Suspend Your Disbelief

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Book of the Week: The City of Devi, by Manil Suri

by The Editors

This week’s feature is Manil Suri’s new novel, The City of Devi, which is just out in paperback from W.W. Norton & Company. Manil Suri was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and is a professor of mathematics and affiliate professor of Asian studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is also the author of the novels The Death of Vishnu (2001) and The Age of Shiva (2008), both of which were published by W.W. Norton & Company, as well. His fiction has won several awards and honors and has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He was named by […]


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Book of the Week: The Pure Gold Baby

by The Editors

This week’s feature is Margaret Drabble’s novel The Pure Gold Baby, which is just out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This is Dame Drabble’s seventeenth book, and her first novel in nearly a decade, since The Red Queen (Harcourt, 2004). In the interval she has published a collection of stories, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), and a memoir, The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009). In the introduction to her recent review of The Pure Gold Baby, Ellen Prentiss Campbell writes: It is good news that […]


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Shout-out: FWR’s Celeste Ng on Five Chapters

by The Editors

Yes, we here are FWR are hardworking editors bringing you the best reviews, interviews, and essays we can find—but we’re also writers ourselves.  So we’re happy to share that Celeste Ng, our own editor-at-large (and longtime blog editor)  has a story up on Five Chapters. If you’re not familiar with Five Chapters, they’re a great online journal publishing one story each week, in five parts—a little throwback to the old days of serial literature. Celeste’s story, “The Kind of Man,” features a troubled marriage, a meddling father-in-law, a nine-year-old with an unfortunate crush, and… Dick Cheney?  Don’t worry: the entire […]


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Shout-out: FWR’s Celeste Ng on Five Chapters

by The Editors

Yes, we here are FWR are hardworking editors bringing you the best reviews, interviews, and essays we can find—but we’re also writers ourselves.  So we’re happy to share that Celeste Ng, our own editor-at-large (and longtime blog editor)  has a story up on Five Chapters. If you’re not familiar with Five Chapters, they’re a great online journal publishing one story each week, in five parts—a little throwback to the old days of serial literature. Celeste’s story, “The Kind of Man,” features a troubled marriage, a meddling father-in-law, a nine-year-old with an unfortunate crush, and… Dick Cheney?  Don’t worry: the entire […]


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Book of the Week: The Tilted World, by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly

by The Editors

This week’s feature is Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly’s co-authored novel, The Tilted World, which is being released today by William Morrow. Franklin is the New York Times best-selling author of the novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010), as well as two previous novels, Hell at the Breach (2003) and Smonk (2006), and a collection of short stories, Poachers (1999). Fennelly is the author of a book of non-fiction, Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother (2007), three collections of poetry, Unmentionables (2008), Open House (2005), and Tender Hooks (2002), as well as a poetry chapbook, A Different […]


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State of the Book Presenter: Gerry LaFemina

by The Editors

Editor’s Note: For the past two weeks we’ve been posting micro-portraits and/or interesting news about this year’s 2013 presenters at The State of the Book Literary Symposium, which will take place in Ann Arbor TODAY, September 28, in Rackham Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule or list of presenters, please check out the State of the Book Website. Thank you! Gerry LaFemina is the author of eleven books of poems, prose poems, and fiction, including 2011’s Vanishing Horizon (poems) and this year’s Notes for the Novice Ventriloquist (prose poems). Clamor, a novel, […]


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2013 State of the Book Presenter: Anne-Marie Oomen

by The Editors

Editor’s Note: For the past two weeks we’ve been posting micro-portraits and/or interesting news about this year’s 2013 presenters at The State of the Book Literary Symposium, which will take place in Ann Arbor TOMORROW, September 28, in Rackham Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule or list of presenters, please check out the State of the Book Website. Thank you! Anne-Marie Oomen is the author of two memoirs, Pulling Down the Barn and House of Fields, both Michigan Notable Books; An American Map: Essays  (Wayne State University Press); and a full-length collection of […]


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2013 State of the Book Presenter: Steve Hamilton

by The Editors

Steve Hamilton is a brightly decorated mystery novelist from Detroit. He is the creator of protagonist Alex McKnight, a Detroit-born detective who solves crimes in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula. In a recent interview with Aunt Agatha‘s, an independent bookstore in Ann Arbor, Hamilton dismantles common misconceptions about the process of writing mystery and the genre of crime fiction. Mystery is widely perceived as a plot-centered genre. One would think that crime fiction authors would be skilled at, and consumed with, the process of plotting, planning, outlining and calculating. However, Hamilton’s writing process is more spontaneous and intuitive. He confesses: Honestly, […]


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State of the Book Presenter: Ariel Djanikian

by The Editors

Editor’s Note: All this week we’ll continue posting micro-portraits and/or interesting news about this year’s 2013 presenters at The State of the Book Literary Symposium, which will take place in Ann Arbor on Saturday, September 28, in Rackham Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule or list of presenters, please check out the State of the Book Website. Thank you! Ariel Djanikian’s debut novel, The Office of Mercy, was published this February by Viking. Djanikian holds an MFA degree from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of a Fulbright grant. She’s […]


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2013 State of the Book Presenter: Bill Harris

by The Editors

Editor’s Note: All this week we’ll continue posting micro-portraits and/or interesting news about this year’s 2013 presenters at The State of the Book Literary Symposium, which will take place in Ann Arbor on Saturday, September 28, in Rackham Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule or list of presenters, please check out the State of the Book Website. Thank you! In 2011, the Kresge Foundation presented writer Bill Harris with their Eminent Artist Award. Kresge called Harris a “magic-maker and a man of letters in the truest sense.” The award itself recognizes “a […]




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