A wild ride of a novel, Mr. Splitfoot, is of that class of fiction so creative it can hardly be categorized. This is a positive and a negative because it’s subjective enough that a reader will either be highly entertained or completely turned off. Somehow, I fell into both groups. I got the book in 2016 before its release and was unable to make it through more than 10 ... Read More...
Lincoln in the Bardo
Witty, somber, irreverent—just a few of the words I’d use to describe George Saunders’s new novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. And because I know you’re wondering: bardo is the Buddhist concept of the interim place the soul goes before moving into its next reincarnation. In this case, the soul belongs to Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son who dies of ... Read More...
The Fifth Petal: A Novel
I carry no weight, no worth, no influence. I represent nothing. I do not exist…But remember this as you flee: You brought me into existence. I am not the cause, I am merely the effect. The Fifth Petal is set in contemporary Salem, Massachusetts making it a heady concoction of witches, evil, superstition, murder, magic and tragedy. Rose Whelan, a local historian ... Read More...
The Shore: A Novel by Sara Taylor
The Shore by Sara Taylor may qualify as one of the most unusually formatted books I’ve read in a long time. Take a family tree composed of over fifty members, stretching from the 1850s to 2143. Close your eyes, throw a dart at the tree and wherever it land--that’s a chapter. So, even though Medora Slater is the matriarch who gets this clan started, she doesn’t make an ... Read More...
Perfect Little World: A Novel
On Monday I wrote about Swimming Lessons, a novel with prose that evinced an emotional response from me, even when the story did not work so well. Today’s review is about a book that is almost the complete opposite. It’s unusual for me to like fiction that didn’t impact me emotionally, but I did with Kevin Wilson’s new novel, Perfect Little World. I was devoid of much ... Read More...
Swimming Lessons
When Claire Fuller’s newest novel, Swimming Lessons, begins Ingrid has been missing for eleven years. Her daughters, Nan and Flora, have grown up and her husband Gil now spends most of his time going through the books in their house. He’s always been obsessed with the marginalia and ephemera left behind inside their covers, but now there is something more. Because in ... Read More...
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