I’m going to start with a little confession: I’ve never read Lorrie Moore before (say that three times fast). Why not? Who knows? But now after finishing her latest collection of short stories, called Bark, I can say I’m fan. And if you’re one of those people who wants to buy free-range poultry, brine it, and slow roast it in the oven but accidentally sets the oven to Clean ... Read More...
Levels of Life
You put two things together that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn’t matter. The world has been changed nonetheless. With these beautiful words Julian Barnes leads us into Levels of Life, his latest work. He begins with glimpses at the history of balloon aeronautics—when the act was still ... Read More...
Cartwheel
Maybe that was the problem with this family—they were all in direct competition with one another to see who could bend over backward the farthest, who could suffer the most. Jennifer Dubois’ new novel, Cartwheel, is as knotted and tangled as the judicial system itself. Add the fact that it takes place in a foreign country and you have the makings of a novel that will grip ... Read More...
Enon
They are a young couple who had a single child young and who lost the child in an instant of combustion and are straggling around their home in shock at the child’s death but nonetheless trying to spare each other in at least some slight degree the full blow of the end of their fragile marriage by acting as if it isn’t the end for just a little longer, by spreading the blow ... Read More...
What I Need When I Read
When I read Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs I loved it. The protagonist was a middle-age, single woman who was angry about a lot of life. For some this anger was off-putting and there were reviewers who found the woman (Nora) disagreeable and depressing. I certainly felt sympathy for her situation but by and large, even when she made me uncomfortable, Nora was a character I ... Read More...
& Sons: A Novel
David Gilbert’s & Sons is one of the most complex books I’ve read in a long time. By this I mean the plot did not appear until just shy of page 200 and I found most of the main characters to be unsympathetic throughout. For those who must sympathize with literary characters (The Woman Upstairs drama), stop now. If brilliant prose (Reality, already taking on water, capsized ... Read More...
