Post-40 Bloomers
December 10, 2012
Post-40 Bloomers: Shannon Cain’s The Necessity of Certain Behaviors 0
by Ed Porter
The title of Cain’s story collection is polymorphously suggestive, teasing the reader into attempted decodings in reaction to the individual stories. In its context in the title story, the phrase has to do with a character’s complicity in her own idealization, but the collection invites us to think about the title more expansively.
November 12, 2012
Everybody Pays: The Extreme, Dark Fictional World of Donald Ray Pollock 2
by Jennifer Acker
Pollock rockets the reader into a highly particular time and place. He never wastes our time circling about the airfield looking for a spot to touch down. We’re immediately there, in the thick of it. Pinned right where Pollock wants us.
September 28, 2012
Post-40 Bloomer: Susan Starr Richards Escapes the ‘Southern Boy’ World 0
by Sonya Chung
My time was always fairly equally divided between the horses and my writing, the difference being that the horses always came first, and the writing had to be fitted in around their needs and their schedules. But in my imagination, there was always a confluence of visions.
August 29, 2012
Post-40 Bloomer: David Abrams Taking As Long As It Takes 5
by Lisa Peet
There doesn’t always need to be a dramatic story to later-life publication — sometimes a writer may just be spending a couple of decades reading, writing, working, and living enough to know what it is he’s writing about. Often those intervening years are simply about showing up.
August 6, 2012
Post-40 Bloomer: Mary Costello’s Immaculate Sadness 3
by Sonya Chung
There is much sadness, of the starkly honest and lonely variety, in Costello’s stories. She gets it so right – achingly right – how love and loss are indistinguishable.
June 29, 2012
Post-40 Bloomer: Anna Keesey’s Little Century 2
by Sonya Chung
Little Century is a book I’d recommend to anyone who embraces the dark and bright sides of life with equal gusto.