REVIEW: White Magic by Elissa Washuta
byNonfiction. 425 pgs. Tin House. April 2021. ISBN: 978-1-951142-39-1. “A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” – Carl Sagan “If you want to spot the trick in…
Reviews
REVIEW: The Last Caucus in Iowa by Jim O’Loughlin
byNonfiction. 172 pgs. Ice Cube Press. October 2020. ISBN: 978-1-948509-20-6. I have a confession to make. I’ve lived in Iowa my whole life, and I’ve never been caucusing. Not once. Not…
REVIEW: Blackfishing the IUD by Caren Beilin
byNonfiction. 165 pgs. Wolfman Books. October 2019. ISBN: 978-1-733276-11-5. Caren Beilin’s Blackfishing the IUD is a compact puzzle that draws into it everything from the works of Walter Benjamin to corporate medical…
REVIEW: Wider than the Sky by Nancy Chen Long
byPoetry. 72 pgs. Diode Editions. March 2020. ISBN: 978-1-939728-36-4. Nancy Chen Long’s Wider than the Sky centers around the idea of memory: how memory forms our identity, how it wounds as…
REVIEW: The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War by Delphine Minoui
byNon-fiction. 208 pgs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. November 2020. ISBN: 9780374115166. When you are living under extreme circumstances such as we might consider our current pandemic plight, it’s difficult to believe…
REVIEW: (CREATURE SOUNDS FADE) by Shanna Compton
byPoetry. 90 pgs. Black Lawrence Press. November 2020. ISBN: 978-1-62557-816-7. In a collection that is two parts feral eco-poetry, and one part stingingly personal reflection, New Jersey writer Shanna Compton uses…
REVIEW: Orchard Light by Julie Swarstad Johnson
byPoetry. 39 pgs. Seven Kitchens Press. May 2020. ISBN: 97811949333695. Tourist hub, turning point of the Civil War and site of Lincoln’s iconic cemetery address, Gettysburg is also one more small town…
REVIEW: Lifeline by Abbey Lee Nash
byFiction. 294 pgs. Tony Fox Press. May 2018. ISBN: 978-1-946501-06-6. “You can do anything for 28 days.” These are the words that Eli Ross hears from his mother just before being…
REVIEW: We Were Called Specimens: An Oral Archive of Deity Marjorie by Jason Teal
byFiction. 156 pgs. Kerpunkt Press. July 2020. ISBN: 978-1-732325-17-3. In 1922, James Joyce published Ulysses, a tome that is, among other things, known for its wild fluctuations in narrative style to…
REVIEW: The Devoted by Blair Hurley
byFiction. 320 pgs. W. W. Norton. 2019. ISBN: 978-0-393357-30-1. If you have read any short pieces of Blair Hurley’s—perhaps her 2018 Pushcart Prize Winning “The Home for Buddhist Widows”—you have enjoyed…