Within the first eight pages of Young God, thirteen-year-old Nikki jumps off a cliff into a pool of water below after being dared, flirts with her mother’s boyfriend, and then watches her mother die as she attempts the same jump from the cliff. By the end of the second chapter, she has had sex with the boyfriend, stolen his car and his bag of drugs, and moved back into her ... Read More...
The Vacationers
The second novel can be a stressful time for any novelist but more so if their first hit it big, as did Emma Straub’s Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. How marvelous then when the second novel travels (literally) in a completely different direction but still delivers on-point prose and an engaging story. I’m talking about The Vacationers, Straub’s contemporary look at the Post ... Read More...
The Snow Queen
People are more than you think they are. And they’re less, as well. The trick lies in negotiating your way between the two. Michael Cunningham’s new novel, The Snow Queen: A Novel, has an opalescent blue-green cover that shimmers with the same light Barrett Meeks sees above his head one stormy winter night in Central Park. Is it real or a product of his imagination? That ... Read More...
Be Safe I Love You
Even before she decides to go to Iraq Lauren Clay is fighting a war. A war created by two parents who, for different reasons, are unable to care for her and her nine-year-old brother, Daniel. Instead, Lauren is left, at age 14 to take care of herself, her brother and her father, who lies in bed and cries. Despite having a prodigious talent as a coloratura soprano and having ... Read More...
The Ballad of a Small Player
Lawrence Osborne is a travel journalist in addition to writing fiction, which may be why I read his novels so slowly. His words describe far-off places in a way that makes them appear before my eyes. His novel The Forgiven was one of my favorites in 2012 and now he is back with his latest, The Ballad of a Small Player. Whereas Forgiven took place in the hot, desolate landscape ... Read More...
Hunting and Gathering
For every one of us there is a point when we know we are in love with a book and for each of us it is different. For me, it was page 17 in Hunting and Gathering when the anorexic Camille crumpled up a note from a well-meaning young doctor asking her to call him so he could take her to dinner. One sentence, no special words and yet, to me, it so perfectly encapsulated this ... Read More...
