Even when Bernice is liked, she's not necessarily liked for the person she is, but for the person someone believes her to be. This is largely why she leaves herself, why she learns to fly. "I wonder how fascinated she’d be if she knew that I’d been fucked before I
The title of her second novel might well have been a discarded option for her debut; Riel Nason is back in familiar territory: the intersection between memory and identity, the line between mysticism and madness, and sibling bonds in a coming-of-age tale. Goose Lane, 2016 Now it is 1977
Nothing really happens. Here, the "main event is simply a view of the water". So Ruby's story should not be a page-turner. But, in fact, The Town that Drowned is a coming-of-age story with a curious momentum. No single element is responsible: character and voice, setting and structure, all work
"The past presses so hard on the present, the present is badly bruised, blood brims under the skin." These lines from Brenda Shaughnessy's poem “Nachträglichkeit”* fit beautifully with Darren Greer's new novel, Advocate: Not only because much of Advocate is preoccupied with memory, with what the characters carry with them
At the "Modern Families" roundtable at this year's IFOA, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan explained that it only felt natural to build her characters with the seemingly endless details that comprise their lives, their selves. Identity is clearly at the heart of her much-lauded debut, Harmless Like You, and a good part of
