Critical Essays

side by side series of the cover of how high we go in the dark

Mundanity Among Tragedy in How High We Go in the Dark

Published two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sequoia Nagamatsu’s debut novel is in some ways comforting, and in others a brutal reflection of our current moment. Through the course of the tragedies and mundanities explored within, every facet of every person’s life is altered; Nagamatsu explores how people handle a changing world.

vintage photograph of a woman standing in the doorway of a bookstore

Activism in Exile

Gisèle Freund’s portraits, shown at the Maison des amis des livres in 1939, of several avant-garde writers and artists, are a collective portrait of a community, rather than a series of individuals. This group of intellectuals, however, would be scattered by the invasion of Paris by the Nazis one year later.