“Everywhere I go, nature is where I’m finding my grounding”: An Interview with Ada Limón

"Everywhere I go, nature is where I'm finding my grounding": An Interview with Ada Limón

[ad_1] Is it possible to be star-struck after you’ve already met the person? Yes. Yes, it is. I met Ada Limón at a faculty reading during my first semester in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, where Ada has taught since 2014 even as the 24th US Poet Laureate, a position she has … Read more

A Study of the Complex Humanity Behind True Crime in Kate Brody’s Novel “Rabbit Hole” – Chicago Review of Books

A Study of the Complex Humanity Behind True Crime in Kate Brody’s Novel “Rabbit Hole” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] We live in a golden age of the armchair detective, a person who aims to help solve a real-life mystery without the official qualifications for such work. Global fascination with true crime has led to an explosion of documentaries, websites, online forums, and more; a 2023 Pew Research Center study1 found that true crime … Read more

Setting the Modern Noir Scene in “Here in the Dark” – Chicago Review of Books

Setting the Modern Noir Scene in “Here in the Dark” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In her debut novel, Here in the Dark, prize-winning culture reporter and theater critic for the New York Times Alexis Soloski crafts a psychological thriller around Vivian Parry, a Manhattan-based theater critic notorious for her acerbic reviews and her predilection for mixing sex, booze, and pills to quell the anxiety and grief she feels … Read more

An Interview with Zuska Kepplová on “The Moon in Foil” – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with Zuska Kepplová on “The Moon in Foil” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Zuska Kepplová is a Slovak author, editor, and political commentator for the Slovakian daily newspaper SME. In 2011, her book Buchty švabachom was published in her home country, winning the Ján Johanides Prize and becoming shortlisted for the Anasoft Litera Prize, Slovakia’s most prestigious literary prize. Now, twelve years later, Buchty švabachom is available … Read more

A Conversation with Adriana Chartrand on “An Ordinary Violence” – Chicago Review of Books

A Conversation with Adriana Chartrand on “An Ordinary Violence” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] When she moved to Toronto—not far from the windy, desolate plains where she grew up—Dawn thought she had escaped the traumas of her past. And yet, when her life doesn’t go as she hoped it would in the big city, she finds herself driving back to the small town of her childhood—where her mother … Read more

Intersections Between Pain and Pleasure in “Brutalities” – Chicago Review of Books

Intersections Between Pain and Pleasure in “Brutalities” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Margo Steines knows something about pain. At seventeen, while growing up in New York City, she became a dominatrix, her first-ever job. She was a sex worker for a decade, later running her own S/M dungeon—kicking, punching, and otherwise assaulting consenting, paying adult males for a living. She developed a romantic—albeit increasingly tumultuous and … Read more

Observing the Duality of American Issues in “Witness” – Chicago Review of Books

Observing the Duality of American Issues in “Witness” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Much has been said in recent years about “witness literature,” writing that can feel like a blend of reporting and lyrical prose, bringing poetic attention to headline news topics that are often painful, tragic, and complex. By extension, witness literature can provide healing to the writer and the reader. It may even potentially create … Read more