Distanz Review by Brian Tanguay Not long after receiving a copy of Looking at Mexico/Mexico Looks Back, Claudia Sheinbaum was overwhelmingly elected as Mexico’s first female president, a milestone in…
Author: Brian Tanguay
Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Samuel Stein
Verso Review by Brian Tanguay Many years ago I wrote a letter to my county supervisor protesting the proposed development of an avocado orchard near where my in-laws lived. I…
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
Anchor Books Review by Gabriel Tanguay Ortega I can only begin this review by presenting my issues. I’m not sure what this book is about. Colonialism, white saviorism, the rape…
The Big Green Tent: A Novel by Ludmila Ulitskaya, Translated by Polly Gannon
Picador Review by Brian Tanguay When I read the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago as a teenager I lacked the education to fully understand it. My youthful worldview was…
The Mighty Six-Ninety (690) by Alexander Hamilton Cherin
Review by Brian Tanguay In the early 1980s, before the consolidation of media ownership gathered steam, and well before the digital revolution completely altered the broadcast landscape, AM radio occupied…
End of Active Service: A Novel by Matt Young
Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay Dean Pusey is broken. By the Marine Corps and a tour of duty in Iraq. By the circumstances of his birth and adoption. By confusion…
Women! In! Peril!: stories by Jessie Ren Marshall
Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay I can’t remember if I requested this collection of stories from the publisher or if it was just sent to me, but it arrived at…
The Manicurist’s Daughter: A Memoir by Susan Lieu
Celadon Books Review by Brian Tanguay Several years after the fall of Saigon, Susan Lieu’s parents fled Vietnam to escape suffocating Communist rule. Leaving was an enormous risk filled with…
Places We Swim California: A Guide to the Best Rivers, Lakes, Waterfalls, Beaches, Gorges, and Hot Springs by Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon
Hardie Grant Review by Brian Tanguay California’s geographic diversity and beauty has long inspired seekers, dreamers, and people of capacious imagination. The state’s many natural wonders dwarf our human stature…
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Norton Review by Brian Tanguay Whether he’s working as a war photographer or fixer, betting his last chips at the blackjack table, or pursuing handsome young men, Maali Almeida can’t…