Book Review Archives - Page 26 of 37

rev. of Growing Up Rich by Anne Bernays

"Easy writing's curst hard reading," says Sheridan the witty playwright, and one reads Anne Bernays' prose so effortlessly and with such speed that he is inclined to think it is his own accomplishment and not the author's. But the art is there, leading us on, deftly sorting the German Jews from the Russian Jews by…

rev. of Elijah Visible by Thane Rosenbaum

Elijah Visible Stories by Thane Rosenbaum. St. Martin’s Press, $21.95 cloth. Reviewed by Marcie Hershman. This is as vibrant and provocative a collection of short fiction as I’ve read in years. That it is also a debut collection makes it all the more gratifying. Thane Rosenbaum, who, in his early thirties left a prestigious New…

rev. of High on Gold by Lee Richmond

This first novel is neither polished and gemlike nor gusty and pungent, nor funny, nor exceptionally brilliant, nor prophetic in its earnestly Mailerian effort to place third world pain, protest, and pioneering into philosophical, historical and literary perspective, but the book has other solid virtues, worth the reader's patience to absorb. The time is the…

rev. of Emerald City by Jennifer Egan

Emerald City Stories by Jennifer Egan. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. $22.50 cloth. Reviewed by Jodee Stanley. In the title story of Jennifer Egan’s collection, Emerald City, a young photographer’s assistant walks down the streets of Manhattan with his girlfriend, an unsuccessful model. He takes in the street noise, the dark storefronts, looking for something that…

rev. of Equal Love by Peter Ho Davies

Equal Love Stories by Peter Ho Davies. Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin, $12.00 paper. Reviewed by Michael Byers. In Peter Ho Davies’s second collection, Equal Love, common domestic situations give rise, in unexpected ways, to moments of luminous reflection. Davies’s stories are allusive, mysterious, often funny, and tender. As in his debut collection, The Ugliest House in…

rev. of Farewell, My Lovelies by Diann Blakely

Farewell, My Lovelies Poems by Diann Blakely. Story Line Press, $12.95 paper. Reviewed by Denise Duhamel. In her second book, Farewell, My Lovelies, Diann Blakely evokes Raymond Chandler’s yin and writes a decidedly female poetry — tough, stylized, and heart-smart. In the opening poem of the collection, “Last Dance,” the speaker observes a gaggle of…

rev. of First, Body by Melanie Rae Thon

First, Body Stories by Melanie Rae Thon. Houghton Mifflin, $21.95 cloth. Reviewed by Christopher Tilghman. Melanie Rae Thon’s fierce, unyielding, and brilliant new stories are now collected in First, Body, and the effect of reading all of them together after seeing many of them when originally published is simply to encounter genius. These stories come…

rev. of David Johnson Passed Through Here by John Fairfield

. . .is a first novel, or first book, rather, full of good stuff, shaped loosely and roughly in the form of therapeutic reminiscence. There's a Writer at work in it, experimenting with styles, working for concision, profundity, and no-bullshit meatiness; now and then showing humor and relaxed gusto, now and then waxing into a…

rev. of Folks Like Me by Sam Cornish

Folks Like Me Poems by Sam Cornish. Zoland Books, $12.95 cloth. Reviewed by Sven Birkerts. Sam Cornish has written a book that subtly defies the norms. This is not a gathering of “poems,” or a showcase for isolated tours de force, but rather an ambitious vocal collage in which each poem is a voice and…

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