This is very powerful, and more so because it doesn’t rely on appealing to the reader’s intellectual sense of right or wrong. It is about pain and beauty, about loss and longing, and the full loss of life is as…
Interview with Christopher Klim
This ambitious novelist (who also published Jesus Lives in Trenton) takes time to discuss his most recent novel, the current state of the publishing industry, what it’s like to assume the POV of a sexually deviant pyromaniac, and his mentor…ahem, Albert Einstein (yeah, I know, it’s a weird choice for a writer of literary fiction, but Klim actually was a rocket scientist).
A review of Jake with a Snarly Smile on His Chops by Matthew Ward
This is something of a boys own adventure story, billed by the author as a few hours entertainment, and as that, it succeeds admirably. There are plenty of chuckles, and lots of mouth watering detail which bring the setting, both…
A review of Oblivion by David Foster Wallace
Wallace’s fiction forces the reader to look beneath the surface. His characters, like most human beings find it difficult to communicate directly. More often than not what they are really concerned with must be parsed out through indirection, as though…
Interview with Peter Mews
The author of Bright Planet talks about the writing of his second novel, the premises of his book, his research, his use of the Fibonacci numbers for the book’s structure, the literary games he plays in the novel, about the…
A review of Bright Planet by Peter Mews
This is a fast moving, enjoyable adventure tale which resolutely refuses to become too serious about its purpose. Instead it is a very visual, funny, historically rich, and occasionally silly trip through an Australia that may or may not have…
A review of Passionate Spectator by Eric Kraft
Here, in short, is another perfect book by an author with few faults and whose works are almost completely unknown. It would seem that there is no appetite for books that are, among other qualities, great intellectual fun. Reviewed by…
A review of What Rough Peace by Josh Davis
But Davis is already impatient of mere imitation and almost every page shows flashes of originality. Usually these are statements so condensed that they are poetic explosions and not sober prose. Reviewed by Bob Williams What Rough Peace by Josh…
A review of Totem by Luke Davies
This is a very concentrated piece of work, a poem cycle if you will which touches on the biggest and most important themes – love, life and death in its broadest most cosmological sense, and the relationship between these. Keeping…
An interview with Luke Davies
The author of Totem talks about his latest book of poetry, the differences, similarities, and comparative difficulties in writing processes between novels and poetry, the spread of concerns in Totem, the overall conception of the book, the importance of “the…