Three Days After the Shooting, by Ralph Ellison a review by Katherine A. Evans In many ways, from a thematic standpoint, Three Days Before the Shooting. . . is perhaps most notable for the ways in which it expands the project begun in Invisible Man, dramatizing the challenges of identity formation and the critiques of the American institution of racism, and emphasizing the centrality of the African-American narrative to the American story.
issue 7 :: may 2010
The Lost Books of the Odyssey, by Zachary Mason a review by Jonathan Wooding With The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason has created an environment to showcase his extraordinary talent for cleverness; but he also demonstrates that relying on talent makes for a hollow achievement.
issue 6 :: March 2010
The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker a review by Nora Delaney Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist is a strange book: part idiosyncratic poetry manual, part disconnected personal narrative. The first line of the novel, if you can comfortably call it that, pulls no punches: “Hello, this is Paul Chowder, and I’m going to try to tell you everything I know.” The reader is thrust involuntarily into a relationship with the infuriating, disarming Chowder for almost 250 pages as he moons over his breakup with Roz — stringer-of-beads and washer-of-dogs-extraordinaire — as well as his inability to write an introduction to a poetry anthology — this latter failure having precipitated Roz’s leaving.
issue 5 :: January 2010
Violence & Evasion: the Novels of Margarita Karapanou an essay by George Fragopoulos There is a tireless peripatetic thrust in Karapanou’s novels. They only refrain from becoming essayistic by her use of fragmentary, non-linear narratives. Protagonists and readers alike are never still in her books, never at ease. When reading Karapanou, one is reminded of Pascal's famous aphorism that evil and suffering arise from the simple reason that man cannot remain peacefully at rest within a room.
The Armies, by Evelio Rosero a review by Scott Esposito Great art has always played a facilitating role in exactly this way. Even in this era of photographic and cinematic plenty, true art is has a near monopoly on conveying authentic subjective realities that can rarely be related otherwise. This is the tall order that the Columbian novelist Evelio Rosero has set for himself in his 2007 novel, The Armies. Winner of The Independent’s Foreign Fiction award in 2009 and widely lauded in the British press, the book arrives on U.S. shores highly recommended.
issue 4 :: November 2009
Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon a review by Salvatore Ruggiero It’s as if Pynchon is seeking peace through the paranoia — as if Pynchon’s narrator has come to terms with the insanity of the world and can perhaps finally close the book on it. A counterintuitive sense of optimism pervades this novel, as Doc and the reader can make sense of the actions of the characters, the manipulation of corporations, and the psychology of mad dreams.
issue 3 :: September 2009
Desert, by J.M.G. Le Clézio a review by Scott Esposito Though Desert is informed by those turn-of-the-century maladies, colonialism and warfare, it is not about either of these topics in the least. Le Clézio only cares for the lived experience of people caught up in these forces, and he does not dilute their lives with recourse to philosophical or historical abstraction. Thus his panorama is powerful for its sense of humanity massing with religious conviction out of the wide and empty desert, but those who look to fiction for vivid characters and a strong sense of plot might be put off by these first fifty pages.
issue 2 :: july 2009
In the Kitchen, by Monica Ali a review by Katherine A. Evans As in her previous work, which differs significantly in its plot and setting but not in its themes, In the Kitchen is an attempt to engage with ideas of self, identity, and agency in a multicultural world. It was her initial exploration of these themes in her debut novel Brick Lane that won her critical acclaim and a three-book deal with Scribner in the first place. But, Monica Ali was almost destined to disappoint.
Wit's End, by Karen Joy Fowler a review by Alistair Brown In many ways, the most interesting thing about this book is the fact that its postmodern elements are so unremarkable. I do not mean that Fowler is not capable of writing in an interesting way, but rather that the postmodern has lost any radical edge it once had, becoming essentially normative, so that Fowler, writing a mass-market novel, probably never even realized she was writing in line with its codes. . . .
Last Night in Montreal, by Emily St. John Mandel a review by April Pierce Like so many coming of age stories, Last Night in Montreal, the first novel from Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel, attempts to mythologize the life of the wandering hermit. This no-longer-rare breed of personality: the reclusive oddball-runaway renegade, stoic, unbreakable spirit — the Humbert Humbert and the Holden Caulfield — is as ubiquitous in our literary heritage as pastels are around Eastertide. Accordingly, it is essential for any author working in the genre of loner-literature to paint such a figure with idiosyncratic brushstrokes, if only to avoid authorial clichés. Without submerging into the protagonist’s psyche, or even in spite of that submersion, novels of this sort risk becoming tedious catalogues of narcissism. . . . issue 1 :: may 2009
