Schartz’s prose dazzles as we accompany Joe on his sleuthing. Early in the novel, he considers people seen from his apartment window: “Lots of people looked respectable, but weren’t, and how did I know this? From childhood, somehow. And what did respectable mean anyway? For all I knew I’d spent time in prison.”
Tag: fiction
A review of Count Luna by Alexander Lernet-Holenia
The influence of Dracula on both popular and literary culture goes on and on. That there are tons of awful movies out there, and many novels not worth mentioning, goes without saying. Yet every so often, a book comes along that is a true wonder. It glimmers with a unique identity while leaving little doubt as to its thematic pedigree. One such work is the Austrian poet Alexander Lernet-Holenia’s 1955 short novel Count Luna, which New Directions has released in a fine translation by Jane B. Greene.
A review of Mermaids and Musicians by Diane Frank
A cellist for over eighteen years with the Golden Gate Symphony, Diane Frank writes about music with profound authority. Her deep understanding, knowledge and love of music in all its forms is evident throughout, whether it’s dissecting the Beethoven Quartets or describing the subtle performance of vibrato on a cello or delighting in banjo and fiddle tunes at a dance where people are waltzing, clogging, dancing contras. Her lyrical style is as elusive and rousing as the music in which she luxuriates.
The Tragedy of Righteousness: On Claire Daverley’s Talking at Night
“I know it seems like I didn’t choose you, ever, Rosie says, when all I wanted was to choose you.” Will and Rosie’s commitment is honest, low-key, and earned. The frustrations of two fallible people trying to do it right make Talking At Night a worthwhile read, A fragile, fierce meditation on love, restraint, and what it means to be chosen, seen, and loved selflessly.
A review of Room on the Sea: Three Novellas by André Aciman
These overwrought overthinking characters, some dubious, some convinced at the get-go by the gentleman’s parlor tricks, are epic romantics. You might even say emotional vampires. Back and forth between alternate lives on the Amalfi coast, and in New York City (where London Terrace apartments and the High Line figure mightily), these folks dive deep into their projections and unslaked thirst for completion.
A review of The Blue House by Sky Gilbert
Consider giving The Blue House a read if you’re interested in a detailed portrait of a manic depressive artist, following the lows and lows, with stunted highs, of a life lived on odd terms with art and bad terms with society and the people who inhabit it. If you have an interest in the mid to late century gay cruising subculture, you’ll also find fodder for thought here.
A review of Big Feelings by Amy Lovat
In an endearing way to try and control the more uncontrollable aspects of her life, Sadie has a habit of reducing things to lists. These often take the form of Desert Island Top 5s. This extends to relationships, films, books, places to visit (and even to Lovat’s acknowledgements). But not everything is reducible to a list and not all of the lists are static. However, the lists do make good structuring devices, and add to the ease and charm of Big Feelings, a book full of big feelings but also ease and charm.
A review of More Lies (audiobook version) by Richard James Allen
Because I also enjoy listening to audio, a medium that is able to fit in spaces where books might not, for example, while driving, I was delighted to hear that More Lies has just been released in an audio version. The audiobook, narrated by Allen himself, utilises his terrific acting ability in order to really draw out some of those themes. The narration is by turns wry, ironic, even slapstick at times, but always engaging.
A review of 18 Shticks by Margarita Meklina
At forty-five pages, 18 Shticks isn’t a long collection, but it covers a lot of ground. Individually these are stories of ordinary lives made surreal through life’s twists, through close examination, and through a sense that just beneath the surface of any situation, there is another reality simmering.
A Review of Nervosities by John Madera
Madera’s book emphasizes a different kind of narrative pilgrim. Instead of a traveler headed out in search of a story, as Phil Cousineau writes in The Art of Pilgrimage: the journey “as nature’s pattern of regeneration, a journey consisting of departure, arrival, and return,” Madera’s narrators grapple with a perpetual sense of being adrift and often exhausted and burnt by the post-industrial world. These stories are about diasporas, transformations, fragmentations, and layers of meaning.