The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen, a novel: In this enthralling tale, a small-town librarian is hit by lightning, and finds her heretofore frozen heart suddenly burning. (Little, Brown)
Review
Star Dust by Frank Bidart
Frank Bidart, Star Dust, poems: Finishing the sequence that began with his chapbook Music Like Dirt, Bidart illustrates with unforgettable passion that the dream beyond desire is rooted in the drive to create. (FSG)
The Return Message by Tessa Rumsey
The Return Message, poems by Tessa Rumsey (Norton): The foremost organizing principal of this fascinating second volume is the manner in which Rumsey pairs poems beneath shared titles and erects a dialogue between the shorter, pastoral poems that occupy the left pages and the longer, cityscape poems on the right. The dense scent of wisteria…
Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz
Nice Big American Baby, stories by Judy Budnitz (Knopf): The breadth of these stories, from Kafkaesque surrealism to tightly wrought naturalism, is breathtaking in itself, but what unites this extraordinary collection is its unnerving verve and vision. There isn’t anything Judy Budnitz can’t or won’t do, and right when you think she couldn’t possibly be…
The Train to Lo Wu by Jess Row
The Train to Lo Wu, stories by Jess Row (Dial): In Jess Row’s post-colonial Hong Kong, everything seems to be on the verge of disappearing. The city is a "mirage" that can be "swallowed in fog for days," the language slippery, "no tenses or articles, with seven different ways of saying the same syllable." No…
In the Shadows of the Sun by Alex Parsons
Robert Boswell recommends In the Shadows of the Sun, a novel by Alex Parsons: “This is a startlingly good novel. Set during World War II in rural New Mexico and the jungles of the Philippines, In the Shadows of the Sun is not a war story but a story of familial tragedy. One could argue…
A Word Like Fire by Dick Barnes
Donald Hall recommends A Word Like Fire, selected poems by Dick Barnes: “Barnes, who died five years ago, was little known in the East, but he was a man of vast energy. His knowledge was superb, and his talents went everywhere. He taught literature at Pomona College, performed with his own jazz band, wrote and…
Playland: Poems 1994-2004 by Eve Packer
Donald Hall recommends Playland: Poems 1994–2004, by Eve Packer: "Eve was my student at Michigan, and much later my friend when I lived for a while in New York. It’s one of those books about which people say, ‘I couldn’t put it down.’ There is a liveliness and specificity about it, pure Manhattan, duly and…
The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall
Justin Kaplan recommends The Peabody Sisters, a biography by Megan Marshall: “A heroically researched and beautifully written biography about three women who were, in many ways, the American Brontës.” (Houghton Mifflin)