This story is like a mango: sweet, with a hard stone pit. “When you have lost…two beloved brothers on the same day, what are you? What word is there to say what you have become?” the narrator asks in this tale of “two children of... Read More

“No one can humiliate you like your parents. No one else in the world has that tremendous power: the same power we have over our own children.” So declares Ernesto, the antihero in Ana María Shua’s latest novel, whose relationship... Read More

Going away to college can be an intimidating experience for all young men and women. For students with challenges like Asperger Syndrome, a disorder on the autism spectrum, settling into college can be even more overwhelming. Author... Read More

In Lyin’ Like a Dog, the sequel to The Red Scarf, R. Harper Mason takes readers to 1940s’ America and the village of Norphlet, Arkansas. Richard, the story’s protagonist, relives his twelfth birthday and a year of adventure shared... Read More

A child never understands why a father walks out, even in a conflict-ridden home. The loss and betrayal often haunts the individual into adulthood, especially if the parent is never seen again. Abandonment embeds a long-lasting pain that... Read More

Joanna, the daughter of a weak, mentally distraught mother and a distant father, tells the story of a 1940s’ childhood in "Calico Jam", a fictionalized version of her life story. Memories flourish at Edgecombe, Joanna’s... Read More

In his speech, “A More Perfect Union,” Barack Obama quoted William Faulkner (“The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.”) to embody the idea that even though leaders no longer need to list the racial injustices of the... Read More

The death of a spouse is a monumental event, regardless of how good or bad the marital relationship was in life. Divorce provokes many of the same emotions as death, with the added stress of seeing one’s ex after the divorce is... Read More