Chemical ValleyDavid HuebertBiblioasis, 2021 Review by Peter Szuban “What you might find, if you were handling a dead pigeon, is something unexpected in the glassy cosmos of its eye: a dark beauty, a molten alchemy.” The characters in David...
PhototaxisOlivia TapieroTranslated by Kit SchluterNightboat Books, 2021 Review by Marisa Grizenko Olivia Tapiero’s Phototaxis, translated from French by Kit Schluter, opens in a world we can recognize. The incomprehensible has happened, and happened again, yet people continue living their...
Blue-Skinned GodsS.J. SinduSoho Press, 2021 Review by Marcie McCauley In Blue-Skinned Gods, S.J. Sindu presents a narrative designed to challenge readers’ understanding of truth and trust, belonging and belief. “I had hoped for a story,” Kalki muses, but “instead...
Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture Under Late Capitalism Daphné B. Translated by Alex ManleyCoach House Books, 2021 Review by Alanna Why When you think of make-up, do you think of a frivolous activity or a form of self-care? For...
HouseholdersKate CayleyBiblioasis, 2021 Review by Katie Zdybel In the closing story of Householders, Trout—a woman who was born into a commune which her mother, Naomi, eventually smuggled her out of—returns to that commune with the now aging, dementia-stricken Naomi....
Brighten the Corner Where You AreCarol BruneauNimbus Publishing, 2020 One Madder WomanDede CraneFreehand Books, 2020 Review by Marcie McCauley The cover of Dede Crane’s 2020 novel reveals the French Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot’s painting Peonies partially, as though a...
Beautiful World, Where Are YouSally RooneyPenguin Random House, 2021 Review by Alexandra Trnka Are the politics of Sally Rooney’s fiction empty or realistic? Such is the question around which critics pivot with the release of each of Rooney’s books....
Archaic Torso of GumbyGeoffrey Morrison & Matthew TomkinsonGordon Hill Press, 2020 Review by Max Karpinski Geoffrey Morrison and Matthew Tomkinson’s Archaic Torso of Gumby resists the traditional moves available to a reviewer. There is no reducing this strange and...
We, JaneAimee WallBook*hug Press, 2021 Review by Kris Rothstein Marthe is a young woman going nowhere; her waitressing job is a dead end, she doesn’t really like her friends, and though she has lived in Montreal for a few...