The massacre is considered the largest ever terror act against Jews on American soil. But it is not a book created only for students of Jewish history. The imperative to a general readership calls to mind James Joyce’s quote: that in the particular is the
universal.
At times, Nguyen allows us to see beyond the brother into the world of ghosts conceived by exile—just as ghosts exist between the world of the living and the dead, the placeless exist between spaces of belonging and may require the same effort of remembering.
Dangerously Close to Living: A Review of Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen Read More »
Reading her book was akin to stumbling upon a coworker’s diary (or, more realistically, an outspoken social media profile), an exercise I found simultaneously fascinating and mildly discomfiting.
Proud to be Un-American Read More »
An Inventory of Losses captures the imagination in individual time capsules that prompt us to reflect on our own losses.
An Inventory of Losses, by Judith Schalansky (New Directions) trans. Jackie Smith Read More »
Music for the Dead and Resurrected is a timely antidote to popular over-identifications with nationally sanctioned narratives, the kind that disappears the nuanced stories that help shape an individual’s sense of home and purpose.
“We readers are watching Gay watching a video clip as he curates a personal museum exhibit that is part memoir and part historical monument.”
Witnessing the Unwitnessable: On Be Holding by Ross Gay Read More »
Through the exploration of strained body-self relationships, scientific facts, history, love, loneliness, queerness, and hate, Sala weaves together narratives that ask their readers to consider where they came from, how they are engaging with time— however wrought and distressing— and where they will return to after death.
Devil’s Lake: Finding Self at the World’s End Read More »
Despite the progress over the years in the US, Lalami shows how this system has nonetheless managed to evolve to target its traditionally persecuted groups — its citizens for whom citizenship, with all its implications, including fair and equal protection under the law, is conditional, even rescindable — in new ways.
Same story, different day: The perpetuation of discrimination in Conditional Citizens Read More »
Nezhukumatathil is proudly and profoundly staking her claim and making room for her concerns in the tradition of American nature writing, a tradition that has often felt confined and limited by its whiteness.
Raven Leilani’s debut Luster is a novel about seeing. Edie, the 23-year-old protagonist, is a keen observer, armed with wit and a sharp, discerning gaze. Hers is an eye that cuts through exploitive structures because hers is a world that requires constant vigilance. As Edie evicts a “distressed, balding” mouse from her apartment, she sees
Time in the World: A Review of Luster by Raven Leilani Read More »
