Not making any friends: Rachel Howard explores the “unlikable” narrator who won her over, despite efforts to the contrary, in Jean Rhys’ shrewd, heartbreaking, and pitiless novel Voyage in the Dark.
David Shields is a very lucky man. I think that most of us, when we enjoy something that everyone else seems to hate (or when we dislike a thing that they all love), feel a twinge of nervousness, a quiver of doubt. Perhaps we feel superior and isolated at the same time, wondering why we, in this case, appear so separate from the crowd. Not David Shields. One of the most notable qualities of both his 2010 book Reality Hunger, and his recent essay, “Life is Short: Art is Shorter,” co-authored with Elizabeth Cooperman, in the Feb 2013 issue of […]
Our current feature is Dylan Nice’s debut story collection, Other Kinds, which was published by Short Flight / Long Drive Books in October of 2012. His stories and essays have appeared in NOON, The Rumpus, The Collagist, and MAKE, among others. In his recent interview with the author, Brian Allen Carr describes Nice’s collection as “a hot, taut little read with big life, precise writing, and haunting characters.” But what most struck Carr about Nice’s new book was its structure, particularly the organizing elements that Other Kinds and his own recent book of stories, Vampire Conditions, had in common. So […]
Our most recent feature was William Gillespie’s new novel Keyhole Factory, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Julia Bohanna (@AlmostMoriarty) A.L. Collins (@ALCollins2011) nikperring (@nikperring) Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us! Thanks to all of you who are fans. We appreciate your support. Let us know your favorite new books out there!
When Brian Bartels wasn’t writing or managing Fedora, the Greenwich Village bar and eatery that he co-owns with Gabriel Stulman, he spent 2012 trying to avoid the narcotic glow of his cell phone so he could spend more time reading. Here are the books that caught his attention last year.
Bulgarian Writer Zachary Karabashliev and Steve Wingate discuss the pleasures of semi-autobiographical fiction and the pain of trying to laugh in a foreign language.
Is this real or is this a late-night re-run? Hester Kaplan’s characters navigate past traumas, has-been TV-stars, and small town casinos.
Two years ago, I invited Charles Baxter, Stacey D’Erasmo, Gemma Sieff, and Keith Taylor to join me on an AWP panel in DC to discuss the future of book reviewing and criticism, as well as their own work with The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Harper’s, and the Los Angeles Times, respectively. It seemed a pressing question to ask at a time when newspapers were shuttering and what print publications remained were either eliminating or drastically reducing their book coverage, while at the same time the Amazon.com review was reaching near ubiquity. What would criticism look […]
