How rare are unflinching acts of self-reflexivity. “Eric had once commented on how closely I listened to him. Enough to steal a piece of his soul,” ends one of the essays in... Read More

Reality, wrote the American poet Wallace Stevens, “is things as they are.” That may be true in Western fiction, but what is really real in Beijing? The dozen stories that... Read More

Ahhhhh, the olden days, back when everyone was, like the narrator of this novel, clueless. Susannah, or Susie-Q, as her lover calls her when he’s drunk, is a twenty-year-old... Read More

Brian ODea was living a straight, peaceful, and somewhat productive life when he was arrested in Santa Barbara, California; his past had finally caught up with him. HIGH is... Read More

Every law student learns quickly that neither the United States nor any other country has legal authority over foreign powers or their citizens. The United Nations is an... Read More

A mother’s love is never a sure thing. Neither, for that matter, is that of a spouse or child. As precarious as good fortune, such relationships can turn on a dime; or, as is... Read More

Clara Griffin has not written since she was a child, when she crafted fairy stories filled with odd characters and even odder outcomes. But like a writer, Clara observes... Read More

Novelist and poet Phillip Lopate sets these two novellas in Brooklyn, which becomes an almost magical, tragical-comical borough as readers learn how a stoic easily deceives... Read More

The heroine of Elizabeth Maguire’s historical novel, Constance Fenimore Woolson, points out to her new friend Henry James that the “dilemma of modern female life” is the... Read More

What separates the United States in its treatment of its alleged enemies from the tyrannical dictatorships that are its enemies? According to public defender and first-time... Read More

In the summer of 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s security barrier violated humanitarian law. Three years later, the wall measures 252 miles and is... Read More

At its best (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter), magical realism lures in its readers, making the impossible seem merely improbable. Antonio Muñoz... Read More