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

Genna RivieccioNovember 12, 2025Leave a comment

Book Review

Curtis Smith’s Deaf Heaven Explores the Hunger for a Moral Compass in an Immoral Society by Charles Holdefer

Politically timely novels in the twenty-first century are largely accidental. The novel business is slow, while the news cycle runs faster and faster. Despite our much-vaunted technical progress, the lag time between signing a book contract and the book’s actual release is longer than it was a generation ago, and compared to previous generations, the pace is glacial. (For instance, despite wartime paper-rationing, George Orwell’s … Continue reading Curtis Smith’s Deaf Heaven Explores the Hunger for a Moral Compass in an Immoral Society by Charles Holdefer

Genna RivieccioJune 2, 2025Leave a comment

Book Review

Kat Giordano’s Thumbsucker Gives Permission to Be Otherwise by Charles Holdefer

One possible scenario for this book review could go as follows: 1) old boomer guy reads poetry collection called Thumbsucker; 2) it is highly personal work, written by a millennial; 3) old boomer guy is perplexed or downright annoyed by the preoccupations of the poet; 4) He just doesn’t get it. This review respects the first half of that scenario—but, happily, the second half does … Continue reading Kat Giordano’s Thumbsucker Gives Permission to Be Otherwise by Charles Holdefer

Genna RivieccioMarch 18, 2024Leave a comment

Fiction

No Cigar by Charles Holdefer

Dear Ms. Esperanza: I greet you at the beginning of a great submissions process. The readers’ reports for CROSS MY HEART were wildly enthusiastic, and though it took me some time to get to it, I’m still reeling from the experience. Last night, I started reading your manuscript on the train and when I looked out the window I was in Connecticut, which was awkward, … Continue reading No Cigar by Charles Holdefer

Genna RivieccioApril 25, 20232 Comments

Fiction

Dearest Reader by Charles Holdefer

So there I was, having sex with Joyce Carol Oates, everything going quite nicely, lights low and spirits high—it’s hard to find the words but I felt taken toward another place, a good place, the best, and then an awareness came upon me. No doubt because of the way Joyce was twisting, the angle of her arm, a shift in my gaze and a glimpse … Continue reading Dearest Reader by Charles Holdefer

Genna RivieccioApril 23, 2023April 23, 2023Leave a comment