Category: Book Reviews

White Tears: ‘Yellowface,’ by R.F. Kuang

by Margot Lee

Posted on by John McMurtrie

With her fifth novel, Yellowface (William Morrow; 323 pages), R.F. Kuang promised a departure from the speculative genre work of her fantasy Poppy Wars trilogy and science fiction Babel (2022), winner of the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Yellowface is a biting satire about the publishing industry, informed by Kuang’s own experience as a Chinese American writer who regularly tops bestseller lists. It follows the publication of protagonist June Hayward’s second novel, a historical drama titled The Last Front about Chinese laborers who fought for the Allied Forces in World War I. Kuang writes for a wide audience, and […]

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Double time: ‘August Blue,’ by Deborah Levy

by Yastika Guru

Posted on by John McMurtrie

There are many routes to be introduced to British novelist Deborah Levy’s August Blue (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 208 pages). It is a book about being shadowed by a “double,” so one thinks of Dostoevsky and Henry James’ short story “The Jolly Corner.” It is a book about a child prodigy’s intense and complicated relationship with her mentor, so one is reminded of movies like Whiplash and Black Swan. It is an Odyssean story of exile and return home. It is also a sort of “governess story”: as Elizabeth Hardwick writes in The Brontes, “Most governesses in fiction are strangely […]

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Costs of art: ‘The Late Americans,’ by Brandon Taylor

by Margot Lee

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The characters in Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans (320 pages; Riverhead Books) are poets, dancers, painters, students, and townies, lovers, and exes, “upright beasts, walking on their hind legs, baying at electric moons.” Except for a few, they are in their twenties and on the brink of proper adulthood. There is an engaging urgency in their lives and in Taylor’s new novel, his second after Real Life (2020), a Booker Prize finalist. The book, a novel-in-stories, deftly weaves the lives of students from the university with the community around it—Obama-era Iowa City—depicting where the two collide and recoil back into […]

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Down a hole : ‘Kappa,’ by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

by Charlie Barton

Posted on by John McMurtrie

A writer’s last work, the mere fact of it, ineluctably changes its meaning. Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Kappa (96 pages; New Directions; translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell), is one such finale, the coda of a brief yet prolific career, a novella first published in 1927, months before this acclaimed author would kill himself. What does this book divulge about his psyche? Can this most condemned act be made legible? And it’s even more grotesque—but unavoidable—that one wonders if this work, written by the namesake of Japan’s foremost literary prize, is significant only because it’s his last. Akutagawa’s narrator, No. […]

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Soul of the City: ‘Deal: New and Selected Poems,’ by Randall Mann

by Gus Berg

Posted on by John McMurtrie

With an illustrious career spanning over several acclaimed poetry collections, Randall Mann is a luminary in contemporary poetry. His impressive body of work includes Complaint in the Garden (2004), which garnered him the prestigious Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry, and Breakfast with Thom Gunn (2009), a finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and the California Book Award. The depth of Mann’s talent is further showcased in Straight Razor (2013), a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and Proprietary (2017), a finalist for both the Northern California Book Award and Lambda Literary Award. Now, with Deal: New and Selected […]

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Radical hope: ‘Not Too Late,’ edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The sun has not yet set on climate activism and our potential for a bright future. So say Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, the editors of a new collection of essays and interviews, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story From Despair to Possibility (200 pages; Haymarket Books). Not Too Late features the voices of advocates who have been through the mill in the fight against climate change; they show us that giving up is not an option. They have become thick-skinned and resilient, and their writing offers a guide for us to turn to when we need revitalization. […]

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Bearing Witness: ‘Bone Country,’ by Linda Nemec Foster

by Gus Berg

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In Bone Country (110 pages; Cornerstone Press), the thirteenth poetry collection by Linda Nemec Foster, each poem is a snapshot, presented in a fragmented style that emphasizes the intensity of each image. Despite this fragmentation, the collection is united by a quick rhythm that propels the reader. Every piece is imbued with an intense sense of place in Europe. Warsaw, Krakow, Bratislava, the Tatra Mountains, Now Sac, Rzeszow, Tarnow, and the Baltic Sea all make early appearances. Poland is the central focus, from the beauty of natural landscapes to the horrors of war and occupation. The collection explores the tension […]

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Keeping It Light: ‘Always Alwaysland: New Poems’ by Stanley Moss

by Megan Luebberman

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Having written several volumes over half a century, the critically acclaimed American poet Stanley Moss continues to offer galvanizing ideas, images, and feelings in his work. His latest, Always Alwaysland (239 pages; Seven Stories Press), contains more than 100 poems covering a wide range of personal, philosophical, and political topics. Using fanciful free verse and occasional rhyme schemes, Moss takes readers through his vivid memories and endless imagination.             While Always Alwaysland has no unifying theme, there are recurring ideas, such as the concept of language, reading, and poetry itself. Moss continually comments about the nature of the poet and […]

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Broken Home: ‘Archipelago,’ by Laila Malik

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

            From the first piece in her debut poetry collection, Archipelago (86 pages; Book*hug Press), Laila Malik ponders the complexity and impermanence of home, a concept that sometimes stretches across continents. The metaphorical loss of place through multigenerational migration and the literal loss of land through climate change are connected in each of the collection’s four sections (“precambrian”; “petroleum by-products”; “half-life of exile”; and “kufic”).             Many of the pieces in Archipelago are written in the second person, interspersed with the expanded first-person perspective “we,” transforming a collection of personal reflections into a subtle set of instructions. Malik’s poems carry […]

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World-Building: ‘The Nature Book,’ by Tom Comitta

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In Tom Comitta’s new work of fiction, The Nature Book (272 pages; Coffee House Press), we never encounter a human being. Taking the form of a literary “supercut” that pieces together words from over 300 novels, Comitta’s collage redirects our attention to the life force that pulses through land, water, time, and outer space. Comitta (they/them) uses ornate prose to describe how time moves across seasons to paint a fresh picture of the world and how all nonhuman life fits into it. A standard fast-paced plot is replaced with a gentle rise and fall in action that decentralizes any characters—wolves, […]

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L.A. stories: ‘Boom Times for the End of the World,’ by Scott Timberg

by Marius Sosnowski

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Value is everything. You can tell a lot about a society by what it values. In America, things that move tenaciously with the bravura of a cha-ching—like buildings, prescription pills, and personal data—are big business, practically a national pastime. But what about the arts? The arts are trickier. Art is messy, it’s too human, and by virtue of provoking thought and reflection, too ambiguous (although the market for fine art makes capital use of ambiguity). How do you judge art? What’s it worth? What does it mean? Where’s it from? Who cares? Scott Timberg, former arts reporter for the Los […]

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‘Trace Evidence’ by Charif Shanahan: Worlds Apart

by Valerie Braylovskiy

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Trace Evidence (93 pages; Tin House Press) is the second collection of poetry by Charif Shanahan, author of Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing. These poems use language and form to peel back elements of Shanahan’s identity and show how markers like nationality, race, and sexuality intersect within one’s lived experience. The poems feel deeply personal yet rooted in the universal as Shanahan raises profound questions about human nature and what it means to feel displaced in the world. Born in the Bronx to an Irish American father and Moroccan mother, Shanahan— a professor at Northwestern University— discusses his […]

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