Writing Realism in Extraordinary Circumstances With Lori Rader-Day – Chicago Review of Books

Writing Realism in Extraordinary Circumstances With Lori Rader-Day – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] How far will you go to keep your family? What would you do if you and your loved ones are thrust in the middle of a scandal that might tear everything apart forever? That’s at the heart of Lori Rader-Day’s forthcoming domestic suspense novel, The Death of Us. What happened to Ashley Hay? Would … Read more

The People vs. Gentrification in “Brooklyn Crime Novel” – Chicago Review of Books

The People vs. Gentrification in “Brooklyn Crime Novel” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Jonathan Lethem’s newest book, Brooklyn Crime Novel, is proof positive he unequivocally loves Brooklyn. His command of place and time is ever-present in this work: he mixes fond remembrance with futuristic language told through a narrator who knows the ending but enjoys telling the tale—and teasing his audience—because it’s his to tell. Brooklyn is … Read more

A Conversation with Leslie Sainz – Chicago Review of Books

A Conversation with Leslie Sainz – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Have You Been Long Enough at Table, a debut poetry collection by Leslie Sainz, bubbles over with poetic range. There are sonnets and prose poems and ghazals and a narrator grappling with her Cuban American identity and family history of immigration and displacement. The poems bring the reader to the table covered in ancestral … Read more

Lit & Luz Festival Celebrates Its 10 Year Anniversary – Chicago Review of Books

Lit & Luz Festival Celebrates Its 10 Year Anniversary – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The annual cross-cultural, bilingual literature and arts festival Lit & Luz is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year! Since the launch of the festival ten years ago by MAKE Literary Productions, Lit & Luz has brought together dozens of artists and writers between Mexico and the United States into conversation with one another, producing … Read more

The Politics of Making History in “The Burning of the World” – Chicago Review of Books

The Politics of Making History in “The Burning of the World” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Chicago was a tinderbox. In 1871, the city was packed with wood-frame houses, wooden sidewalks, and hay-filled barns, nestled alongside lumber processing mills, paper factories, wood-frame churches, and saloons. Thirty-four years since its municipal incorporation, Chicago was now home to over 300,000 people, roughly half of them immigrants who journeyed to the city seeking … 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

A Powerful Appeal to the Senses in “The Hunger Book” – Chicago Review of Books

A Powerful Appeal to the Senses in “The Hunger Book” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] “What’s the point of going home if nobody is there?” Agata Izabela Brewer asks in the opening pages of her memoir, The Hunger Book: A Memoir from Communist Poland. She’s narrating a dream of dreadful abandonment, in which she holds hands with her brother, mushroom hunting while her family disappears behind them leaving them … Read more

Double Vision and Self-Deception in “A Man of Two Faces” – Chicago Review of Books

Double Vision and Self-Deception in “A Man of Two Faces” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Commenting on a social media post of a Time article titled “The Ukraine War Is Becoming Putin’s Vietnam,” author Viet Thanh Nguyen says, “It was only a matter of time . . . the return of Vietnam as a war, not a country. When the reality is that if any country deserves to be … Read more

To Indulge in Prose in “Land of Milk and Honey” – Chicago Review of Books

To Indulge in Prose in “Land of Milk and Honey” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In 2019, C. Pam Zhang enchanted readers with her vision of the American Gold Rush in How Much Of These Hills is Gold, her words rendering that dusty, bleak landscape with the fresh perspective of children. This narrative of children transporting their father’s body recalls Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, but Zhang’s story is … Read more

Violent Crime’s Multi-Edged Truths in “Penance” – Chicago Review of Books

Violent Crime’s Multi-Edged Truths in “Penance” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Eliza Clark’s thoughtful follow-up to her debut novel Boy Parts gives readers the opportunity to examine true crime from unexpected angles. Once-celebrated (fictional) journalist Alec Z. Carelli takes a shot at redemption after penning two commercial flops and being implicated in a scandal that hurls him out of public favor. While scouring the internet … Read more