Book Review

The Pajamaist, poems by Mathew Zapruder (Copper Canyon): There is a famous story about John Lennon’s visit to a London art gallery in the sixties, in which the Beatle was faced with a precariously tall step ladder leading up to a dangling telescope. When he climbed to the top of the ladder and looked through…

The Memoir and the Memoirist, literary criticism by Thomas Larson (Swallow): Unlike its parent, autobiography, memoir doesn’t seek to tell the story of the writer’s entire life but rather focuses on a well-defined period, event, or crisis. Nor does the memoirist need to be a VIP. What the resulting literary work loses in historical importance…

The Flawless Skin of Ugly People, a novel by Doug Crandell (Virgin): In this debut novel, Doug Crandell reverses the age-old question of inner versus outer beauty to deal with its counterpart: inner versus outer ugliness. The novel compellingly reveals that physical ugliness (however this is defined)—because of the reactions of others—may isolate and alienate…

Eternal Enemies, poems by Adam Zagajewski (FSG): It sounds somewhat disingenuous now to call even a single poem beautiful, let alone an entire book, so it’s not without caution that I say Adam Zagajewski’s latest collection, Eternal Enemies, is exactly that: lovely, luminous, and wholly lacking the easy cynicism lesser poets might ascribe to such…

Every Past Thing, a novel by Pamela Thompson (Unbridled Books): I mean no slight to Pamela Thompson’s dazzling first novel, Every Past Thing, when I say that here is a book that can be judged by its cover: A reproduction of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s exquisite "Mourning Picture." (The original hangs in the Smith College Museum…

The Monsters of Templeton, a novel by Lauren Groff (Voice): What’s fresh and fun about The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, is how it doesn’t fit neatly into one contemporary genre. It’s literary, it’s historical, and it’s peppered with mysteries, ghosts, and "monsters." Even the packaging of the book is a delight—full of illustrations,…

National Anthem, poems by Kevin Prufer (Four Way): Kevin Prufer’s terrific fourth collection exposes a nightmare straight from the head of Walt Whitman. In it, America sings a democratic song of distress, with no one, or thing, denied suffering or a voice: not the moon, nor minor politicians, shopping centers or the book’s most prevalent…

Home Remedies, stories by Angela Pneuman (Harcourt): In this dark and spirited debut collection, Pneuman mines the quirks of characters who hail from Kentucky to explore issues of religion, family, death, and sexual attraction. The eight fully realized stories featured here are sharp, well told, and—most important—fearless in their capacity to explore the contradictions both…

Teeth, poems by Aracelis Girmay (Curbstone): The glorious and free-spirited poems of Girmay’s first collection move headlong beneath "bejackled" skies, spurred by passions so generous and unhindered as to recall Neruda’s magnanimous lyrics. With acrobatic ease, the poet swings from praise to lament, always returning to the heart’s motivating ardor for the larger world—its liars,…