No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. No Kings.
Kevin Canty’s distinguished novel, The Underworld, is the vessel of a doubled vision that perhaps all great writing possesses. It empathically depicts a society that can’t form an adequate conception of itself. To do that it must reside both within that society and also outside it, in order to gain the aesthetic leverage required to form a picture.
Slightness is not an attribute of short books nor profundity a necessary quality of length. Banana Yoshimoto’s Moshi Moshi is a short, beautiful coming of age tale.
This short work is a sonata of classic literary noir, with haunted, nocturnal city streets and a fatal "dark lady".
I wouldn’t say that we get the charming, fun loving Lenin from Mieville but he’s not holding his nose when presenting the great revolutionary as Pipes seems to be doing.
T. C. Boyle’s new novel is all about the plot, with the author is at his acerbic best. You would not be blamed for thinking he has no faith at all in humanity until you get to the end. I can’t tell you about that because it would be the final spoiler of all the spoilers I will not reveal.
The fourth in the Hogarth Shakespeare Series turned out to be the best one so far. A retelling of the oft performed and retold The Tempest, this one is laid out like an intricate puzzle and seeing the pieces come together while reading it was pure enjoyment. It is another example of the brilliance that underlies all of Margaret Atwood’s writing.