South’s prose is funny, propulsive, and completely original… explored with nuance and depth.
Review: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands makes readers feel willfully uncomfortable, unwillfully human, and potentially insane.
Review: Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be Alright by Ukamaka Olisakwe
Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right, digs out a range of emotions—rage, expectation, admiration, admonition—which keep the reader turning page after page.
Review: American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland by Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s journey begins among the tumbleweeds of Texas and finishes with a crawl over the Rockies and a descent into the fertile Snake River Valley.
Review: Synthesizing Gravity by Kay Ryan
Ryan’s own uninviting prose mirrors her philosophy about poetry: that it is not meant to be easy or satisfying.
Review: The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams
Despite the fact that it takes place in 1871, The Illness Lesson feels eerily contemporary.
Review: Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby
Irby’s signature sardonic voice nibbles playfully at your ear from the first page, where she dedicates the collection to Wellbutrin.
Review: Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela
This novel is at its best in its moments of careful consideration of the anxieties of its main characters.
Review: Save Yourself by Cameron Esposito
Comedian Cameron Esposito’s new book Save Yourself has landed on my shortlist of memoirs that blend interiority and laugh-out-loud wit.
Review: My Meteorite, or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing by Harry Dodge
Like all works of art, this book is an attempt to create patterns, to impose some order on our experience of the world.
Review: Writers & Lovers by Lily King
King is able to capture the particular kind of youth Casey is struggling with perfectly: one where she hasn’t lived anywhere with a dishwasher since high school, where she does not want to be infertile yet also does not want…
Review: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
Finishing this manic, gripping novel may instigate a desire for a long, hot shower.