Book Reviews

Review: THE WIDOW’S GUIDE TO EDIBLE MUSHROOMS by Chauna Craig
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Review: THE WIDOW’S GUIDE TO EDIBLE MUSHROOMS by Chauna Craig

ByNancy McCabe

Most of the stories in The Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms, Chauna Craig’s debut collection, are set in the American West, centered on characters who often identify closely with their geography … And while Craig convincingly portrays a range of characters, her work is particularly striking when she writes about the landscape of motherhood and the special vulnerabilities of being a stepmother, themes that she understands as surely as she does her Montana settings.

Rural Pride in the Walleye Capital of the World: Emily Fridlund’s HISTORY OF WOLVES
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Rural Pride in the Walleye Capital of the World: Emily Fridlund’s HISTORY OF WOLVES

ByGraham Oliver

Loose River is a town where the two key descriptions of Christmastime are “competing nativity scenes” and the “strings of colored lights up and down Main Street.” Linda, the protagonist, thinks in terms of natural geography: her friend lives “in a trailer three lakes over.”

Review: TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: AN ESSAY IN 40 QUESTIONS by Valeria Luiselli
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Review: TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: AN ESSAY IN 40 QUESTIONS by Valeria Luiselli

ByGuest Reviewer

In her expanded essay Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, Luiselli outlines the intake form for undocumented minors. The procedure, on paper, is simple: Luiselli presents the questions, the children speak, and Luiselli transcribes their answers in English for the lawyers who will fight to secure their legal status.