Editor's Shelf

Mary Gordon recommends Defiance, a novel by Carole Maso: “A wholly original, darkly brilliant, and poetic novel about a mathematician who murders her students.” (Dutton)

George Garrett recommends Hockey Sur Glace, stories by Peter LaSalle: “It may sound crazy, but seven stories and four poems, all involving ice hockey, really work. Why? Because LaSalle is a wonderful writer and knows more about hockey than anyone.” (Breakaway)

George Garrett recommends Dogfight and Other Stories, a first collection by Michael Knight: “An outstanding collection of ten stories, various in form and content, which have already won this young and gifted writer several awards.” (Plume)

   Maxine Kumin recommends Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, essays by Christopher Cokinos: “The vividly researched story of six extinct birds of the U.S.A. written by a Kansas State professor and ardent birder/environmentalist. This book deserves a wide readership and distribution. Is it possible for an author to exalt and depress his audience at…

George Garrett recommends Dogfight and Other Stories, a first collection by Michael Knight: “A strikingly original and various young writer.” (Dutton)

   James Alan McPherson recommends Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome, a first novel by Stanley Crouch: “This is an extraordinary effort by Stanley Crouch to employ the improvisational resources to the blues idiom to explore, in the novel form, the nuances of contemporary reality. In attempting to use ‘riffs’ to examine the emotional and psychological…

Chase Twichell recommends Blood Thirsty Savages, poems by Adrian C. Louis(Time Being): “Louis writes rough, smart, honest poems that cut through all the polite twinges of political correctness. Tenderness is one side of the blade, and rage the other. His Native America is not the one we normally hear about, stripped as it is of…

James Alan McPherson recommends Blues and Trouble, short stories by Tom Piazzi: “In these stories, Tom Piazzi is touching the grain of actual, as opposed to imaginary, human life. He sees both the pain and the humor, the tragic as well as the comic.” (St. Martin’s)

   Mary Gordon recommends Break Every Rule, essays by Carole Maso: “An original and compelling exploration of narrative strategies.” (Counterpoint)