Dublin. Gray and rainy. Streets and buildings whose names have the “sound of familiarity”, meaning that there’s an author’s expectation that I will know the names, but I don’t since I don’t know Dublin.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn
Coral grew up as a closeted lesbian, but if you ask me, she’s none too secure as an adult either. She's now older than her niece’s mother, Naima, was at her death. At the end of the novel, Coral is visited by four ghosts while at a drive-through takeout window, and by then, you’re not surprised but rather feel fulfilled by this most classic of all classical tropes.
August Blue by Deborah Levy
A perfect summer read: We are introduced to a woman on holiday in Athens who will soon be off to the Greek island of Paros. A character “finding herself” on such a glamorous vacation is a familiar trope. But Levy does not disappoint. Her plot line veers off immediately into surreal territory.
Reflecting Sound and Story: A Review of The Echo Chamber by Michael Bazzett
. The work seeks to explore the myth of Narcissus and Echo contiguously alongside ideas of modernity, capitalism and the self. The myth, from Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses begins with Hera who, in a fit of rage, put a curse on Echo saying “Your voice will be more brief, my dear! You will always have the last word - but never the first”.
My Sad Dead by Mariana Enriquez
Mariana Enriquez has done something remarkable in this story, totally in line with the fabulist tradition in Latin American literature. She has created a second-order community of ghosts for this poor, benighted region. The social despair of the place manifests itself in ectoplasm.
Trust by Hernan Diaz
When we arrive at the third part of "Trust": "A Memoir, Remembered" by Ida Partenza, it felt like a glacier being cracked open.