Book Review
The Sense of Touch
In his debut collection, Ron Parsons mines the northernmost region of the American Midwest, mapping the lives of those bound to the beautiful and hard area by love, family, duty, and sometimes simply by snow. Parsons is concerned with...
Book Review
Down in the Hole
It’s hard to trust a book based on an Internet meme. The idea seems manufactured, the physical book added on as a way to monetize webviews and retweets. Creating a product afterwards seems like putting the horse before the cart....
Book Review
Kind One
When her mother’s second cousin, the cultured Linus Lancaster, asks for fourteen-year-old Ginny’s hand in marriage early in "Kind One", Ginny eagerly accepts. Bored with her farm, her parents, and her limited prospects in the...
Book Review
A Death in Mexico
When the mutilated body of an American art model is discovered in the Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende late one night, local inspector Hector Diaz knows his life is about to become much more complicated. South of the border,...
Book Review
Love Songs and Monster Songs
G.M. Holder’s ridiculously accomplished debut novel begins with a series of maps. Maps of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and the larger territory of former Yugoslavia offer a sample of the settings in this sprawling book and prepare readers...
Book Review
Threats
In her first novel, Amelia Gray charts a man’s unraveling following the mysterious death of his wife. But such a simple description leaves out all the fantastic turns Gray has in store for her readers. One day David’s wife, Franny,...
Book Review
Scars
This virtuosic novel-in-stories from the late Argentinean writer Juan Jose Saer, first published in 1969, investigates a violent crime from four perspectives. Saer forgoes the expected perspectives of the victim, the orphaned daughter,...
Book Review
The Guinea Pigs
“There are more than a million people living in the city of Prague whom I’d just as soon not name here,” "The Guinea Pigs" begins. “Our family is originally from the country. Our family, that means me, my wife, and two tolerable...