Reviews
September 22, 2011
The Greatest Story Ever Drawn 3
by Jacob Lambert
Despite my initial skepticism, I’m not sure that I’ve read a better graphic novel.
September 22, 2011
Rock ‘n Roll Malaise: Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia 5
by Mythili G. Rao
There’s something particularly sly about publishing a work of fiction built off someone else’s semi-ironic, private fiction — particularly when that person is the author’s family member.
September 19, 2011
The Sea and the Mirror: Reflections and Refractions from a Voyage by Ship in Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table 0
by Jaya Aninda Chatterjee
The kaleidoscope as a metaphor for the concinnity of memories, the process by which an adult narrator frames and makes sense of her past is, I venture, the cornerstone of Ondaatje’s fiction.
September 19, 2011
Loving a Monster: Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine 1
by Janet Potter
Imagine Sophia from The Golden Girls in Soviet Russia – spewing insults, exaggerating her own worth, bemoaning the state of things. Instead of being surround by three salty dames who deflect her barbs with their own, she’s surrounded by a husband, daughter, and granddaughter whose will to live she has methodically trampled.
August 31, 2011
Manning Up: George Pelecanos’ The Cut 3
by Michael Bourne
It wouldn’t be a Pelecanos novel if his hero didn’t advance a tiny bit toward manhood and learn something about himself in the process.
August 31, 2011
Conversations with Cocktails: Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility 2
by Janet Potter
It’s reminiscent of Fitzgerald or Waugh, in that “what gay parties we all had in those days, until our inner demons simply couldn’t be repressed any longer” vein.
