No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
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.
Wavonna Quinn, known as Wavy, born in the backseat of a car to drug addicted and drug dealing parents, is the heroine of Bryn Greenwood’s third novel. That she fell in love at the age of eight with a man who was twenty and pursued him through years of trial and trouble is the (some would say) inappropriate subject of a novel so full of ugly and wonderful things. The truth is the inappropriate people in Wavy’s life were her parents and while doing the best she could, she found the perfect person for herself.