Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl I title this review “The Overly-Stuffed Novel,” a designation that calls attention to Willa Cather’s credo stated with some punchy forcefulness in her essay “The Novel Demeuble.” The point is simple enough: Aesthetically, the novel does not merely catalog the furniture of life, physical things, processes, sensations, thoughts. She analogizes […]
“The Stone Necklace,” by Carla Damron
July 21, 2016 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl In my years as a college professor at a small, private liberal arts college, administration, faculty, and staff were in loco parentis; it was understood that the professor took on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. It’s a curious status, however, with interesting premises both psychological and […]
“Where the Souls Go,” by Ann Hite
July 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Ann Hite’s Where the Souls Go is subtitled “A Black Mountain Novel.” It’s the third in her series of novels rooted in this complicated, mystical, wispy place. For the geographically challenged, North Carolina’s Black Mountain is part of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains region, old mountains steeped in mystery […]
“Over the Plain Houses,” by Julia Franks
July 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The title for Julia Franks’s novel is drawn from an Anne Sexton poem, “Her Kind”: “I have gone out, a possessed witch, / haunting the black air, braver at night; / dreaming evil, I have done my hitch /over the plain houses, light by light . . . .” The […]
“Friday Afternoon and Other Stories,” by T. D. Johnston
June 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The phrase “twilight zone” has likely become iconic in American culture. Episodes from the television series contained elements of drama, suspense or horror, and aspects of the macabre. Gauntlet Press has published collections of original “The Twilight Zone” scripts, some with Rod Serlings’s hand-written edits. A former student of mine […]
“Where There Are Two Or More,” by Elizabeth Genovise
May 17, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The thirteen stories in Elizabeth Genovise’s Where There Are Two Or More are set in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. It’s her second collection and a marked advance in craft and theme from her first collection, A Different Harbor. The stories are beautifully intimate, intensely direct, and evidence as to […]