For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] It’s an unexpected delight to be able to review previously-unseen work by the late Roberto Bolaño 18 years after his death. Bolaño—the Chilean poet-novelist perhaps most known for his books The Savage Detectives and the already-posthumously published 2666, both translated into English by Natasha Wimmer—left an abundant back catalog of poetry and prose after … Read more
[ad_1] It’s been five years since Cortney Lamar Charleston’s debut, and Doppelgangbanger is more than worth the wait: it’s a kaleidoscope of a collection effortlessly combining cultural signposts with philosophical ruminations about identity, place and self-determination. Charleston explores the ways that spirit and body can be restricted, harmed, and too often obliterated in our society … Read more
[ad_1] In an interview for The Believer, graphic artist turned novelist Peter Mendelsund elaborated his own approach to literature by using a surprising comparison to another art: puppetry. The audience of a puppet show is observing two stories simultaneously, “the diegetic material that the puppets are performing, and the actions the puppeteer is performing.” In … Read more
[ad_1] In Nancy Johnson’s debut novel, The Kindest Lie, a story of desire and identity unfolds around a young, Yale-educated Black chemical engineer named Ruth. Her story, told with attention and sincerity, is not a simple narrative of homecoming. Rather, Ruth, who returns to her Indiana hometown in the midst of an economic depression, comes … Read more
[ad_1] In 2019, after the release of her widely-lauded album “Norman Fucking Rockwell!,” Lana Del Rey got an unexpected bad review. Actually, it wasn’t a bad review at all: it was a thoughtful, insightful deep-dive that contained a few harsh sentences. Nethertheless, Del Rey sicced her Twitter followers on the reviewer, NPR’s Ann Powers, who … Read more
[ad_1] Centuries of religious and philosophical debate have centered on the question of whether we have free will or not, with modern neuroscience and psychology framed around the conflict between nurturing influences and natural biological predisposition. The debate sits at the center of Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife, a fast-paced, page-turning science fiction thriller delving … Read more
[ad_1] In Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel, No One is Talking About This, there is a line after the birth of her sister’s child which highlights the balancing act attempted in this book: “It was a marvel how cleanly and completely this lifted her out of the stream of regular life.” Lockwood’s exquisite writing aims to … Read more
[ad_1] “For me, ghosts are never the spirits of strangers. They are the people I love most dearly,” confesses the narrator of one of the stories in Elvira Navarro’s collection Rabbit Island. Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney, these stories often cross the line between delusion and reality, constructs that in Navarro’s hands prove … Read more
[ad_1] When asked who he writes for in a recent interview, Brontez Purnell provided as good an answer as I’ve heard in years: “Ghosts” he said. And then, elaborating on his answer: “A bunch of disruptive faggots.” In his latest offering—100 Boyfriends—the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The narrator’s boyfriends are the book’s ghosts and its … Read more
[ad_1] It’s always cold this time of year, but when Megan Stielstra’s first two books quietly became available for pre-orders early in January, it got cool. Previously out of print, Stielstra’s collections Everyone Remain Calm and Once I Was Cool will now have a new home with Northwestern University Press this August. Both books are … Read more