Book Reviews

Transgenerational Trauma in “Close to Home” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 24, 2023 by Michael Knapp

Sean Maguire was supposed to be the exception. After making it out of a West Belfast community haunted by economic precarity and the ever-present ghost … Read More

A Life” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 23, 2023 by Steve Nathans-Kelly

In King: A Life—the first major biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades—Jonathan Eig describes King as “a gravitational force” … Read More

Dual Realities in “Truth/Untruth” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 22, 2023 by Barathi Nakkeeran

Maheshwata Devi’s urban novella, Truth/Untruth, set in 1980s Calcutta, is a story about dirty pasts that catch up with the present, and how money is … Read More

The Specters of “Yellowface” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 19, 2023 by Reema Saleh

R.F. Kuang’s dark thriller Yellowface deftly paints the worst of the publishing industry and literary community and tackles questions of cultural appropriation, exploitation, and dispossession … Read More

The Translator’s Voice — Philip Gabriel on Translating Riku Onda’s “Honeybees and Distant Thunder” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 18, 2023 by Ian J. Battaglia

The Translator’s Voice is a new monthly column from Ian J. Battaglia here at the Chicago Review of Books, dedicated to global literature and the … Read More

People Are Hard in “Big Shadow” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 17, 2023 by Arturo Vidich

Reading Marta Balcewicz’s debut novel, Big Shadow, I couldn’t deny my subjectivity. In 1998, I was the same age as Judy, the novel’s inexperienced 17-year-old … Read More

On Longing and Transformation” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 17, 2023 by Shayne Terry

“The first rule of in vitro fertilization is to never talk about in vitro fertilization,” Isabel Zapata tells us from the waiting room of the … Read More

The Wild, Wild Internet in Ben Smith’s “Traffic” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 16, 2023 by Barathi Nakkeeran

The twenties have been wild for the Internet. Titanic companies like Facebook and Twitter have gone through major changes. Millions have been laid off, and … Read More

An Interview with Kelly McMasters on “The Leaving Season” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 16, 2023 by Jenny Bartoy

In the central pages of The Leaving Season, Kelly McMasters decides to leave her marriage. Together with her husband, a painter, she had moved from … Read More

Proximity to the Natural World and Loving What is Broken in “Shy” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 15, 2023 by Dan Kubis

When I was in middle school, I was haunted by the Boomtown Rats’ song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” A local radio station in Atlanta played … Read More

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