MQR Online – Page 17 – Michigan Quarterly Review

La Regata, 1981 color lithograph on paper

“A New Yorker from Canaguey”: Notes on Emilio Sánchez, MQR’s Summer 2019 Cover Artist

Former Curator of University of Michigan’s Museum of Art, Pam Reister, writes on the Cuban artist Emilio Sánchez, who is the cover artist of Michigan Quarterly Review’s current Summer 2019 issue. Emilio Sánchez was born into one of Cuba’s most prominent families. He lived in privilege on his grandfather’s plantation in Camaguey until he was […]

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“Hyphenated Identities” in Amreekiya: An Interview with Lena Mahmoud

Gina Balibrera

I do believe that the discussion of hyphenated identities is important, and, whether it is acknowledged or not, most people have multiple influences that impact who they are.

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We Are Stories: A Review of Lindsey Drager’s The Archive of Alternate Endings

Michael A. Ferro

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.

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On the “Competing Narratives” of Trust Exercise: An Interview with Susan Choi

Lauren Prastien

One of the most absolutely electric scenes in Susan Choi’s fifth novel Trust Exercise (Henry Holt and Co., 2019) takes place fairly early-on in the book. Sarah and David are sophomores at an elite performing arts high school. They’re fifteen, and the previous summer, they entered into an intense relationship. But after a series of misunderstandings,

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Behind the Forbidden Door: A Review of Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread

Gina Balibrera

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.

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The Ten Stages of Selling Your Debut Novel at the Bookstore Where You Work

Gina Balibrera

While grabbing more bags from the basement, overhear one of your co-workers mentioning to a customer that the book they are buying was written by a bookseller at this very store! Hear another co-worker chime in that the book is “amazing,” and feel so much warmth in your heart that you could cry. Then hide

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“Writing into the Surprise:” An Interview with Kristen Arnett

Cameron Finch

I began looking into how things can go so wrong in taxidermy. The placement of eyes is so important; even if you screw up just a little, the animals can go crosseyed.

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“Engraft You New:” A Review of Kristen Case’s Principles of Economics

Leah Falk

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?

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Abundant Life: An Interview with Detroit Painter Darius Baber

Adam DePollo

I do still want to be an art teacher, but maybe like an internet art teacher, you know what I mean? I guess I kind of want to be the black Bob Ross. Actually, I don’t kind of want to, I’m definitely going to be the black Bob Ross. Just not as corny. I mean, even though Bob Ross is a G, he’s kind of corny.

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Arousing Hell: A Review of Jessica Francis Kane’s Bending Heaven

Gina Balibrera

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.

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