Farrar, Straus and Giroux Review by Walter Cummins Although Sophie’s World was first published in Norwegian more than thirty years ago and since then has been translated into close to…
Category: Fiction
The Purchased Bride by Peter Constantine
Deep Vellum Review by Walter Cummins Most novels develop around one or more central unknowns, not necessarily mysteries, but stated or unstated questions that impel the plot. Will some Ramsays…
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende
(Ballantine Books) Review by Brian Tanguay If you’re drawn to novels with a broad sweep of time and place, The Wind Knows My Name, the latest from Isabel Allende, deserves…
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House Review by David Starkey Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel Romanic Comedy really is a romantic comedy, complete with lovers who initially seem mismatched, complications and hurdles, and an ending…
Fat Time and Other Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
Graywolf Review by Walter Cummins The contents of most short story collections are united by similarities of voice, tone, and subject matter. Despite differences of characters, dramatic issues, and even…
Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
Harper Review by Jinny Webber A manhunt across the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven in 1660 drives Robert Harris’ latest novel, Act of Oblivion. Two officers in Oliver…
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
Farrar Straus and Giroux Review by Jinny Webber “There will be time, there will be time / to prepare to meet the faces that you meet,” but what a different…
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore
Knopf Review by David Starkey Early in Lorrie Moore’s new novel I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, the protagonist, Finn, notes that while white schizophrenics are allowed…