Penguin Review by Walter Cummins Emily Eakin’s life in theory began in the late 1980s when she was an eighteen-year-old sophomore at Harvard and fell “under the Frenchmen’s spell.” That’s…
Category: Memoir & Biography
Girl to Country: A Memoir by Amy Rigby
Southern Domestic Review by George Yatchisin Singer-songwriter Amy Rigby sets up the arc of her moving, charming, outsider-insider’s memoir Girl to Country poignantly in the prologue, when she considers what…
Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance by Joe Dunthorne
Scribner Review by Walter Cummins We imagine writers doing research as individuals behind a computer screen or in a library carrel surrounded by piles of books and documents, perhaps also…
The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind by Rosa Montero, translated by Lindsey Ford
Europa Review by Walter Cummins Novelist Rosa Montero opens this book with an admission that “I’ve always known something in the head didn’t work right,” then illustrates with her age…
Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots As Reclaimed Present by Andrea Gunraj
McClelland & Stewart Review by Brian Tanguay For nearly three centuries, transatlantic chattel slavery was the preferred source for colonial labor, the bodies required to cultivate and harvest sugar, rice,…
Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures: A Biography of Denis Johnson by Ted Geltner
Iowa Review by George Yatchisin Is it possible to feel sad considering the life of someone who authored nine novels (one a winner of the National Book Award), a novella,…
Starting from Paterson by Garret Keizer
Eastover Review by Walter Cummins The nine essays in Keizer’s collection perhaps may be divided into three categories—character studies of individuals close to the author, a report on his religious…
When The World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine by Francesca Albanese, Translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti
Other Press Review by Brian Tanguay Francesca Albanese is a brave woman, a living example of a public figure who follows her most deeply held convictions wherever they lead, regardless…
Into the Weeds by Lydia Davis
Yale Review by David Starkey Anyone familiar with the wry and tricksy stories of Lydia Davis will not be surprised that in Into the Weeds—her book-length response to the question…