AltWeeklies Wire
David Wroblewski's Debut Novel Is Brilliantnew
Elegance and simplicity grace every page of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle as David Wroblewski finds authentic power through well-crafted scenes and strong character development. Here is fiction with the truth of memoir.
Boise Weekly |
Bill English |
05-27-2009 |
Fiction
Colm Toibin's New Novel Is Quiet and Thankfully Unsentimentalnew
Brooklyn is a quiet, charming novel written with a masterful hand about a girl struggling to understand her new emerging self in a new postwar world.
New Haven Advocate |
John Stoehr |
05-19-2009 |
Fiction
'The Missing' Takes a Lyrical Turn in the Southnew
Tim Gautreaux writes of a South that never changes. But for the people of his third novel, a new age is dawning.
Boston Phoenix |
Clea Simon |
05-14-2009 |
Fiction
Bloody Good Jane Austennew
Despite his decidedly lowbrow preoccupations (zombies, martial arts, and crude jokes about balls), author Seth Grahame-Smith is a sly devil, a parodist with as strong a sense of Austen's prose stylings as of her sharp observations.
Boston Phoenix |
Clea Simon |
04-23-2009 |
Fiction
'Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction' Introduces Readers to Living Writers from Across the Bordernew
Chances are that a recognizable literary talent is already dead. This is the challenge that confronts a book like Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction. It features 16 writers, all of whom still walk the Earth.
Tucson Weekly |
Jarret Keene |
04-08-2009 |
Fiction
Well-to-Do Discriminationnew
The Help is a fictional expose of racial discrimination set in 1960s Jackson, Miss., told with pathos and humor.
Jackson Free Press |
Jackie Warren Tatum |
04-03-2009 |
Fiction
A South African Novelist Shows How Passivity Corruptsnew
Damon Galgut's story ambles along languidly though pleasantly enough, but ultimately never reaches a satisfying end.
Baltimore City Paper |
Joab Jackson |
03-31-2009 |
Fiction
'Land of Marvels' Foreshadows Iraq Debaclenew
John Somerville, Barry Unsworth's archaeologist hero, is a typical Edwardian abroad. He's a wealthy Englishman who means to do well by others, but in Land of Marvels he's at sea in an ocean of stones.
The Georgia Straight |
Alexander Varty |
03-23-2009 |
Fiction
A Portland Novelist Rewrites a True Storynew
Portland’s Forest Park was a great place to get off the grid and stay off for a Vietnam vet with PTSD and his 13-year-old daughter. Novelist Peter Rock re-imagines: Where did this real-life father and daughter disappear to?
The Inlander |
Michael Bowen |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
One Day in Dallasnew
Adam Braver’s book deserves to be known; it ranks first among novels focused on the death of JFK.
The Texas Observer |
Don Graham |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Samantha Hunt Weaves Historical Fiction From Nikola Tesla's Biographynew
Despite being overstuffed with tangential subplots, too-convenient characters, and predictable plot mechanics, The Invention of Everything Else brims with Tesla's prescient ideas about energy.
Portland Phoenix |
Christopher Gray |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Zoe Heller's 'Believers' Captivates Despite a Weak Plotnew
Heller’s treatment of fraught and contradictory emotions, together with her unabashed exploration of intellectual musings, endows the story’s eponymous believers with an all-too-rare profundity.
New York Press |
Rayyan Al-Shawaf |
03-05-2009 |
Fiction
Behind Every Great Man, There Are Often Several Womennew
It is Frank Lloyd Wright's tumultuous romantic life that T.C. Boyle re-animates in his novel The Women: Wright married three times, rebuilt a house for each new love and lost a mistress to murderous fire.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
02-18-2009 |
Fiction
Ron Rash's Darkly Riveting 'Serena'new
Asheville author Ron Rash’s sweeping, big screen-worthy tale is far more than a gruesome account of the human and environmental costs of large-scale logging.
Mountain Xpress |
Alli Marshall |
02-18-2009 |
Fiction
Novelist James Kelman Captures Boyhood Just Rightnew
This story thrives in the specificity of its place and time, yet it is a childhood tale that will seem universal to the modern reader.
Charleston City Paper |
Michael Lucero |
02-11-2009 |
Fiction
