Larkin has the uncanny ability to paint each person in Freya’s orbit as if they were living, breathing figures, complete with their own hopes, flaws, and secrets. Through her vivid descriptions and nuanced dialogue, each character feels indispensable to the story, enriching the tapestry of the small town and making Freya’s world achingly authentic and free from judgement.
Category: Literary Fiction Reviews
Covid Kaleidoscope: A Review of Sleep Tight Satellite by Carol Guess
Sleep Tight Satellite by Carol Guess is heartbreakingly human, beautifully vulnerable, and entirely unapologetic. Guess has brought forth a rich patchwork tying together poignant remembrances of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the complex web of queer relationships and identities.
A review of Love Prodigal by Traci Brimhall
As is evident in her line about her mother telling her through her tears that she loves what her daughter’s done with her hair, Brimhall has a delightfully sly sense of humor. It’s on display in poems like “Admissions Essay” (“I could have been valedictorian if the metrics / were ardor and potential for transformation”), “Ode to Oxytocin at a Distance,” “I Would Do Anything for Love but I Won’t” (“cook lobster.
A review of The Burrow by Melanie Cheng
Cheng’s writing is so lovely, and her insights so acute, that even the slow chapters remain engaging. Her figurative language is especially striking. When Amy drifts into sleep, “better days flash, in orange hues, behind her lids.” Pauline reflects that, when one is young, “death [is] something to be teased and taunted, unseen and remote, like a hibernating animal.”
A Review of The Golden Land by Elizabeth Shick
Shick expertly pulls us into Yangon life and culture through glimpses of people, streets, food vendors, colorful gardens, and ancient temples. As Etta strolls through a working-class neighborhood, she notes how “makeshift shacks are stacked one upon the other like the slipper seashells I used to collect at the beach as a child,” then passes a man who “stands in front of his shack, his longyi hiked up to his groin as he lathers soap over his bare chest and legs.”
A review of The Bone Picker by Devon Mihesuah
While this book is a clear indication that Choctaws also like to tell each other scary stories, the implication of that line is that Choctaws have many stories. But when these narratives diverge from Anglo-European expectations, settlers and their descendants almost immediately force them into gothic or horror storytelling structures.
A review of Foreign Attachments by Roslyn McFarland
Foreign Attachments is beautifully written, with a great attention to detail and obvious research that brings the characters to life. Jean Rhys is a particularly interesting and tragic character in this rendition with plenty of intrigue left to the reader’s imagination, though I dare anyone to read Foreign Attachments and not give into the temptation to not only begin looking closer at Stella Bowen’s paintings but also exploring Rhys’ story and the work, not so well read these days, of Ford Madox Ford.
A review of Zeke Borshellac by James Damis
The book is a lurid purple-prosed comic masterpiece. I have not had as much pleasure reading a deep dense novel like this since The Sot-Weed Factor, A Confederacy of Dunces, Tristam Shandy, Quixote, Auto-da-fé, Joy Williams. The lietmotif of the book is wretched comic human excess. And ambition. And language! Borshellac begins his self-transformation as a stowaway on a fishing vessel, where he ineffectually disguises himself as a man-sized perch, lolling among the mountainous heaps of fresh-caught fish.
A review of Beware the Tall Grass by Ellen Birkett Morris
Beware the Tall Grass reads like poetic, creative nonfiction, creating a beautiful and believable story that leaves the reader satisfied yet in wonder about what we know and don’t know about the mysteries of life and death. This novel is a compelling read.
A review of The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin by PS Cottier and NG Hartland
Each lookalike has his own particular story which is partly informed by location and partly by circumstance. The pieces appear quite distinct but they begin to overlap as the book progresses, forming a coherent whole that twists back on itself in uncomfortable ways. The end result is an overarcing pattern that creates a bigger story, linked not just by the missing character of Putin but also by the way the characters, their settings, and the story’s time progression intersect.