At the most basic level Jim Lynch’s new novel Before the Wind is the story of the Johannssens—a sailing family in Seattle, Washington. Or as Josh Johannssen’s younger sister Ruby liked to claim “And there’s a reason we’re so good with boats: we have a higher salt content in our blood!” A fact which his long suffering older brother Bernard would point out was based on ... Read More...
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel
It’s hard to believe that something as benign as an art exhibit entitled Women of the Dutch Golden Age could be the nexus for such widespread themes as art history, abandonment, love, grief, forgery, and intrigue, but in Dominic Smith’s new novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos it is. Eleanor Shipley is an esteemed professor at Sydney University and a well-known ... Read More...
The Sellout: A Novel
How do you review a book when you’re not quite certain that you should or even that you should have been allowed to read it? This was the question in my mind after finishing Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. The novel is set in a ghetto outside Los Angeles called Dickens and is about a young black man whose childhood is spent being homeschooled and basically tortured by his father, a ... Read More...
As Close to Us as Breathing
Sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec inherited their family’s cabin on the Connecticut shore and now they convene every summer, staying with their children during the week while their husbands drive up on Friday in time for Shabbos. In As Close to Us as Breathing author Elizabeth Poliner freezes, with the clarity of amber, a very specific time and place and within that the lives ... Read More...
Guapa: A Novel
At 27 Rasa lives with his grandmother in al-Sharqiyeh, a large city in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. He works as a translator for foreign journalists because he speaks fluent English after going to college in America. The novel Guapa by Saleem Haddad spans 24 hours in Rasa’s life that are an emotional flash point. He has participated in the Arab Spring protests, ... Read More...
All Things Cease to Appear
Last week I reviewed The Undertaking which is a marvelous read in that it allows the reader to fully revel in feelings of rage, disgust and retribution (which is necessary relief if you’re watching political news these days). This is not the case in Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear. It is much more attuned to contemporary times, when even though a ... Read More...
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