Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The American poet Hart Crane wrote in a late letter that “[t]here is constantly an inward struggle.” More often than not such is the case with any artist, novelist, poet, sculptor, or wood-worker. Inside the soul, inside the imagination, there’s a stirring, a warring, contradictions of personality, affirmation, enthusiasm, skepticism […]
February Read of the Month: “The Secret to Hummingbird Cake,” by Celeste Fletcher McHale
February 9, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro The Secret to Hummingbird Cake (Thomas Nelson, 2016) by emerging Southern author Celeste Fletcher McHale manages to do a very difficult thing: It spins a loving tale about enduring female friendships in a small town in the Deep South without engaging in stereotypes or sentimentality. Replete with the poignancy of […]
January Read of the Month: “Casey’s Last Chance,” by Joseph B. Atkins
January 6, 2016 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Philip K. Jason “Last chance for what?” the eager reader might ask. To make it to the majors? To score big at anything? In this debut novel, it’s this sorry fellow’s last chance to get out from under the debts incurred over a decade or two of minor league hustling and losing. Not […]
December Read of the Month: “Want v. Need: Stories from Pottawatomie County,” by Amy Susan Wilson
December 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by William Bernhardt Just when the cynics begin to wonder if the short story as a literary form is lost, moribund, or permanently encased in amber, Third Lung Press presents a collection that reminds us how rich, how enriching, and how truly American this form is. Want v. Need: Stories from Pottawatomie County is […]
November Read of the Month: “A Hanging at Cinder Bottom,” by Glenn Taylor
November 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Glenn Taylor’s new over-the-top caper sparkles with cinematic scenes begging to be transformed into film. A Hanging at Cinder Bottom: A Novel (Tin House Books) is primarily set in West Virginia coal country with occasional forays into Baltimore. The white-faced monkey depicted on the cover plays a role in a story […]
October Read of the Month: “Reading Life,” by Michael Pearson
October 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Elisabeth Aiken In Reading Life, Michael Pearson paraphrases a famous writer’s definition of an essayist as “a self-liberated man with the childish belief that everything he thinks about, every one of his experiences, will be fascinating to others.” While that definition is not wholly flattering, it is applicable to Pearson as the author […]