AltWeeklies Wire
Nicola Barker Sets a Full Table in 'Darkmans'new
What Barker accomplishes is the sort of comprehensive and wide-ranging novel that towers over the single-note memoirs, genre pieces and pink-cover chick-lit books that so outnumber it.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Justin Bauer |
12-26-2007 |
Fiction
Nersesian Builds on the Post-Apocalyptic Genrenew
He constructs an alternate timeline, with Watergate quashed and the counterculture exiled to a replica New York built in the Nevada desert. His plot is scrambled out of The Odyssey, but it's really only an easel for the cabinet of curiosities his replica city contains.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Justin Bauer |
12-26-2007 |
Fiction
The Key to 'Vibrator' Isn't Scandalnew
The explicitness of the sex and the frankness with which Rei -- the narrator -- expresses her desires and confusions are striking. But it's the skill Mari Akasaka brings to her narration that allows the pain of Rei's existence to be soothed by the journey.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Justin Bauer |
10-30-2007 |
Fiction
Split in Twainnew
Jon Clinch's tale of Huck Finn's father is dense, lyrical and mildly archaic.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Justin Bauer |
02-27-2007 |
Fiction
Tags: Finn, Jon Clinch
