As time passed and the war in Syria and Iraq continued, I entered its life. I call it ‘life’ because war really does have a life of its own. It is a parallel universe where what goes on has little to do with the minutiae of peace. I wanted to write about this and I did.
War Has a Life of its Own: A Review of Nouri Al-Jarrah’s A Boat to Lesbos Read More »
To depart so much from poetic convention is an act of rebellion. What is Still Nowhere an Empty Vastness rebelling against? And what better future is it signaling towards?
“I should be so considerate of anyone who showed me friendship,” he says early in the novel. “All their wishes should be mine. I should follow them everywhere, like a dog.” Then he adds, with less than dog-like humility: “I am endlessly kind. But the people I have known have never appreciated this fact.”
“An Anatomy of Loneliness:” A Review of Emmanuel Bove’s My Friends Read More »
Perhaps it was that sense of loss that sent her out searching for different kinds of beech trees, that sent her rooting around in the old books collecting lore and the attempts at early science, that forced her to learn everything she could about these trees.
There is no titular story in Inez Tan’s debut collection This is Where I Won’t Be Alone. As an American reader, I first considered this title a statement of theme or artistic destination. But if you’re Singaporean, then you know the title as an excerpt from a popular 1998 song called “Home,” written by Dick Lee for the first in a series of songs Singapore’s National Day Parade, celebrated on August 9th of each year.
The Besieged Kingdom: A Review of Inez Tan’s This is Where I Won’t Be Alone Read More »
On the High Wire was written in 1972, when Petit was all of 23, and Paul Auster’s new translation of the book has just been published by New Directions. On the High Wire (2019) is a little (ahem, petit) thing, all of 115 pages including notes, with a trim size—4.5” x 7.3”—to match. In the hand it feels like a guidebook and reads like a dream diary. The book is both of those things.
“A Wild and Scathing Happiness”: Philippe Petit’s On the High Wire Read More »
The realm of storytelling is a sacred one, and not just for authors and readers, but for our culture as a whole. As the novel makes readily apparent, if we neglect or ignore our collective pasts, our stories, then we risk losing the most important part of us forever.
We Are Stories: A Review of Lindsey Drager’s The Archive of Alternate Endings Read More »
Note the first rule of an Oyeyemi book: there are many ways of seeing—nothing is more arrogant than trusting only one set of eyes.
Behind the Forbidden Door: A Review of Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread Read More »
Guided by poets including Shakespeare, Homer, and Milton, Principles of Economics asks: can we stave off or transform grief by creating a faithful copy of the departed, by remembering everything in the manner of Borges’s Funes?
“Engraft You New:” A Review of Kristen Case’s Principles of Economics Read More »
In this collection the social scale is high and expensive: in London one of the couples stays at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, and Potomac Run, a variation on the Homestead in Virginia, can be patronized only by the well-heeled.
Arousing Hell: A Review of Jessica Francis Kane’s Bending Heaven Read More »
