The Suburban Microcosms of The Hundred Waters
Lauren Acampora’s novel is a fast read that moves ever faster the deeper Louisa and Sylvie head down their suburban rabbit hole.
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Gnomes’ Depiction of Tragedy
Sarah Shilo’s 2005 novel explores the repercussions of trauma without support, tragedy without aid.
Life and Death in Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez
The story of the destruction of one world has on its other side the generation of something new. It may not be a world fit for the living, but it is still a world—a new one, at that.
Zong! and the Financialization of the Black Body
M. NourbeSe Philip makes it clear that the material body, personal identity, and non-dominant culture become sites of violence when they are submitted to totalizing modes of financialization. In her 2008 book of poetry, this violence is demonstrated in its most immediate and graphic form: chattel slavery.
Breaking Down “Medieval” Violence
To understand what is “medieval” about particular forms of contemporary violence is not to understand a history of violence. It is, instead, to understand our own modern cruelty and our own deep discomfort with acknowledging it as ours.
Sensory Experiences in Nina Mingya Powles’s Magnolia木蘭
Nina Mingya Powles’s newest collection is a sensory feast. Inviting readers into the spaces between language and culture, between country of birth and countries of origin, Powles paints the landscapes and histories that have shaped her.
Incomprehensible and Ungraspable
“When I was a teacher, death always lingered in the back of my mind.”
Pioneer Days
Willa Cather’s 1913 novel provides a vision of America that is at once familiar and completely foreign. As the novel revels in scenes of natural beauty and “simpler” times, it also warns us that such idealized visions of America were dangerous and violent all along.
Time’s Arrow and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Martin Amis’ 1991 novel is principally a story about ideology, but it is also a story about denial, and the lengths we will go to justify our own hateful actions.