Jami Attenberg’s novel is about what we wrap up. The cover of The Middlesteins appears to be a fast-food burger wrapper: quintessentially flavourful but fleeting. Edie’s mother watches Edie’s father’s heart beat beneath the skin of his chest. Edie notices the bones at the top of her chest, poking out like
It begins with a short but vividly drawn scene: two lovers alone in a room in Paris in 1917. Sensorily rich and broadly sketched: the reader is immediately engaged. Not only by the substance, but by a couple of unexpected phrases therein: questions arise. Those questions are soon set aside
When the angels invaded the plotline of "Supernatural", I stopped watching weekly. I prefer stone rabbits and hedgehogs in my flowerbeds, over white winged statues. And when a girlfriend told me that the child she lost at full-term is an angel now, I struggled to keep my face expressionless, silently repeating
Jennifer Quist's Love Letters of the Angels of Death is a taut novel which pulls the reader into the story with only a few paragraphs. Not only through plot, though the first paragraph is a bold invitation to read on: "It was only a matter of time before we found human
I've read some remarkable short story collections this year: Théodora Armstrong's Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility, Ayelet Tsabari's The Best Place on Earth, Saleema Nawaz's Mother Superior, Richard van Camp's Godless But Loyal to Heaven, Miranda Hill's Sleeping Funny, and Paul Headrick's The Doctrine of Affections. Three more collections have captured
