All the Money in the World by Robert Anthony Siegel
James Alan McPherson recommends All the Money in the World, a novel by Robert Anthony Siegel: “A heartfelt first novel by a gifted former student.” (Random)
Review
The New Life by Richard Tillinghast
Richard Tillinghast, The New Life, poems: In his latest collection, which takes its title from Dante’s celebration of courtly love, La Vita Nuova, Tillinghast journeys through romantic love, the deaths of old friends, the ironies of history, and the losses and epiphanies of a long life of exploration and discovery. (Copper Beech)
Usher by B. H. Fairchild
B. H. Fairchild, Usher, poems: This new collection of poems employs dramatic monologues and embraces a range of subject matters and modes, from the elegiac to the comic. (Norton)
Rev: Clampdown
Clampdown, by Jennifer Moxley (Flood Editions): A few decades ago Jennifer Moxley might have been called a “coterie poet”—her low celebrity wattage within the larger galaxy of American letters contrasts starkly with the deep respect and loyalty she inspires among a relatively small number of serious readers and fellow poets. Her work appears in hard-to-find…
All-American Girl by Robin Becker
Lloyd Schwartz recommends All-American Girl, poems by Robin Becker: “Unsparing and self-knowing, Robin Becker uses irony (as in her double- and triple-edged title) as if it were a form of directness. Painful, often devastating poems contend with crushing loss, the convolutions of sexuality and family politics, the struggle to accept the self. Yet they also…
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time by Marie Howe
Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, poems: The speaker in this anticipated new volume of poems wonders: What is the difference between the self and the soul? The secular and the sacred? And how does one live in Ordinary Time-during those periods that are not apparently miraculous? (Norton)
Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be by Jen Trynin
DeWitt Henry recommends Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be, a memoir by Jen Trynin: "This memoir should be required reading for wannabe Janis Joplins; for others it offers a view of the corporate music world worthy of Nathaniel West. The monologues of soulless hucksters are pitch-perfect, and Trynin’s dream of becoming a rock star carries…
rev. of Meaning a Cloud by J. W. Marshall
Meaning a Cloud, poems by J. W. Marshall (Oberlin): J. W. Marshall’s starkly beautiful first book, Meaning a Cloud, is a bang-up narrative of fracture and its aftermath—a sort of out-of-body reportage born of dumb luck injury and the careful exploration of what repair (or endurance) entails. The landscape is one of dissonance: scattering clouds,…
Wrack and Ruin by Don Lee
Don Lee, Wrack and Ruin, a novel: Lee’s second novel is an incisive satire about art and commerce, fame and ethnicity, nature and development, and two estranged brothers, Lyndon and Woody Song. (Norton)