An Interview with Ramona Reeves on “It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories” – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with Ramona Reeves on “It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In this heartfelt and bracing debut, Ramona Reeves renders the complex lives of the people of Mobile, Alabama, in all their pursuits and struggles. It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories presents a memorable account of a community through the intimate lens of their relationships, addictions, longings, and fears. Reeves excellently sets the … Read more

An Epistolary Reckoning With the Past in “Faltas” – Chicago Review of Books

An Epistolary Reckoning With the Past in “Faltas” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Before coming to America in search of a safer life as a transgender woman of color, renowned activist, performer, and now writer, Cecilia Gentili grew up in the small city of Galvez, Argentina, as the daughter of an Italian father and Argentinian mother. Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist, … Read more

Ancient Lands and New Wounds in the “Cash Murder Mystery Series” – Chicago Review of Books

Ancient Lands and New Wounds in the “Cash Murder Mystery Series” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Marcie Rendon’s mystery novels simultaneously inform and entertain readers, presenting current Native American issues through her heroine’s efforts to solve crimes perpetrated against society’s more vulnerable members in the early 1970s. When the Cash Blackburn series’ third volume opens, a body surfaces in the Red River Valley’s meltwater; the spring floodwaters on this North … Read more

Abundantly Queer Horror in “Helen House” – Chicago Review of Books

Abundantly Queer Horror in “Helen House” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] How well can we ever know the people we love? Are there limits to healthy affection? Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya makes literal in her fiction the questions we might be afraid to ask. With her debut novelette, Helen House, these questions take a sinister turn. The story’s narrator and her girlfriend, Amber, share an intense … Read more

Surviving Racism in Erin E. Adams’s “Jackal” – Chicago Review of Books

Surviving Racism in Erin E. Adams’s “Jackal” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In her debut novel, Jackal, Erin E. Adams creates a horror story inspired by a tragically familiar and yet neglected issue in America—the epidemic of disappearing Black girls—and authorities’ and media’s lack of concern or coverage. The best social horror stories allow the inherent darkness of the social phenomenon at their hearts to show … Read more

The Subtext of Friendship in “Best Of Friends” – Chicago Review of Books

The Subtext of Friendship in “Best Of Friends” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The best thing about Kamila Shamsie’s eighth novel, Best of Friends, is the story isn’t hinged on a friendship gnarled with sexual, bodily, or intellectual envy. The conflict is more nuanced, primarily marred by a class difference, but more implicitly by the contradictions that exist within a life-long friendship. At times, the characters feel … Read more

Shuffling the Gothic Cards in “One Dark Window” – Chicago Review of Books

Shuffling the Gothic Cards in “One Dark Window” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The opening chapter of Rachel Gillig’s debut novel One Dark Window, is itself a dark window, inviting readers to look into the misty woods where shadows stalk, explore the medieval town of Blunder with its superstitions and prejudices, and collect the arcane “Providence” cards (not unlike a Tarot deck or a set of Oracle … Read more

An Interview with George Prochnik on “I Dream with Open Eyes” – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with George Prochnik on “I Dream with Open Eyes” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] “And now,” writes George Prochnik in his new memoir, I Dream with Open Eyes, “I have left America because the country became alien to me, or because I believe that somewhere out there in the great beyond I might still find a place that sings home?” On that subtle “or” hangs an inquiry.  After … Read more

A Prismatic Centennial – Chicago Review of Books

A Prismatic Centennial – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] This year marks one hundred years since a Viennese newspaper first serialized Felix Salten’s novel Bambi. A new translation by Jack Zipes emerged from Princeton University Press earlier in the year. This fall, a reissue from New York Review Books Classics—translated by Damion Searls, with an afterword by Mark Reitter—offers readers another look at … Read more

The Urgency of Existence in “I Fear My Pain Interests You” – Chicago Review of Books

The Urgency of Existence in “I Fear My Pain Interests You” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Margot Highsmith is 30,000 feet in the air, crammed into the airplane bathroom dabbing at a bloody lip she hadn’t realized was bleeding. Behind in New York: family despair and romantic anguish that might actually just be humiliation. (Sometimes it’s hard to disentangle the two.) But outside of Bozeman, Montana is an empty house … Read more