Month: November 2025

Essay

What the Philip Roth Thanksgiving Passage in American Pastoral Gets Wrong

There has never been a more fraught (to use understatement) time to be Jewish in the United States. Never a time when it was so politically weaponized for a “with us or against us” purpose (one such example being the “pro-Israel” defense of, “You’re antisemitic if you don’t support it”). And even saying something as simple and straightforward as that could be deemed as an … Continue reading What the Philip Roth Thanksgiving Passage in American Pastoral Gets Wrong

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Poetry

Three Birthdays in a Row by Susie Gharib

Three birthdays in a row:a president’s, whose luminous picture had shielded my war-ridden childhood,a diva’s,who once celebrated the birthday of the presidentwith a song that enthralled,and mine, that every year passes without a single hello.Long dead are JFK and Marilyn Monroe, but their birthdays are celebrated anew, and though I am still alive,mine passes without a single candle,a word, or a symbolic cadeau. Continue reading Three Birthdays in a Row by Susie Gharib

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Poetry

Everything’s Tickity-Boo by Dale Champlin

When my heart beats too fast      it sets off an alarm. My watch keeps count to the tick, tick, talk of my grandmother clock.      Imagine a woodpecker beating a ratta-tat-tat into the bark of a tree to harvest a grub.      Maybe this is too graphic—let me say—it’s as if I’m up to the yin-yang in sugar-laced marzipan.     When I write, each tick of my pen records a tock of … Continue reading Everything’s Tickity-Boo by Dale Champlin

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Book Review

Getting it Down on the Page, Fearlessly: Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom by Charles Holdefer

Sometimes, an image can perfectly illustrate a narrative while leaving itself open to ambiguities. Think Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, or Jay Gatsby’s green light. In Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom, the protagonist, Betty Block (née Bird), lives in the shadow of her formidable artist mother, Violet Flowers, whose famous work, The Creation of Violet, is based on an exact replica of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling … Continue reading Getting it Down on the Page, Fearlessly: Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom by Charles Holdefer

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Essay

Everything Is Copy: The Nora Ephron, and Now, Lily Allen Philosophy

As the discussion surrounding Lily Allen’s fifth album, West End Girl, continues to set tongues wagging, it bears reminding the masses that Allen is hardly the first woman to speak so candidly about the dissolution of a marriage as a result of a cheating husband (though, in David Harbour’s case, the fact that he managed to still cheat by violating the rules of his open … Continue reading Everything Is Copy: The Nora Ephron, and Now, Lily Allen Philosophy

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