On the Seriousness of Young Women’s Stories – Chicago Review of Books

On the Seriousness of Young Women’s Stories – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] I’m hardly the first writer to suffer through some unkind feedback in a workshop—and still, I’m going to talk about it. This happened to me years ago, in grad school. In the short fiction draft I was working on, which I’d brought in for feedback, a young woman recalls an almost laughable unkindness done … Read more

Logging On for “Extremely Online” – Chicago Review of Books

Logging On for “Extremely Online” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] As a journalist on the internet beat, journalist Taylor Lorenz has followed influencers and the social media economy for nearly a decade. In many instances, she has become the story herself, particularly on right-wing social media, and she brings her own first-hand experience to the table in her reporting. For someone like me, who … Read more

The Double-Edged Fantasy of “Blackouts” – Chicago Review of Books

The Double-Edged Fantasy of “Blackouts” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] A young man, wearing nothing but a flat cap and work boots, reclines on a table, seductively dangling his limbs off the edge while his torso supports a hefty, open book. An older, elegantly suited man leans over the table, though it’s hard to tell whether he’s examining the book or the body underneath, … Read more

Announcing the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards Shortlist – Chicago Review of Books

Announcing the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards Shortlist – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The Chicago Review of Books is proud to announce the shortlist for the 2023 Chicago Review of Books (CHIRBy) Awards! Now in its eighth year, the CHIRBy Awards honor the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short essays and stories that feature Chicago and our strong literary community. Eligible titles include works published between September … Read more

The Unruly Limits of Materialism in “The MANIAC” – Chicago Review of Books

The Unruly Limits of Materialism in “The MANIAC” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Science and technology make for strange gods in Benjamín Labatut’s The MANIAC. Picking up where his sensational When We Cease to Understand the World leaves off, The MANIAC finds Labatut concerned once again about the unruly limits of materialism. This is his first novel written in English and if one wants or expects a … Read more

Care, Form, and the New in Kate Briggs’ “The Long Form” – Chicago Review of Books

Care, Form, and the New in Kate Briggs’ “The Long Form” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Roland Barthes, in his lecture course The Preparation of the Novel, was especially interested in the practical, lived dimensions of what it might be like to write something of considerable length. In Kate Briggs’ latest book, The Long Form—taking its title, and an epigraph, from this very same lecture course, which she translated into … Read more

Ambivalent Comfort in “The Loneliness Files” – Chicago Review of Books

Ambivalent Comfort in “The Loneliness Files” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Athena Dixon is lonely. A middle-aged single woman without children or pets, she lives alone and works remotely, more than 350 miles from her family. In The Loneliness Files, a thought-provoking memoir in essays, she explores the many facets of her solitude and what they lead her to understand about herself and the world … Read more

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