Monthly Archives: March 2015

Understanding Desperation, & Knowing the Natural World: Q&A with Christian Kiefer

Posted on March 26, 2015 by editor

“Once upon a time, you told yourself that you would be no killer, that this was how you would live your life,” reflects the protagonist of Christian Kiefer’s new novel, The Animals (Liveright/Norton; 320 pages), as he prepares to euthanize a wounded moose in the book’s opening chapter. “And yet you learn and relearn that everything is the same.” Bill Reed is the operator of the North Idaho Wildlife Rescue and a man haunted by a guilty conscience. Caring for wounded animals—raccoons, badgers, an owl, a wolf, and a blind grizzly bear, among others—is a form of catharsis for Bill, …Continue reading →

Posted in Interviews | Tagged animal shelter, Christian Kiefer, Idaho, novel, Richard Ford, The Animals, The Infinite Tides | 1 Comment

A Field Guide to San Francisco Fog, and to Mutable Memory: Q&A with Kyle Boelte

Posted on March 11, 2015 by editor

Kyle Boelte’s memoir, The Beautiful Unseen: Variations on Fog and Forgetting (Counterpoint; 176 pages), weaves together the author’s investigations into the mysterious San Francisco fog with an exploration of his memories of the life and suicide of his brother, Kris. On one side of this dual narrative, Boelte researches the fog from the standpoint of San Francisco history and the science behind the Bay Area’s climate. On the other, he remembers his life before and after his brother’s death. Juxtaposing these two themes, memory becomes reminiscent of the fog and vice versa. With remembering comes forgetting, and memories can cloud …Continue reading →

Posted in Interviews | Tagged fog, kyle boelte, memoir, San Francisco, suicide, the beautiful unseen | Leave a comment

The Misapprehension of Satire: On ‘The Zone of Interest’ by Martin Amis

Posted on March 10, 2015 by editor

“O Germany— Hearing the speeches that ring from your house, one laughs. But whoever sees you, reaches for his rifle.” —Bertolt Brecht (from Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem) I. Introduction January marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the infamous labor and extermination camp in Poland where more than one million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, right under the nose of Polish citizens and the wider international community. The timing of this gruesome anniversary is poignant, as European anti-Semitism is perhaps more virulent and threatening now than at any point since the war. Anti-Semitism has unfortunately proven …Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged anti-semitism, Art Spiegelman, Auschwitz, Bernard-Henri Levy, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Europe, France, Germany, Holocaust, literature, Martin Amis, satire, Tadeusz Borowski, The Zone of Interest | 2 Comments

The Oval Track of Memory: ‘Butterflies in November’ by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Posted on March 4, 2015 by editor

Set in the wintery depths of Iceland during the darkest days of the year, Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir’s novel Butterflies in November (Black Cat/Grove; 296 pages) opens with a surreal scene. After accidentally running over a goose, the unnamed narrator hauls the carcass into her car trunk with plans to surprise her husband with a lavish dinner. What follows is the story of a woman out of sync with domestic life, whose impulsive nature leads her on a journey to self-discovery. We get a sense early on of our narrator’s elusive nature during a confrontation between herself and her husband. With …Continue reading →