“What makes Iago evil? some people ask. I never ask”, begins Joan Didion’s classic novel, Play It as It Lays, which both rejects and engages in the exploration of evil. The novel’s anti-heroine is Maria Wyeth, a model and actress separated from her rising star filmmaker husband, Carter, with whom she had her daughter, who… Continue reading Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Author: jecrandall44
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
The Inheritors, award-winning fiction writer Asako Serizawa’s debut story collection, trains its eye both toward the past and the future to shed light on the present. The stories follow the history of one Japanese family, beginning in 1868 and spanning into the 2030’s. The family tree begins with Masayuki and Taeko, whose descendants cross continents—living… Continue reading Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
The epigraph to Diane Cook’s story collection Man v Nature is borrowed from Emily Dickinson’s correspondence, “The Wilderness is new — to you. Master, let me lead you.” This epigraph feels even more relevant to Cook’s debut novel, The New Wilderness, included on the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist. The novel is set in some apocalyptic… Continue reading The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh has built a career as one of the preeminent chroniclers of the unsettling, and thus it is no surprise that her most recent novel, Death in Her Hands, begins with a spooky note. “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”, reads… Continue reading Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
The Boy in the Field begins like most great whodunits: with a body. Siblings Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang stumble upon the body of an unconscious boy in an empty field on their walk home from school one day. Through their efforts at getting help, the three siblings manage to save the life of this… Continue reading The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom’s National Book ward-winning debut memoir is many things at once. It is not only a personal memoir, but also a comprehensive family history, a history of the city of New Orleans, a mediation on natural disaster, and an exploration of America’s divestment from its black communities. Broom begins the story with her… Continue reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
The Lightness by Emily Temple
In the years since Donna Tartt’s classic novel, The Secret History, books about young people studying mysterious academic or spiritual traditions to murderous ends have multiplied. This genre, coined “dark academia”, has become a popular narrative and stylistic choice: author’s weave mystery novels from ominous settings and foggy campuses populated by troubled students. Emily Temple’s… Continue reading The Lightness by Emily Temple
Little Family by Ishmael Beah
“They had an unspoken understanding not to press one another about the past and its pain, but to keep trying to live in the present, offering silent understanding and respect.” ‘They’ being the five members of the family at the center of Ishmael Beah’s novel, Little Family: a group of five young people from different… Continue reading Little Family by Ishmael Beah
Lady Romeo by Tana Wojczuk
In a recent interview with them., writer Tana Wojczuk commented on her inspiration for her book Lady Romeo, explaining, “I grew up reading fairy tales and being really frustrated by the female characters in them and how powerless they seemed. They never got to have adventures, and [Charlotte] Cushman’s story is like an adventure story,… Continue reading Lady Romeo by Tana Wojczuk
Luster by Raven Leilani
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In an essay written for Vogue about her departure from her mother’s strict Seventh Day Adventist church, Raven Leilani writes, “It would take years for the questions to develop and still more time for me to admit that I had them: How could an omniscient being create animals capable… Continue reading Luster by Raven Leilani