Editor's Shelf

Crazy Woman by Kate Horsley

Maura Stanton recommends Crazy Woman, a novel by Kate Horsley (Ballantine): “This first novel is an imaginative tour de force. By using the form of a ‘captivity narrative,’ Horsley incorporates surreal events successfully into a realistic narrative. The result is dazzling language and vivid characters.”

Believers by Charles Baxter

Philip Levine recommends Believers, stories and a novella by Charles Baxter: “This is a superb collection; the stories are unusually daring and imaginative-‘Time Exposure’ and ‘The Lures for Love’ are two not to be forgotten. The novella ‘Believers’ demonstrates an extraordinary ability to deal with and invoke a past era and to show how sex,…

Bite Every Sorrow by Barbara Ras

David Gullette recommends Bite Every Sorrow, poems by Barbara Ras: “Barbara Ras has written a dazzling first book of poems-C. K. Williams’s choice for this year’s Walt Whitman Award. She favors long, opulent, clever lines, as when she falls for a man in Central America: ‘I loved the gesture for wait, two hands pumping the…

Black Drum by Enid Shomer

Maxine Kumin recommends Black Drum, poems by Enid Shomer: “Dazzling work by a Florida poet now living in Manhattan; Shomer weaves her net so skillfully that the reader is caught up in the story long before realizing the formal element that holds the squares in place. This book deserves serious attention.” (Arkansas)