The spare, beautiful, clipped back style Kent Haruf perfected returns to us even more distilled in Our Souls at Night. His characters use a directness and economy of expression that mirrors the narrative, and the whole affects us with the sense of emotional logic freely followed, where pretense is abandoned as counterproductive, a waste of precious time. Our Souls at Night, a fitting valediction from a well-loved author, is marvelous for a number of reasons.In a straightforward plot (another...
October 19, 2016
"Every Day is for the Thief" by Teju Cole
I enjoyed Every Day is for the Thief for its honesty and straightforward language. As its tale unfolds, the author accomplishes an intriguing thing: he blurs the lines between fiction and memoir, using fiction as the label for what seems thoroughly memoir-esque. It is an engaging read, in a way displaying its purpose very clearly, depending on refreshing and fast-paced changes of scene as the vignettes flow by. He hints at truths he may or may not have teased out from his observations;...
October 08, 2016
"The Book of Esther" by Emily Barton
Emily Barton constructs an alternate history for her adventure story The Book of Esther. A nation of Jewish warriors on the West Asian steppes faces an invasion from a formidable foe in 1942, the “Germanii.” The Kaganate of Khazaria, a principality located mainly between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea fights the aggressor with a combination of mechanical horses, pedal-propelled gliders, a thuggish group of oil drillers and dealers, and golems fabricated by an isolated group of Kabbalists....
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