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…

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Bluebird, Bluebird

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke is set in Lark, a small town in East Texas, where black people steer clear of a bar crawling with the Aryan Brotherhood and take solace at Geneva’s, a small…

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The Children Act

I like Ian McEwan’s particularly British way of handling drama. By that I mean he picks smoldering topics – forbidden lust, crime, unreciprocated yearning – and presents them in a cool, tempered way. The hot-bloodedness…

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