Anni Liu Nothing seems real. Events seem to take place on a poorly lit theater stage, and while the actors recite their lines, shadowy figures menace them from unseen corridors. There is the sense that all meaningful exchange…
Stephen Peeples The Roman occupation of Britain lasted for 360 years, considerably longer than the existence of the United States. Generation after generation was born, toiled and died knowing nothing different. Guy De La Bedoyere has attempted to…
Chris Potter Marion County, South Carolina is not quite Low Country but it’s close. William Tecumseh Sherman passed only a horseback ride from here. There are palmettos galore. There are acres and acres of loblolly drooped in Spanish moss. …
Julia Stone Skylight by Jose Saramago illustrates the inner-workings of the mind through a patchwork of characters living in a run-down apartment complex in Lisbon during the 1940s. The epigraph, a quote from Portuguese writer Raul Brandão, reads,…
Anni Liu In Bluets, poet-essayist Maggie Nelson offered us a portrait of the color blue, and through it, her experiences of grief, beauty, and a singular obsession. Though she published something else between Bluets and The Argonauts, I…
Shea Faulkner Jamie Kornegay’s introductory novel, Soil, is a deeply dark, comedic Southern Gothic tale about a rapidly unhinging man by the name of Jay Mize. Taken by the idea of environmental farming, Mize puts all he has into…
Mariah Gese The Russian Revolution may be a familiar subject to readers, the horrific conflict and the fate of the Romanovs now particularly solemn and bloody history, but never before has the subject been approached by a blasé…
Kate MacLam I thought about The Transcriptionist for weeks and months after reading it, as my cat ate my hair (as ready as the lions—he didn’t even wait until I was asleep). When I first read it I was…
Claire Szabo Vanessa Blakeslee’s debut collection of short stoies, Train Shots, intimately examines how its cast of characters respond to change. The author puts her characters into challenging situations so that they must get what they need by asserting…
Claire Szabo Entering the world of Melancholy II is like stepping into another person’s mind as they grapple with their old age and mortality. Jon Fosse’s novel gives a look into the mind of Oline as she struggles with…