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A review of Russian Silhouettes by Genna Sosonko

In Russian Silhouettes (and later in The Reliable Past: New in Chess, 2003) he describes a game, a sphere of human creativity, that amid nightmarish and fantastic oppression attracted the genius, the dreamer, the damaged and otherworldly, and the angry…

A review of Upstaged by Aaron Paul Lazar

The interaction of the student performers and stagehands is brilliantly described and there is shrewd observation in the treatment of the sexual predator Armand Lugio, the witchy stage-mother Agnes Bigelow and the gay youngster Nelson Santos who explores the world…

Interview with Delia Falconer

In this pithy and candid interview, the author of The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers talks about the pressures that go along with a dramatically successful debut, the gestation time involved in writing literary fiction, the despair within the publishing industry, her main character, Captain Frederick Benteen, about using real history as the subject of fiction, her writing style, the way in which The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers is also an Australian story, the importance of being ribald, and lots more.

A review of About a Girl by Tony Nesca

Through the narrator’s reflections we accumulate an unusually exact understanding of his aims and character. His life is not pretty and he may waver and wobble but he is grounded in honesty. He waves illusion away and sees life with…

A review of The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr

Carr is a fine writer and his pastiche of Conan Doyle’s prose perfectly captures the voice of Holmes and Watson. One might say (entering into the spirit of things a little) that the particular singularities of Carr’s mimesis are most…

A review of My Arthritic Heart by Liz Hall Downs

But this is just the beginning of what most of us don’t want to hear. A good part of this collection is about the poet’s struggle with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that when coupled with poverty and inhumanity is a hard…

A review of New Beginnings

The clear bent is literary fiction, and that makes this a moving collection full of provocative and evocative work from some of the most well known and respected writers working today. This is a wonderful marketing idea, and one which…