Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Mark Beaver’s Suburban Gospel is one more memoir of an adolescent wandering toward adulthood, a Bible Belt Baptist southern version of Roth’s Portnoy but without the gnawing sense of psychological guilt expiated on the analyst’s couch. It is, on the other hand, exuberantly “guilt-edged,” the saga of a young man […]
“The Redeemers,” by Ace Atkins
April 22, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl I’m guessing it would have been 1976, graduate school, and a seminar in the American 1930s, history, literature, political thought, economics, and culture, the latter the more encompassing word in that list. I thought to make an argument that “nascent” to American Literature during that decade was the emergence of […]
“A Different Harbor,” by Elizabeth Genovise
April 16, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The five stories in Elizabeth Genovise’s A Different Harbor mark her publishing debut and are impressive for their clear-eyed compassion. The stories are beautifully intimate and intensely direct, poignant journeys into the burl-wood heart of what it means to be not only humanly complicit but also safe from strife while […]
“Under the Same Blue Sky,” by Pamela Schoenewaldt
April 5, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl One needs to note at the beginning a difference between historical authenticity and historicity. It would seem a paradox, for example, to argue that historical fiction is an unlikely melding, the history and fiction genres being critically apart. If, however, a novel’s plot takes place in a setting located in […]
“Last Words of the Holy Ghost,” by Matt Cashion
March 24, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Matt Cashion’s short story collection, Last Words of the Holy Ghost, won the 2015 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, thus announcing a reputable voice in American writing. The twelve stories, however, circle around the more common elements in absurdist fiction: satire, dark humor, the abasement of reason. It’s […]
“Web of Water: Reflections on Life Along the Saluda & Reedy Rivers,” by John Lane with Photography by Tom Blagden, Clay Bolt, jon holloway, and Ben Geer Keys
March 10, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl I recall from graduate school years a semester with Wallace Stegner; in an odd crossing of the ways, Paul Horgan came to visit and discuss his Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History. Stegner and Horgan were lionized in years past; likely the literary fame they once owned […]