For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] The Western, as a genre, is rife with horrific elements: its frequently alienating landscapes, its history of violence, and its strange and unrestrained collision of cultures. In Lone Women, Victor LaValle takes horrors both human and supernatural as his subject: a haunted vision of the American dream that accelerates into a bloody exploration of … Read more
[ad_1] About ten years ago, I decided to leave Chicago yet again. Raised on the South Side, I’d moved back and forth over the years never willing to give up my roots, yet prone to finding adventures that drew me elsewhere. “But what will you do instead of painting?” my friend Anita asked me the … Read more
[ad_1] Spring is finally here, and the Chicago Review of Books team couldn’t be more excited! The season brings us hints of warmer weather, new life, and plenty of exciting releases. Our list this month offers so much to look forward to, from landmark debuts of fresh voices to eye-opening works of nonfiction. Even if … Read more
[ad_1] Kelly Link’s fiction always brings to my mind the old-timey phrase “spinning a yarn.” Although I’ve learned this idiom has nautical origins, for me, it evokes spindles, spinning wheels, and the realm of folktales. And while Link tends to reinvent her own style so that no two stories are alike, all of them can … Read more
[ad_1] The following excerpt is from S.L. Wisenberg’s The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home. Spanning years and continents, this new collection follows Wisenberg as she combs through history books and family records in her search for home and meaning. S.L. Wisenberg is editor of Another Chicago Magazine and author of the fiction collection, The Sweetheart … Read more
[ad_1] Laura Spence-Ash’s debut novel, Beyond That, the Sea, spans thirty years, two continents, and eight points of view, but it never loses focus, momentum, or its loving attention to detail. As German bombs fall over London in 1940, Millie and Reginald Thompson make the difficult choice to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Bea, to America … Read more
[ad_1] Nathan Ballingrud’s The Strange is set on Mars in the early 20th century—not a scientifically accurate Mars, but one more like Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles or earlier planetary romance, with a breathable atmosphere and signs of earlier civilizations. Colonized by Americans, among others, this is a distinctly frontier-like Mars, with most of the main … Read more
[ad_1] The first time someone called me a faggot, I was nine or ten years old. I was standing on the grass near a chain link fence by a baseball diamond. I don’t remember why I was there, the park near my childhood home in Levittown, on Long Island. Maybe my brother was nearby, or … Read more
[ad_1] Poet Charif Shanahan’s work has garnered an impressive list of accolades. His first collection, Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing, was selected by Allison Joseph as the winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award, and it was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and the … Read more
[ad_1] Jinwoo Chong’s debut novel Flux bends time and identity equally as three characters take turns sharing the narrative spotlight in a story that explores trauma, regret, Americanness and dealing with everything in between. Bo, who is eight years old, suffers the tragic loss of his mother and finds solace in a detective show. Brandon, … Read more