Editor's Corner

George Garrett, Double Vision, a novel: As expected from Garrett, this novel is a witty tour de force, marrying fact and fiction about a gifted generation of American writers. (Alabama)  

Gish Jen, The Love Wife, a novel: Jen, in her most exuberant and accomplished book, provides a brilliant portrait of a new "half-half" American family. (Knopf)

Donald Hall, Breakfast Served Any Time All Day, essays: Hall collects forty years of writings on poetry into a luminous and essential volume about the sensuality of language, its pleasures and sounds. (Michigan)

Fanny Howe, The Wedding Dress, essays: In these richly evocative and provocative pieces, Howe meditates on imagination, motherhood, art-making, and bewilderment, challenging conventional systems of belief. (California)

Thomas Lux, The Cradle Place, poems: Lux asks questions about language and intention and about connections to nature in fifty-two new poems, bringing to delightful life the “refreshing iconoclasms” that Rita Dove has admired in his work. (Houghton Mifflin)

Fanny Howe, Gone, poems: With verve and clarity, Howe illuminates the interstices between the known and unknown worlds with motifs of advance and recovery, doubt and conviction, in her extraordinary new book. (California)

Carl Phillips, The Rest of Love, poems: With his signature terse line and syntax, Phillips examines the myths that we make and return to in the name of desire, delving into the constant tension between abandon and control. (FSG)

Maxine Kumin, Bringing Together, poems: These poems from nine earlier collections crackle with intensity, offering Kumin’s refreshing and singular perspective on everyday experiences, examining the pain of loss, the idealism of youth, and the endurance of the natural world. (Norton)

Jay Neugeboren, Open Heart, memoir: In this inspiring book, Neugeboren thoughtfully recounts his emergency bypass surgery and ruminates on the state of doctor-patient relationships through discussions with four friends from high school, all prominent physicians. (Houghton Mifflin)