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Those of us who experience trauma find it difficult to put our experience into words in the first place. Many of us flounder, sputter, or stay silent, at a loss for how to adequately translate our experience into language.
Rachel Haley Himmelheber’s recent collection is a critique of society’s desire for well-behaved women—her characters riot and fight against the odds, either out of habitual necessity or because putting up a fight is easier than letting your guard down.
Where are all the books about miscarriage and assisted reproduction, about experiencing the loss of something you never had to begin with?
Hernán Díaz returns to the California Gold Rush in his 2017 novel, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He shows an America in transition, fixated on the promise of prosperity, power, and property.
Sally Wen Mao’s new collection repeatedly pushes against the notion that a state of being “othered” is necessarily a fixed point of marginalization.
Irina Reyn’s new novel begins in the middle of a complex history: Nadia Borodinskaya, a single mother, has been working tirelessly in the United States for the last seven years to bring her adult-aged daughter, Larisska, from war-torn Ukraine.
From her earliest encounters with Richard Wagner, George Eliot engaged critically with his work. She praised his mythological themes, his use of leitmotif, and his vision for the future of opera, but admitted to finding his works overlong, and her own musical ear ill-tuned to finding pleasure in his music.
Reading and rereading Amos Oz’s work, what strikes me each time is the treasure horde of gimlet-eyed descriptions waiting to be unlocked in every book.
Reading with an eye for ekphrasis is reading for moments of productive trouble, spaces where the verbal and the visual clash, each vying for control over a story’s narrative. In these moments of contact, the sublimated desires and anxieties of the characters or narratives often make themselves known.
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