It takes strength of character to pursue, and create, human wretchedness in all its shapes for 360 pages. Like many unreliable narrators before him, Norman K ranges from obnoxious to villainous in his pretension, and The Diary of Norman K shows how uniquely we puts on airs, down to a style of speech best described by his “friend” Russell as “an Elizabethan aristocrat who had just woken up from a two-hundred-year coma.
Dimitrios Ikonomou reads from and chats about The Diary of Norman K
Author and scultor Dimitrios Ikonomou reads from his new novel The Diary of Norman K, and chats with Justin Goodman about his book and its origins, his characters, on having an unreliable narrator on an unreliable journey, on meta-fiction, on…
A review of The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick
What we’re celebrating most of all in The Odd Woman and the City, is our mutual humanity: all those wonderful discordant notes, all of the flaws, and all of our failures. We love, we lose, and in these gaps, in these surprises, we make our art, our lives, our meaning.
A review of Good Globe by Shelby Simpson
Simpson’s writing style is informal and conversational—the entire book reads like a girlfriend recounting tales of her latest travel adventures over a few cocktails on a night out. The way Simpson tells it, hopping on a plane to an exotic locale is No Big Deal—if you do it right. She stresses that traveling takes some advance budgeting and planning, but when you reach your destination, there’s a lot to be said for taking each day as it comes.
A review of The Bricks that Build the Houses by Kate Tempest
Beneath the fun, fast, and well-plotted story, is a deep poetic exploration of yearning, creativity, and the constrictions of poverty. The characters live between pulses of transcendence that take place as they struggle to create meaning from their hand-to-mouth lives.
A review of He Runs the Moon by Wendy Brandmark
Themes of identity and belonging disturb the calm surface of Wendy Brandmark’s collection of short stories, which are set in Denver, New York and Boston in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many of the stories concern characters who have been displaced geographically and emotionally: young or old, successful or unsuccessful, their lives have slipped their moorings.
In Lust We Trust: The Blackest Eye by the music band Aye Nako
Every generation asks and answers its own questions—and those become culture, history. Aye Nako’s The Blackest Eye considers how matters of self are shaped by world matters—especially regarding class, race, gender, and sexuality. “Leaving the Body” has a fast, thrashing introduction, churning, dense, spinning, with lyrics in which a narrator recognizes bad influence but also claims her own spoilage.
A review of Things Unsaid by Diana Y Paul
Paul presents a solidly-written cast of characters who are relatable in their imperfections and sense of duty to both their blood and created families. Readers are sure to recognize at least a trace of their own family dynamic in these characters.
Interview with Sharon Nir
The author of The Opposite of Comfortable: The Unlikely Choices of an Immigrant Career Woman talks about the writing of her first book and the challenges it presented, the grueling process of skilled worker immigration to the U.S. and the choices she had to make, whether it was worth the pain, the surprises, her target market, her new work in progress, and lots more.
Interview with Andrew Joyce and Danny the Dog
Andrew Joyce and Danny the Dog provide a joint interview, in which they rib one another, talk about themselves, their influences, their hobbies, how they got into writing, their plotting processes, their most difficult jobs, and more.