Review

rev. of Pity the Monsters: The Political Vision of Robert Lowell by Alan Williamson

Pity the Monsters: The Political Vision of Robert Lowell. By Alan Williamson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. The very first page of the prefatory material in this new book speaks of Robert Lowell as a moralist, and refers with admiration to something called “moral wisdom,” which we are to ask from poetry. And in…

Safe in America by Marcie Hershman

Christopher Tilghman recommends Safe in America, a novel by Marcie Hershman (HarperCollins): “Marcie Hershman has interwoven a family saga with the triple threats of the Holocaust, war, and AIDS. She presents these calamities as family tragedies, revealed in the heartbreaking ordinariness of daily life. Her story, with its ironic title, should make everyone consider his…

Ocean Avenue by Malena Mörling

Chase Twichell recommends Ocean Avenue, poems by Malena Mörling: “This is a remarkable first book-taut, often egoless poems that subtly nudge the reader into territory that’s wholly original yet also familiar. Each poem creates a minor shock of recognition.” (New Issues)

rev. of Playing Out of the Deep Woods by G. W. Hawkes

Playing Out of the Deep Woods Stories by G. W. Hawkes. Univ. of Missouri Press, $14.95 paper. Reviewed by Fred Leebron. A conventional wisdom about short story collections these days is that they must feature stories that are linked in some way — collections that focus on a particular series of characters, or a particular…

Saying the Necessary by Edward Harkness

Madeline DeFrees recommends Saying the Necessary, poems by Edward Harkness: “The balance between reality and imagination is so precarious and the language so persuasive that the reader identifies with the speaker.” (Pleasure Boat Studio)

Offspring by Jonathan Strong

Lloyd Schwartz recommends Offspring, a novel by Jonathan Strong (Zoland): “Reading a novel by Jonathan Strong is like finding a secret treasure in a dark attic. ‘Every unhappy family,’ Tolstoy wrote, ‘is unhappy in its own way.’ Offspring is the tale of a peculiarly happy family that lives in an unhappy world which can’t understand-or…

Playing the Game by Alan Lelchuk

Dan Wakefield recommends Playing the Game, a novel by Alan Lelchuk (Baskerville): “This novel has been neglected and deserves to be read. A wonderful and entertaining insight into U.S. sports, with a coach who uses Thoreau, Whitman, and Francis Parkman as inspirational reading for halftime pep talks.”

rev. of Separate Flights by Andre Dubus

There are some dazzling innovators in fiction these days. The 1970s have been electrically charged with Barth's succession of fun houses, barthelme's mosaics, Marquez's dream epics, Borges' magic boxes, Gaddis' unending tape recorder, and Calvino's invisible voyages. Midst these splendors, is there room for an author who plays no tricks whatever? Andre Dubus' Separate Flights…

Old Mother, Little Cat: A Writer’s Reflection on Her Kitten, Her Aged Moter, and…L

Maxine Kumin recommends Old Mother, Little Cat: A Writer’s Reflections on Her Kitten, Her Aged Mother, and . . . Life, a memoir by Merrill Joan Gerber: “This is a deeply affecting book, told absolutely without artifice; unflinching but compassionate, and very charming. Gerber is best known as a novelist and short story writer. She…