The Nix by Nathan Hill was the It book of late summer. Everywhere you turned there was effusive praise and comparisons to John Irving and Charles Dickens, and while I can generally avoid these kinds…
Posts tagged Fiction
Unlocking ‘Tony and Susan’
Austin Wright’s Tony and Susan is a Matroyshka doll of a novel – a story within a story in which the main character’s reality blurs with the fiction she’s reading. When the plot is interesting…
More than a bit of Brooklyn puffery
I was pretty tempted to dismiss Adelle Waldman’s The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. as one of those annoying, pointless books steeped in its own Brooklynness and thus published because if there’s anything Brooklyn writers…
How to ride an allergy to popularity
It’s a dangerous combo: The clunky coolness of a medical alert bracelet (just an internet away) topped with the terror of starting up at a new high school. Sadie comes up with a plan. She…
‘Sharp Objects’ — Never Dull
After Gone Girl, I knew I needed more Gillian Flynn in my life. So, I went with her first novel, Sharp Objects. Sharp Objects presents a little bit of a challenge for me, review-wise. It…
Tetris master
Belated gracias to NY Magazine, who in 2007 did a Q&A with artist Adrian Tomine, who in turn answered exactly what I was wondering when I finished his graphic novel Shortcomings. Namely: Here I am…