Book Review
Patterns of Orbit
by Elaine Chiew
"Patterns of Orbit" is Chloe N. Clark’s inimitable collection of short stories and flash fiction, in which mysterious events abound. Herein, lakeside waves churn and tear up docks; a food scientist creates fruit that tastes of another...
Book Review
This Side of the Divide
by Elaine Chiew
The twenty-three fabulist and fantasy stories collected in "This Side of the Divide" involve cowboys, the desert, coyotes, and arroyos; they remake old legends through uncommon lore in a gesture that counters cultural erasure. In the...
Book Review
You Are Here
by Elaine Chiew
Cynthia Flood’s short story collection "You Are Here" seethes with political menace that’s seen through focused personal dramas. These stories defy categorization; they are wonderful, layered, powerful, and imbued with clear senses...
Book Review
The Family Izquierdo
by Elaine Chiew
Rubén Degollado’s resonant novel "The Family Izquierdo" maps three generations within a Mexican family on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. A family tree orients the reader among the book’s large, mixed ensemble, whose members are...
Book Review
Castles from Cobwebs
by Elaine Chiew
J. A. Mensah’s "Castles from Cobwebs" is a haunting coming-of-age tale. Imani is a Ghanaian orphan who was left on a castle incline in Northumbria. Picked up by the reverend mother of a convent, Imani is raised there, experiencing...
Book Review
Boy Meets Girl
by Elaine Chiew
The intertwining of the personal and the political is at the heart of Christie Hodgen’s "Boy Meets Girl", a smart, funny novel. In 1992, rich Ben meets poor-ish Sam in a New Hampshire sandwich shop. Ben is working on a political...
Book Review
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme
by Elaine Chiew
Lars Mytting’s "The Sixteen Trees of the Somme" is an intricate and evocative literary mystery about an orphaned Norwegian man whose family history is caught in between two world wars and the German Jewish sides of WWII. Growing up on...
Book Review
Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth
by Elaine Chiew
Spotlighting male fragility, the stories of Christopher Evans’s "Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth" show uncomfortable negotiations with the truth of feelings and circumstances. A jealous man wears sneakers belonging to his...