“Even when interacting with the ones they want to love, the men in these stories cannot be fully honest with others or themselves”: Melissa Grunow on Steve Hughes’s debut collection, Stiff, out now from Wayne State University Press.
“We soon learn that tragedy isn’t exactly foreign to the Cordova family.” Michelle Ross reviews Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s debut collection, Sabrina and Corina, out now from One World.
“Reading—and rereading—Lisa Lenzo’s work, I realized what I’m sensing disappearing from the American literary landscape.” Hasanthika Sirisena reviews Lisa Lenzo’s latest collection, Unblinking, out now from Wayne State University Press.
“Each story presents the embodiment of a different performer, and each presents a concept you could spin into a metaphor for something about contemporary American life.” Shawn Andrew Mitchell reviews Mark Meyer’s debut story collection, Aerialists, out now from Bloomsbury.
“The author has said that Busara means ‘wisdom, insight, and common sense’ in Swahili and that the Busara Road is ‘Mark’s own path to wisdom and insight'”: Ellen Prentiss Campell on Busara Road, by David Hallock Sanders.
“If the end has truly come for the likes of the hoary old patriarchy, then let it happen on Ridker’s watch.” Michael A. Ferro reviews Andrew Ridker’s The Altruists, out now from Viking.
“But for Max, Berlin constitutes a border between what’s he’s comfortable with and what he’s fascinated by and afraid of.” Agata Popeda reviews Michael Levitin’s debut novel, Disposable Man, out from Spuyten Duyvil.
“These are stories about hurt.” Michelle Ross navigates the pains and pleasures of Maryse Meijer’s new collection, Rag, out now from FSG.
Yohanca Delgado on characters who want in Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s White Dancing Elephants.
“Stanley’s obsession with the confounding space at the center of himself presents itself as a proper noir MacGuffin.” Michael A. Ferro reviews Joseph Scapellato’s The Made-Up Man, out this month from FSG.
“Jenoff provides vivid and convincing detail, and the depth of her research is impressive”: Ellen Prentiss Campbell reviews Pam Jenoff’s historical novel centering on a group of female spies sent behind enemy lines during WWII.
“With intelligent probing, sinuous prose, and considerable charm, this Bildungsroman charts his journey, an interior trip to the core of being a compassionate human in the twenty-first century”: Julian Anderson on Johannes Lichtman’s debut novel.
