Editor's Corner

July, July by Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien, July, July, a novel: O’Brien’s new book deftly centers on a July 2000 weekend when the Darton Hall College class of 1969 gathers for a reunion. The sharply drawn ensemble includes a Vietnam vet, a Republican trophy wife recovering from a mastectomy, and a mop manufacturer. (Houghton Mifflin)

Blue Hour by Carolyn Forché

Carolyn Forché, Blue Hour, poems: Forché’s lyrical fourth collection, her first since the tour de force The Angel of History, ranges from personal memories of childhood and childrearing to stark images of atrocity, with the centerpiece, the forty-seven-page “On Earth,” brilliantly modeled after “gnostic abecedarians.” (HarperCollins)