Category Archives: Literary Fiction
Shelf Awareness for Readers Review: The Rest of Us, by Jessica Lott
Here* is my Shelf Awareness for Readers review for Jessica Lott’s debut novel The Rest of Us Simon & Schuster, $24.99, hardcover, 9781451645873. The advance reader’s copy came with blurbs from Elissa Schappell, Ha Jin and Adam Langer. Many years in … Continue reading
Shelf Awareness for Readers Review: Love Among the Particles: Stories, by Norman Lock
My review of Norman Lock‘s story collection Love Among the Particles (Bellevue Literary Press, $14.95, paperback, 9781934137642) was published in the current Shelf Awareness for Readers. I loved this collection. Kirkus gave it a starred review, and it was an Atlantic Wire Spring Book … Continue reading
Notes on the Craft of Writing: From story to novel in Anthony Marra’s CHECHNYA and A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA
That headline is a bit of misdirection, since this post will focus on Anthony Marra’s short story, Chechnya, which was my first introduction to Marra. Chechnya was initially published in Narrative Magazine’s Fall 2009 issue, having won their Spring story … Continue reading
Review and congratulations for Indie’s Choice Adult Fiction Book of the Year: Louise Erdrich, Round House
Congratulations to Louise Erdrich, whose recognition for ROUND HOUSE includes the 2012 National Book Award (citation here) and now, the American Booksellers Association’s 2013 Adult Fiction Book of the Year (an Indies Choice Book Award, as selected by independent bookstores nationwide). … Continue reading
Review: Peggy Riley, Amity and Sorrow: What makes fiction work
This past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review featured Dylan Landis’ wonderfully positive review of Peggy Riley’s debut novel Amity and Sorrow (312 pp. Little, Brown & Company $25.99). It’s the story of a woman named Amaranth and her two … Continue reading
Book Review, sort of: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009) used Phillippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center as the novel’s central metaphor, an image of glorious achievement twenty-five years earlier as a redemptive … Continue reading
The Second Word 