AltWeeklies Wire
'Ancient Highway' Sculpts Three Generations of Family with Concise and Poetic Prosenew
Author Bret Lott, a professor at the College of Charleston, deftly maneuvers across three generations, running a ribbon through the arms of despondent family members, using rhythmic, undulating prose to deliver an assiduous, heart-worn tale.
Charleston City Paper |
Kevin Murphy |
08-06-2008 |
Fiction
George Pelecanos on His Process, Favorite Authors and Inspirationnew
The Turnaround is a smoldering novel about despair, desperation and hope. His hard-hitting style and vivid characterizations never fail to leave an impression.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Char Vandermeer |
08-05-2008 |
Fiction
Charles Stross Brings Robert Heinlein's Robot Sexy Backnew
For those uninitiated to speculative fiction's history and tropes, Stross' Saturn's Children (Ace) is a simple tale about a sex robot who is out of work because the humans she was built to service are extinct.
Baltimore City Paper |
Adrienne Martini |
08-05-2008 |
Fiction
Lavinia Greenlaw's Book is for Anyone Who Was Ever a Girl or Has Ever Loved Musicnew
Music's remorseless grip on our hearts and minds is the subject of British novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw's slow-burning, exquisitely idiosyncratic new book, The Importance of Music to Girls. In bite-sized chapters, Greenlaw hurtles down the rabbit hole and reconstructs her musical education, starting with her earliest memories and ending with her leaving school.
New Haven Advocate |
Jolisa Gracewood |
08-05-2008 |
Fiction
'Innercity Girl Like Me' Reads Like a Memoir But It's Fictionnew
The market is flooded with terribly written sensationalist survival stories, and Innercity Girl Like Me seems to aspire to be one of them.
NOW Magazine |
Zoe Whittall |
08-04-2008 |
Fiction
Lien Chao's 'The Chinese Knot' Offers Unique Perspectivenew
All these stories are told from the point of view of single Chinese-Canadian women, who make up an intriguing demographic. Many of them came to Canada in the 80s and 90s only to experience painful family conflict – usually ending in divorce – once they got here.
NOW Magazine |
Staff |
08-04-2008 |
Fiction
Man v. Fleshnew
Though it lacks the subtle poetry of the “House of Sand and Fog,” Dubus’ newest offering nevertheless manages to be compelling and sympathetic.
Jackson Free Press |
Cheree Franco |
08-04-2008 |
Fiction
Tricky (Philip K.) Dicknew
Published last spring, the first Philip K. Dick volume in the Library of America series caught this wave at its peak. This second offering might not be so fortunate.
Boston Phoenix |
Peter Keough |
07-31-2008 |
Fiction
Fraser's 'The Reavers' Might be as Good as They Saynew
"This book is nonsense," the late George MacDonald Fraser writes in the introduction of his last book, The Reavers. "It's meant to be."
Charleston City Paper |
Jon Santiago |
07-30-2008 |
Fiction
'Mermaids in the Basement' is Fluff for Smart Girlsnew
Even fluffy books should have their standards. Which is why I was so thrilled to find Michael Lee West's Mermaids in the Basement.
Charleston City Paper |
Erica Jackson |
07-30-2008 |
Fiction
Nila Gupta Creates Real, Distinct and Well-Developed Characters in Her Debut Fictionnew
In The Sherpa And Other Fictions, she looks at the places she's known as home and bravely zooms in on areas of possible contention: a woman modernizes her father's sweet shop while he's on his death bed, Toronto cops raid Bloor Station, a daughter resists an arranged marriage.
NOW Magazine |
Tara-Michelle Ziniuk |
07-28-2008 |
Fiction
Michael Ian Black Unleashes Some Essaysnew
It's a collection of short essays that often feel like blog posts; some of the pieces—such as "Hey, David Sedaris--Why Don't You Go Ahead and Suck It?" or "A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered"--are vaguely grounded in reality, while others are completely fanciful.
The Portland Mercury |
Ned Lannamann |
07-24-2008 |
Fiction
Jonathan Miles' Epistolary Debut Gets Buried Under the Weight of its Own Baggagenew
Ultimately, Dear American Airlines is only as redeemable as its protagonist, which is to say, not very.
The Texas Observer |
Emily DePrang |
07-24-2008 |
Fiction
In Catherine O’Flynn’s New Novel, Your Heart Breaks -- Eventuallynew
O'Flynn, author of What Was Lost, gives a pretty spot-on description of mall life. Green Oaks, the Birmingham shopping center detailed in the novel, is a nightmarish complex, and she gives an accurate insight on how suffocating it may be to work there long after you should have moved on.
Charleston City Paper |
Susan Cohen |
07-23-2008 |
Fiction
Stories about Stories: Kevin Brockmeier’s new story collection retells (relatively) new talesnew
Each of the 13 stories in The View from the Seventh Layer is some ingenius variation of narrative genre — there are four fables, a ghost story, an alien abduction story, a fantasy, a science-fiction romance, a situation comedy of sorts, and even a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story.
Only a few of these breezy and sometimes elegant stories subscribe to that 20th-century dogma of short-story writing that Michael Chabon has called — in the tongue-and-cheek introduction to McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales — the “contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story.”
Charleston City Paper |
John Stoehr |
07-23-2008 |
Fiction
