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Monson’s newest collection, out tomorrow, continues his exploration of essays and essaying, scrutinizing the “I”; playing with prose and white space on the page; and examining the nature of memory—all while suffusing his observations with the cultural elements he examines in earlier collections.
Jacqueline Crooks’s novel is a journey from underworlds to natural worlds, from the present to the past, and from secrets to finding one’s voice. Layered in are elements of history and ancestry; of longing for mothers and motherlands; of oppression and uprising; and of the historical, sociopolitical, and spiritual power of music.
Lady Macbeth’s tragedy is the tragedy of being a woman. What more powerful way to show this than through a difficult woman to like?
Hanif Abdurraqib’s 2017 essay collection explores a conflict he sees in his own project, perhaps in any endeavor toward joy: how can one write about music, let alone listen to it or make it, when people are dying?
I did not know before encountering this anthology’s opening fact that the eastern cougar, “puma, mountain lion, wildcat, catamount, painter, mountain screamer, in all its many names,” had been declared extinct in 2018 from where I am from. This caught a latch in my throat, lighter to such knowledge’s touch than I’d expected.
More difficulties mount in consideration of how commodified the Sistine Chapel’s most iconic images have been made; how can a viewer be struck with awe before an image that’s been made into mugs, mouse pads, magnets, and memes?
The narrative tends to drift, partly because of its emphasis on memory and partly because of the soft flow of Shin’s syntax, expertly translated by Hur.
Spatial conflicts and curiosities (the lighthearted call to the open road, for example) can undergird the entire momentum and tone of a novel. Without knowing a character’s place in the world, it’s challenging to gather the full context of their decisions.
Books by Sally Rooney, Anat Levit, and Daniel Sloss show us how to triumph over tension in relationships: rather than be at war with each other’s pet peeves, lovers share the pain—and perhaps a laugh—when admitting that love is anything but simple.
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