Tag: fiction

Criticism, Essay

Chiara Barzini’s Things That Happened Before the Earthquake Reminds that Italians “Out West” Have, In Many Regards, Always Had It Rougher When It Comes to “Assimilating”

Perhaps the first thing one must emphasize in talking about the Italian diaspora in the United States is that East Coast Italians are very much their own race of people now, entirely separate from Italians themselves (the real ones that arrived in the 1880s for the first wave of immigration). And they certainly seem to like it that way—are even proud of the “standalone” “culture” … Continue reading Chiara Barzini’s Things That Happened Before the Earthquake Reminds that Italians “Out West” Have, In Many Regards, Always Had It Rougher When It Comes to “Assimilating”

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Poetry

Reading William S. Burroughs by Jeffrey Zable

is like trying to decipher the scrawl of someonelying face down in their own vomit, pen in hand,making strange marks on the sidewalk. People passing by look at this someonewith a sense of profound sadness, and out of pityleave such items on his back as rotten apples,broken trophies, dead lizards and plane ticketsto flights that unfortunately went downwithout a sole survivor. And when they arrive … Continue reading Reading William S. Burroughs by Jeffrey Zable

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Fiction

Cruising the Mall by Earl Javorsky

So picture this. You’re shopping with your wife and child. Nordstrom. Because you’re fucking rich. She’s looking for a dress, or whatever, and you’re in charge of the boy. He’s three and a half, maybe a bit more. This section of the store is dotted with circular racks, great for hiding if you’re three feet tall. Your boy runs down the aisle with his hands … Continue reading Cruising the Mall by Earl Javorsky

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Criticism, Essay

Why Emerald Fennell’s Adaptation of Wuthering Heights Is Such a Hot-Button Issue for the Stodgier Side of the Literary World Right Now (And Why It Shouldn’t Be)

It’s not any kind of “shocking revelation” that what’s left of the “book business” is mostly in shambles. And that what it takes to “monetize” literature in the present is a decidedly “bread and circuses” approach. Never was that made more apparent than the advent of “BookTok.” However, with Emerald Fennell’s latest film, a “version” of Wuthering Heights (that she opted to put in quotation … Continue reading Why Emerald Fennell’s Adaptation of Wuthering Heights Is Such a Hot-Button Issue for the Stodgier Side of the Literary World Right Now (And Why It Shouldn’t Be)

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Fiction

Turning the Corner by Mike Lee

When Deidre crossed Broadway against the traffic and stepped onto the curb, phone in hand, it was a transformative—albeit confusing—moment. A moment when the choice, for Henry, was to stare with stunned amazement or suddenly perform surrealist-influenced performance art. She was a good kid until she chose to manipulate and triangulate, until she was trapped in a corner, like a cheap 1950s wind-up doll, arms … Continue reading Turning the Corner by Mike Lee

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Fiction

Cathedral for Bad Decisions by Dee P. R. Kay

“You know we could kill all these people, and they wouldn’t even see it coming,” Aaron said, as we were walking around Nick’s neighborhood in Pelham, after getting shot at by farmers on four-wheelers in a cow field in Chelsea for trespassing to harvest mushrooms. Psilocybe cubensis, if you wanna get specific. We all just looked at Aaron, pretending to be in shock. We weren’t … Continue reading Cathedral for Bad Decisions by Dee P. R. Kay

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Poetry

How are you this January evening? by Dale Champlin

Are you surprised I am dead?—me too! I’m usually more than a soccer mom with a wife, a dead husband,and a six-year-old son. I left with unfinished poems,a glove compartment of stuffiesand a hole in my windshield. I tried to act casual about it—the masked men, eyes bugging out of their headspadded flak vests and crackling voices.I backed up and turned my wheel. You saw how icy the … Continue reading How are you this January evening? by Dale Champlin

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Essay

Slightly Under a Year of (Not So Much) Rest and Relaxation: The Coin

*Note: the narrator of The Coin will be referred to as The Palestinian Narrator, and the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation will be referred to as The Blonde Narrator. Among the blurbs on the back of Yasmin Zaher’s debut novel, The Coin, Alice Slater writes that it is a “sordid Moshfeghian gem that revels in the squalor of NYC.” Yes, much as … Continue reading Slightly Under a Year of (Not So Much) Rest and Relaxation: The Coin

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Book Review

Psychosexual Dynamics and Unexpected Self-Discovery Permeate Penny Allen’s This Rescue Thing by Mona la Liseuse

In her latest novel, This Rescue Thing, Penny Allen offers a vivid tale that many literary theorists would call “autofiction,” or a fictionalized autobiography. And this amazing “rescue thing,” full of dramatic intensity and carried out by the narrator, was inspired by certain events of the author’s life in the mid-1990s. It is during this time that the narrator willingly leaves her troubled job in … Continue reading Psychosexual Dynamics and Unexpected Self-Discovery Permeate Penny Allen’s This Rescue Thing by Mona la Liseuse

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