The Sisters BrothersPatrick DeWittEcco, April 2011336 pages$24.99 This post was written by Lisa Peet. If the Western exists to glorify the outsider, then it should be noted that Eli Sisters, narrator of Patrick DeWitt’s terrific The Sisters Brothers, is an outsider several times over. He and his brother Charlie are already notorious guns for hire,…
Radial Symmetry Katherine Larson Yale University Press, March 2011. 96 pages $18.00 This post was written by Tory Adkisson. In her recent collection of poems, Radial Symmetry, Yale Younger Series-winner Katherine Larson examines our culture’s increasingly stark division between scientist and artist, and ultimately makes a strong case for reassessing it. A research scientist herself, Larson…
As Though She Were SleepingElias Khoury (translated by Humphrey Davies)MacLehose Press, May 2011368 pages$23.83 This post was written by M. Lynx Qualey. Translator Humphrey Davies has called Elias Khoury’s 2007 novel, As Though She Were Sleeping, “one of the least linear books ever put down on paper.” The comment seems to signal both Davies’ frustration…
The Architect of Flowers William Lychack Mariner Books, March 2011 176 Pages $14.00 This book review was written by Walt McGough. “Still with us?” asks the narrator of “Stolpestad,” the first story in William Lychack’s collection The Architect of Flowers. That the question comes only two paragraphs into the book is instructive: Lychack has crafted a…
If You Knew Then What I Know Now Ryan Van Meter Sarabande Books, April 2011 176 pages $15.95 In “First,” the opening essay of Ryan Van Meter’s autobiographical collection, Van Meter’s five-year-old self tells his best friend Ben that he loves him. When Ben responds the same way, Van Meter takes the next leap and…
In honor of our 40th anniversary, the guest editor of our commemorative Summer 2011 issue, DeWitt Henry, answered a few questions about the past, present, and future of our beloved literary magazine. To read more about the 4oth anniversary and upcoming events, read the partner to this interview post, here. Ploughshares: I know this is…
We would like to congratulate our editor-in-chief, Ladette Randolph, on the release of her novel, A Sandhills Ballad, in paperback. To celebrate, Ladette will read from the novel on April 13th at 7 pm at Newtonville Books in Newton, MA. She will read along with Monica McInerny, author of At Home with the Templetons. Image: Bookstore…
Valerie Brennan is the artist whose painting appears on the cover of our Spring 2011 issue, guest edited by Colm Toibin. I (the web/marketing editor here at Ploughshares) asked her a few questions about this particular painting, current inspirations, and her work in general. Ploughshares: First off, is there an answer to the question “What…
Ed Skoog’s poems, “Lighting” and “Get Free” appear in the Winter 2010-11 issue, of Ploughshares edited by Terrance Hayes. “Lighting” opens with these lines: Note the surface that surrounds the word,and how unlike its meaning, which you step over to avoid, the word raised and untouchable.Pitted prune, eaten bone, hay in a muddy yard. Here,…
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