It may take readers a moment to adjust to that narrative form, but the immediacy it provides is worth it. It’s a history and a conversation, the kind where you leave what was behind and move into the present state of what is. Interior reckoning goes a long way and is itself a form of migration, maybe even another form of death in the father’s and daughter’s struggle to align identity with a self in a foreign land.
Tag: fiction
A review of The Meaning of Fear by Laura Hulthen Thomas
The Meaning of Fear is not an easy novel, but it is a necessary one, particularly in today’s world. Readers will find a lot to unpack here and, without a doubt, gain insight into the ramifications of abuse. At the same time, fans of suspense are in for an adrenaline-charged ride, penned by a top-notch storyteller.
A review of But Where’s Home: A Novella and Stories by Toni Ann Johnson
Johnson’s writing–her vivid detail, sharp dialogue and insightful, deftly witty scenes–reveal a family of distinct, complicated individuals grappling with the internal and external impact of our society’s stereotypes, but also asks us to look more closely at our own relationships.
A review of Radegonde and the First Crusade by Lauren Small
Radegonde and the First Crusade spans four years from the time Radegonde leaves home to the bloody conclusion of the novel. Lauren Small vividly brings the time to life while spinning a tale of one young woman’s struggle with faith. At the Council of Clermont at the end of 1095, Pope Urban II issued a call to arms that would result in the first crusade – the People’s Crusade – and the capture of Jerusalem, liberating the holy city from Muslim control. Related in the present tense by an omniscient third-person narrator, the story focuses on Radegonde, both her interior struggles with faith and sin, forgiveness and love, and the outward challenges she faces.
A review of The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe
The book is full of beautiful, funny, often tragic contradictions that are so well woven into the fast-paced plot that at times you have to force yourself to slow down to appreciate them. The Cross Thieves is a terrific book, full of gritty violence and desperate characters, but also infused with a tenderness that borders on transformative.
A review of Prairie Ashes by Ben Nadler
Prairie Ashes is well worth your time. Whatever your interests, it is the duty of the working class as much as it is the rentier class to understand what was once possible in the pursuit of a more equal society. Orwell found it once in Spain; even if for a brief time, it proves that things must not always be as they are, as well that authority is not invincible or necessary in its unjustified form.
A review of Your Place in This World by Jake La Botz
Jake La Botz writes with a bruised, musical lyricism, capturing revelations that arrive not through grand redemption but through small, fleeting graces. His stories linger in the aftermath of failure, curious about what it means to find beauty, dignity, and purpose amid addiction, poverty, and social abandonment in Chicago’s forgotten neighborhoods. La Botz does not romanticize poverty or misfortune; instead, he demands on showcasing his characters’ humanity.
A review of The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone
If identity is to be found in reviewing “key moments” in life and not be trapped by “sentimental life . . . so full of hiding places,” then Starnone’s novel must be read like a detective novel that travels in time and space, all from the comfort of a beach chair in which an old man sits by the sea, waiting to catch the fish of a lifetime, gold and shimmering, one filled with promise and food for a tired soul.
A review of Fit Into Me by Molly Gaudry
So many of Gaudry’s sentences, from the very first – “Because most nights during the final semester of my MFA at George Mason University, while recovering from a mild traumatic brain injury, I fell asleep watching Prison Break on my laptop in bed.” – to the penultimate sentence – “Because words, imagined in the greatest yearning, as a means of finding love, defining it; as a means of shaping it (This is how it feels, this is where it hurts) and sharing with others its permutations, astonishments, exaltations, and erosions.” – seem to offer an explanation for some unstated condition.
A review of Final Curtain edited by Steve Berman
Final Curtain is a well curated collection featuring a pleasant variety of stories and interesting perspectives and interpretations of the characters and themes of The Phantom of the Opera. The period pieces are heavy and languid, broken up effectively by modern retellings, more experimental works, and the doings of cats. Choosing classical in style pieces at the fore and aft of the anthology was a masterful choice; one prepares you for what follows, the latter closes the loop; the audience at the theater retreat satisfied.