I’ve read a lot of Joan Didion in my life, but sometime in November after seeing her nephew’s documentary about her, “The Center Will Not Hold”, I decided to read her again from start to…
Posts Published by Christa
Get ‘Mean’
Myriam Gurba’s memoir Mean opens with the chase-torture-rape-death of Sophia Torres, a young woman described by some media as “transient.” Gurba and Torres are linked by more than a shared culture: Torres was raped by the…
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Every year, in the thick of August, I stumble on a beautiful book that completely matches my mood. It happened again with Conversations with Friends, a perfect book that…
How I Spent My Winter (in words)
Ill Will by Dan Chaon Insomnia isn’t my thing, but on the one night I woke during the witching hour and couldn’t fall back asleep, I magically had this weirdo mess of creepiness to keep…
A ‘Wealth’ of material
I forgot I was reading Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth the same way I sometimes forget how I got from Point A to this table in this restaurant eating this burger on my lunch break. The novel is…
Catch the Wave
When Black Wave opens, everything is changing. Writer Michelle Tea’s anti-hero, also named Michelle, is in the midst of a neighborhood’s skin-peeling to reveal a whole something new. The stale-beer stink dive bar that catered to…
2016 finale
Unearthed: A bunch of book review blurbs from things read in the latter half of 2016. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus There is so much to love about this book by Chris Kraus. It’s wacky,…
Crash Landing
There are two great, gripping scenes in Noah Hawley’s novel Before the Fall. I’ll tell you about the first, but not the second. The second offers the story’s only startling, intake of breath moment, and…
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
CITY ON FIRE City on Fire kept popping up in front of me, the way some things do. I read raves and a few people recommended it so I barely blinked as I downloaded and dug…
Making the movie sausage
Start reading a story about a high school film fanatic whose senior project involves aping an urban legend involving her favorite filmmaker. And then, upon successful completion, meets the elderly gent, moves into his house,…
Gold Fame Citrus Yowsa
Visceral responses to reading Claire Vaye Watkins’ Gold Fame Citrus: Just two. But they were mighty, man. The first was a big ball that made me feel like I was homebrewing gut-rot-dread in my belly;…