Category Archives: Reviews – Facing Out
Pocket Review: The Morels by Christopher Hacker
The Morels Christopher Hacker Soho Press, 2013 Many years ago, I bought a house while I was living with my then-boyfriend. Things weren’t going well between us, to the extent that I felt more comfortable getting into a 30-year commitment with Chase Mortgage than with him. Still, we stayed together, in no small part because [...]
Pocket Review: Artist Animal by Steve Baker
Artist|Animal Steve Baker University of Minnesota Press, 2013 Whenever I would mention reading Steve Baker’s Artist|Animal, a series of interviews and essays about the use of animals in contemporary art, the response would be—almost to a person—“Oh, Damien Hirst.” Certainly that’s the first name that came to mind when I initially read the publisher’s blurb. [...]
Pocket Review: All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
All We Know: Three Lives Lisa Cohen Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012 As the title would indicate, All We Know: Three Lives is a triple biography—dense and cerebral, often reading like a lot of topics in search of a Master’s thesis—which turns out, in fact, to be a good quality. Lisa Cohen has a wide-ranging [...]
An Evening with William Gaddis
Readers and fans of William Gaddis, a writer notoriously protective of his privacy during his lifetime, have been waiting years to read his correspondence. A number of pieces were collected in Conjunctions this past fall, and finally next month Dalkey Archive Press will publish The Letters of William Gaddis, edited by Steven Moore with an [...]
Pocket Review: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
The Dog Stars Peter Heller Knopf, 2012 Everybody’s got that secret genre that does it for them, am I right? Pirate tales, British cozies, sparkly vampires, or some combination of all of the above—hell, that would do it for anyone, come to think of it. Even the most diehard literary snob has some embarrassingly tangible [...]
Post-Summer at Like Fire, and a Post-40 Bloomer at The Millions
Hello hello, loyal friends! We’re back from our brief end-of-summer hiatus, batteries presumably recharged, as we hope yours are as well. Fall is in the air here in New York today, and many ideas are percolating for Like Fire and beyond. We hope you’ll stick around and see what we’ve got up our sleeves (assuming [...]
James Salter on Private Library Love
James Salter puts in an appearance this week on the New Yorker’s Page Turner blog, with an essay in praise of private libraries. It’s taken from his introduction to Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet’s chronicle of his life spent reading and collecting, just out from Overlook Press. The book sounds luscious, as it should—Bonnet [...]
Pocket Review: Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Birds of a Lesser Paradise Megan Mayhew Bergman Scribner, 2012 I like to think I bring at least a somewhat cool head to the reviews I write. Which is not to say I’m not subjective—I can love something or hate it or, more often, find faults and virtues scattered throughout. But I don’t tend to [...]
Forty at Fifty-Two (Stories, That Is)
Everybody deserves a break sometimes. Especially if you’re in the business of putting up content day in and day out—or, in the case of Cal Morgan’s Fifty-Two Stories, week in and week out. You have to give the man plenty of credit: His weekly series of excellent short stories by fine contemporary writers has been [...]
Pocket Review: The Cove by Ron Rash
The Cove Ron Rash Ecco, 2012 On its surface, Ron Rash’s new novel isn’t an overtly political tale. It’s a love story, an adventure, and a mystery, set in the mountains of North Carolina during World War I. But The Cove is also deeply concerned with the fate of the outsider, taking on issues of [...]
