Review by Jinny Webber “Reading The Hearing Trumpet liberates us from the miserable reality of our days,” wrote Luis Buñuel after the 1976 publication of Leonora Carrington’s novel, recently re-released…
Category: Fiction
My Life with Women: The Consolation of Jazz, Vols. 1 & 2 by Thomas Kennedy
Review by Linda Lappin Thomas E. Kennedy, author of The Copenhagen Quartet, is often considered a “writer’s writer,” one whose name may be known only to a particular niche of…
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
Review by David Starkey “In October 2018, inspired by the centenary of the great flu,” Emma Donoghue tells us in the Author’s Note of her new novel, “I began writing…
Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld
Review by David Starkey The first of the three parts of Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Rodham is entitled “The Catch,” and it mostly follows the historical record of Bill Clinton and…
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Review by David Starkey Elizabeth Strout is a fine writer, and novels such as The Burgess Boys and My Name Is Lucy Barton are very good. Still, Olive Kitteridge, her…
Twenty-One Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks
Review by David Starkey It certainly seems like a gimmick to write a novel composed entirely of lists, and yet Matthew Dicks pulls it off so successfully, that by the…
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
Review by Brian Tanguay Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond are not the kind of men you would invite for dinner. Were you to see them coming toward you on a…
Piranesi by Susana Clarke
Reviewed by David Starkey On some level, every novel is about its protagonist’s journey to find out who they really are, although Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi follows that pattern more literally…