For The Book Obsessed
[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
[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
[ad_1] My first encounter with Elle Nash’s work was Animals Eat Each Other, and since then I’ve been hooked. Her short story collection, Nudes, broke my heart in the best way, and Gag Reflex (written in the style of a LiveJournal from 2005) delivers measured doses of eating disorder vulnerability amid tenuous teenage social structures. … Read more
[ad_1] Lauren Groff’s new novel, The Vaster Wilds, is supposed to make you feel cold, hungry, thirsty, nauseated, sore, febrile, scared, awed, appalled, relieved, confused, hopeful, and tired of it all. The sensations are better effected than the emotions, which is the other way round from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a novel cited by Lauren Groff … Read more
[ad_1] It’s fittingly difficult to pin down Colleen Burner’s debut novel, or novella, Sister Golden Calf. At once fragmented and expansive, set in the recognizable territory of New Mexico’s highways but also infused with magical realism, the book resists categorization. The protagonists, sisters Kit and Gloria, know a thing or two about capturing the ineffable: … Read more
[ad_1] We’re Safe When We’re Alone, Nghiem Tran’s new novella, is dreamlike and imaginative, thrusting us into the world of ghosts and memories. Every character is given a familial label instead of a name, such as Son, the young protagonist, who is forced to adjust outside of his isolation and out into this ominous world. … Read more
[ad_1] Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City examines drag performance from the 19th Century through the contemporary era, from broad cultural trends to the individual experiences of performers. Elyssa Maxx Goodman dives into language, legalities, and the ebb and flow of perceptions. I first met Goodman a year ago … Read more
[ad_1] Rarely do you read a novel that makes you want to get up and finish that essay you’ve let sit idle in your word document for months. Even more rarely do you read a novel that reminds you why you became a writer in the first place. Nathan Hill’s debut, The Nix, took the … Read more
[ad_1] In Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, historian Dylan Penningroth points to the journey towards civil rights for Black Americans beginning “in the fields and cabins of slaves.” Here, in the thick of Antebellum slavery, slaves crafted a knowledge of the law through acts such as accumulation and claims of … Read more
[ad_1] Martin Ritt’s 1976 film The Front delivers a vivid re-creation of the 1950s Red Scare in which many of Hollywood’s most talented writers, actors, and directors found themselves blacklisted and prevented from working in the film and TV industry because of past or present Communist associations and their refusal to name names. In the … Read more