Mannequin Girl, by Ellen Litman
by Ellen Prentiss Campbell
Mannequin Girl, Ellen Litman’s second novel, is a coming-of-age story and a family drama set in a Moscow boarding school for children with scoliosis.
Mannequin Girl, Ellen Litman’s second novel, is a coming-of-age story and a family drama set in a Moscow boarding school for children with scoliosis.
It was October 2005, and professionally and personally, I was rudderless. Where had I gone wrong? In the preceding two years, I’d finished serving my grad school sentence and been released from Boulder. Back in Chicago, the city in which I’d grown up, I’d taken a one-bedroom apartment in a baseball-sodden neighborhood with scant street parking. I was halfheartedly teaching some community college comp and developmental reading courses (my sole qualification for getting the unclaimed developmental reading assignment: my willingness to take the teacher’s edition and my vow to learn something in the days before I’d have to face the […]
“The stories I love most are the ones that feel novelistic in scope, where you can feel the writer pouring absolutely everything [they have] into the story, until there’s nothing left in them and they have to try to imagine an entirely new world.”
Busch was an incredibly important and influential author and teacher prior to his death in 2006, and a voice of contemporary fiction who we are happy to have the opportunity to honor in a small way.
Kerry Neville Bakken offers a moving appreciation for her friend and former mentor, Frederick Busch, who passed away in 2006. Norton has just released a posthumous collection of his short fiction, The Stories of Frederick Busch, edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth Strout.
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 […]
Elanor Dymott’s debut novel, Every Contact Leaves A Trace, presents itself as both love story and mystery. Told retrospectively months from the action of the novel, a man relates the series of events that led to his wife’s murder — a story that, in his process of uncovering, reveals the image of a woman he clearly never really knew.
Welcome to the latest installment of “First Looks,” which highlights soon-to-be (or just) released books that have piqued our interest as readers-who-write. We publish “First Looks” here on the FWR blog mid-month, and as always, we’d love to hear your comments on and recommendations for forthcoming titles. So please drop us a line with buzz-worthy titles: editors(at)fictionwritersreview(dot)com. Thanks in advance. Because we devote the entirety of May to celebrating Short Story Month, we invariably miss a few great novels during this time. So before we go any further, here’s a quick look back at two books I wish we could […]
Last week’s feature was Van Jordan’s new book of poetry, The Cineaste, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Glenn H. Myers (@glennhmyers) Doug Lawson (@douglawson) Stacy Faulk (@kiokokitten) 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!
This week’s feature is A. Van Jordan’s new book of poetry, The Cineaste, which was just published by W.W. Norton. The book merges the form and content of an obsession, film, to produce poems tracking the inner lives of movie viewers, the career of early black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, the story of the Leo Frank trial, and the disturbing racial history of the American film industry. Jordan’s first book of poetry, Rise (Tia Chucha Press, 2001), tracks not only the history of African American music, but also the music of Jordan’s life growing up in Ohio. His second book, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A […]
