by Melinda Gordon Blum The memoir Nein, Nein, Nein! has us at its subtitle. The “one man” is none other than Jerry Stahl, whose acerbic humor and kinetic prose transported his book Permanent Midnight into a fever dream classic, a standout in the crowded “junkie memoir” genre. Who better to pen a modern-day reckoning with the legacy of the Holocaust…
Book Reviews
by Trey Burnette Making mortgage payments, paying off credit card and student loan debt, and season tickets to the opera are excellent reasons for becoming an accomplice to your revolting non-boyfriend/boyfriend’s murders. At least they are for Charlie from Leitchfield. And even though his sort of love interest, Jignesh, is “a pompous sea monster from the depths of the Indian…
Reviewed by Peter Mladinic Poems are written by human beings “alone in a room” with language. They come out of lived lives. The poems in Madrigals come out of Caroline Goodwin’s lived life—things she has touched and ground she has stood on, alone and with others. Sometimes, that ground is a floor in a room, other times a forest floor,…
by Alessandro Romero Jordan Salama demonstrated that, like gold, stories can be found by looking into a river. After all, his debut book, Every Day the River Changes, ultimately tells a formidable story about other stories. On an adventure down the Magdalena River, Colombia’s most treasured waterway, Salama aims to push back social stigmas that misconstrue the country’s conflicted…
According to the CDC, one in four people in the United States live with some type of disability, whether visible or less apparent. Without respectful discussion and proper representation in the media, those living with disabilities are often stereotyped and misrepresented. This is also true for people who don’t always consider themselves disabled, such as Deaf and Blind folk. This…
by Daniela Z. Montes Within These Wicked Walls, by Lauren Blackwood, is an Ethiopian retelling of Jane Eyre. The classic may be the inspiration, but Blackwood takes the bones and runs. We first meet the protagonist, Andromeda, in a carriage crossing the desert. The driver drops her off far away from her destination, but it is the closest he will…
Reviewed by Michael Medina Writers speaking on the topic of race or sexual orientation are habitually hypersensitive of how they portray minority groups, even when said writers are among those minorities, which can so often take away from the raw truth of a story. Casey Hamilton, however, doesn’t hold back, doesn’t edit uncomfortable truths in his characters or the minority…
By L.A. Hunt Monsters hide in plain sight in Cadwell Turnbull’s second novel, No Gods, No Monsters. At the midpoint, when crowds take to the streets to advocate for the rights of the newly discovered monsters, Turnbull writes, “Even in a cause that is stacked against them, no one is alone.” Turnbull deftly examines what it means to live…
In this month’s Voice to Books, we’re highlighting Native American authors and their stories. The colonized view of native people often mashes together diverse communities and nations into a misrepresented and false narrative of who they are. By giving space to their individual experiences, better representation and understanding can take place. The works listed below are as varied as the…
When most people think of horror, they may think of Stephen King or the bloody slasher movies from the ’80s. While these movies and books have made a lasting impression on the genre, they are often dominated by a straight white male view—demonizing and objectifying not only marginalized communities but cis het white women as well. But horror has many…
Graphic novels intertwine words and illustrations to allow their authors to say what they need to without descriptions. Their audiences don’t need to imagine their worlds; they can see them. Art and words are used strategically to tell stories. Simplicity and silence, lavish details, and verbose prose, or vice versa, tell these histories. The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel…