Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay I thoroughly enjoyed Mark Kulansky’s new novel, Cheesecake, set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1980s. West 86th street to be precise.…
Category: Fiction
My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende
Ballantine Review by Gabriel Tanguay Ortega I always look forward to the release of a new novel by Isabel Allende, as I already know what it has in store—lyrical, descriptive…
The Accidentals: Stories by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey
Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay I had never heard of the Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel until her brilliant collection of short stories, The Accidentals, fell into my hands. Had I…
Ley Lines: A Novel by Tim Welsh
Guernica Editions Review by Brian Tanguay What I know of the Klondike gold rush comes from reading “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” by Jack London in my…
Twist by Colum McCann
Random House Review by Walter Cummins Although Colum McCann doesn’t refer to the 1948-49 Shannon-Weaver theory of communication, my remembering it helped me understand his novel Twist, in which the…
Heartwood by Amity Gaige
Simon & Schuster Review by Walter Cummins Valerie Gillis closes the message to her mother that begins the novel Heartwood with this crucial memory: “But for a while, in your…
The Problem You Have by Robert Garner McBrearty
University of New Mexico Press Review by Jack Smith Robert Garner McBrearty’s The Problem You Have is a stunning collection of literary realism, often edgy realism, sometimes bordering on farce,…
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House Review by Walter Cummins Variations of similar human tensions unite the twelve stories in this collection. In each, at least one character stands out as mastering one or…
The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker
Random House Review by Walter Cummins This case is indeed strange as it is revealed by through the voices of the two people at the center of the complication—Dr. Henry…
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Transit Books Review by Gabriel Tanguay Ortega I don’t like the amount of time I spend on social media, though it does turn me on to books I might never…