Complete Gary Lutz – Gary Lutz
Lutz’s stories are less the literary equivalent of stylized Instagram snapshots or artsy TikTok videos than careful montages made from the serial recordings of a surveillance camera
In MANHUNT, coming of age means coming to grips with powerlessness.
Justice Piece // Transmission – Lauren Levin
The felt political reality flickers into visibility: readers experience themselves caught in the weft, in contact with and transformed by a perspective that couldn’t have been otherwise articulated.