Since moving to Italy in 2011, Jhumpa Lahiri has entered a new phase in her writing career. Her new novel, Whereabouts, which she wrote in Italian and translated into English herself, is a far cry from her 2003 debut novel, The Namesake, and her early fiction centering on the lives of South Asian immigrants. But… Continue reading Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Tag: books
Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor
Brandon Taylor revisits the world of young people in academic settings struggling to keep it together while fracturing internally in his sophomore effort, the short fiction collection, Filthy Animals. Lionel, who appears in five of the eleven stories in this collection, somewhat resembles Wallace, the protagonist from Taylor’s debut novel, Real Life. Both are black… Continue reading Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
There are perhaps few Danish writers with such a prolific career as the poet and writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-76), who published eleven poetry collections, seven novels, and four short fiction collections. Just this year her incredible trio of memoirs, The Copenhagen Trilogy, initially published separately through the 1960s and early 70s, has been translated into… Continue reading The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Listeners of Japanese Breakfast, the musical project of Michelle Zauner, will not be surprised that this lyrically gifted and creative artist has now also dipped her feet into the literary space. Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, is a grief memoir in the style of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, but with Korean… Continue reading Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Maríana Enriquez
Maríana Enriquez’s story collection, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, published in Argentina in 2009 but translated into English in 2020, leans into the macabre and imbues the horror genre with cultural specificity. Most of the stories are set in or around Buenos Aires, and many involve both spiritual phenomenon like local folklore and Afro-Brazilian… Continue reading The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Maríana Enriquez
What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
What happens when teenagers keep dark secrets from their loved ones? Will this repression of the truth lead to a violent blow up? What Comes After, the debut novel by Joanne Tompkins, is a story that unfolds from these two questions. The story begins with a shocking murder suicide of two high school students in… Continue reading What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
In his new novel, The Committed, novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen returns to his nameless narrator from his 2015 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer. Fresh from his adventures abroad as a Viet Cong spy, our narrator is now going by the name Vo Danh (“Nameless”), and has travelled to Paris from Indonesia with his blood brother,… Continue reading The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is an ambitious exploration of desire in all its forms. We meet our narrator, Rachel, in a state of intense repression. She has restricted her eating to the barest minimum, i.e. salads without dressing, small yogurts, etc., while also working out obsessively, in an attempt to burn all of the calories… Continue reading Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Torrey Peters’ buzzy new novel, Detransition, Baby, reclaims the rare phenomenon of detransition, a tool used by transphobes to question the legitimacy of transitioning in the first place. Peters’ novel includes a character, named Ames, who has detransitioned, not because he had made a mistake transitioning to living as a female, or because he doesn’t… Continue reading Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Memorial, the debut novel from Bryan Washington, begins with a fracturing that becomes the center of the book’s emotional landscape. The novel begins with Mike, a young chef living in the Third Ward in Houston with his boyfriend Benson, jetting off to Japan to be with his estranged father, who has received a fatal cancer… Continue reading Memorial by Bryan Washington