Acutely amusing, cleverly twisted, thoughtful, and tender, When I Can’t Sleep is a formidable collection of short yet indelibly powerful flash-fiction yarns—the absurdly brilliant kind that never grow old and you never tire of reading.
Photo by baldeaglebluff The first time Maria ever spoke to me directly, we were somewhere over the North Atlantic on a red-eye to eastern Europe. “Don’t mess around with any Brits without seeing a passport first. He might say he’s a delegate, or an important businessman, but he could easily be some Eton kid there […]
All too often tropes in literature about the African-American experience are seen as representative of the affective “condition” of racial experience and travail, as in music for melancholy, vivid colors for ethnic life and violence, and so forth.
Sometimes these stories are laugh-out-loud funny in a way that doesn’t feel cheap or forced, but rather, completely fitting for Cashion’s characters.
Though the narrator seems to be an outside observer, the story feels intimate because we’re listening to her talk to herself. The last line is the most intimate of all, as it hints at the source of the deeper tension undergirding the chaotic scene.
This woman’s story, and others like it, pepper Wioletta’s narrative, enfolding a charming bildungsroman into the weight of history, tragedy, violence, and loss.
The novel is a showcase for Allio’s many talents, including her incisive use of language. Allio has a story to tell, but the anomalous poetics of her prose is the guiding light of the narrative, both revealing and concealing elements of plot—essentially beguiling the reader to turn the page.
Not even a year later, he and Kelvin had moved to San Francisco because he understood by then that he was not cut out to be part of a happy family either. Each month, Kelvin’s parents drove into the city to stay with them, and Phil wondered whether they knew that they were the reason for the move.
Carefully crafted tales of the supernatural, thought-provoking introspection, and relentless black humor can be found in this eclectic new collection from American author and professor emeritus at Boston College, Michael C. Keith.
Yozo struggles throughout the novel with social mores and his interactions with others—he wishes he could no longer care, no longer feel so obligated to fit into society. This kind of self-consciousness is overwrought and tortured, but it’s also devastatingly human.