This is not your grandma’s bingo. Dzanc Books published Bingo Bango Boingo, Alan Michael Parker’s latest book of short stories, this past February. Alan Michael Parker has been around the writer’s block—he contributed to nineteen books as a writer or editor, taught at Davidson College and the University of Tampa’s MFA Program. He won a […]
An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth by Anna Moschovakis holds up a dreamy, haunted mirror to life in the waning days of the pandemic, staging a drama of loneliness and envy against the backdrop of a destabilized world. Moschovakis’s unnamed narrator, an involuntarily retired Method actor, lives in relative isolation […]
The characters in Ranjan Adiga’s collection Diversity Quota desperately need help. Their plight is perfectly captured in the thoughts of Nirmal, a lonely divorcee in “A Short Visit,” who knows he would have to “ask for help someday. Just like he had always known he had needed it.” Adiga’s ten stories, set in Nepal or […]
Carolyn Kuebler’s debut novel, Liquid, Fragile, Perishable, offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of residents in the small Vermont town of Glenville. Told through multiple perspectives, this character-driven novel begins and ends in spring, unfolding over the course of one year as the characters’ lives intertwine and clash with one another. Each chapter contains […]
One won’t find what Charles Baxter calls “the quality of ‘lushness’ in art” in his essay “Lush Life” while reading Farah Ali’s novel The River, the Town. The reason is that the novel mirrors substance in style, echoes its sense in its sound. According to Baxter, lush prose telescopes more than one time or tense […]
In this highly engaging collection of short stories, award-winning author Robert Garner McBrearty captivates readers with tales of inner struggle and pivotal moments in life. McBrearty, whose acclaimed narratives have appeared in the prestigious Pushcart Prize anthology and have been widely published in literary journals like the North American Review, StoryQuarterly, and the Missouri Review, […]
First-person narration is a slippery position to speak from. The reader may come to know a character from the inside, but the one-sided perspective may obstruct other vantage points from which to understand the story. In The Great Gatsby, alternately, hearing the story from Nick Carraway doesn’t bring readers closer to understanding Carraway so much […]
Desire, guilt, and self-destruction drive the subversive narrative of Peter Stenson’s 2024 novel, We, Adults, which unfolds through multiple perspectives in a disastrous love triangle, culminating in newfound understandings of regret. This character-driven story follows Elliot Svendson, a twenty-nine-year-old mother, who returns to her hometown with her young child to start over after discovering her […]
“Almost as soon as I began, it was obvious I was too rusty,” relates the narrator of “Happiness,” a story in Marian Crotty’s excellent new collection, Near Strangers. On the verge of being dumped by her first girlfriend, she hopes to find solace in the trumpet to which she dedicated so much of her early […]
Belonging. A powerful word. Just reading “belonging” can stir up strong emotions. There may be no greater comfort than feeling valued within one’s country, community, or family. But what happens when people don’t feel at home in their environments or even in their own skin? When they can’t find their physical or emotional place? Such […]