It is, finally, our indulgence in a book called Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, following backstory and run-up to the Hildebrandt family’s major catastrophes present day, 1971. Crossroads is a novel written in two sections. In the ‘Advent,’ section first, the workings of Russ Hildebrandt’s passion …
Lizzy Fox’s debut Red List Blue is a book of thoughtful and passionate poetry with just the right amount of neurosis (which is how I like my poetry). Fox’s poems are like quiet meteors—because a meteor is a rock and also a streak of light, …
Chandra Gurung is an innovative Nepali poet and translator. His poems are full of buoyancy and imagery. He has depicted maladies of modern man and put across the passions and sensitivities of contemporary life as well. The poetic style is elaborated and effectual. Metaphor and …
A pleasant recollection I have from childhood is sitting squished together in the den on the family futon watching Jeopardy! every weeknight at 7:30. Hearing that famous theme song followed by the charming and handsome host Alex Trebek strolling onto the stage and saying “Thank …
Samantha Kolber’s 2020 chapbook of poems, Birth of a Daughter, is a celebration of love, pregnancy, birth, mothering, child-rearing, and the spiritual—at times visceral—bond between mother and daughter. Kolber frequently interrogates the social realities of being a mother and raising a young daughter, navigating the …
Joan Aleshire is a poet of history, both personal and cultural, a chronicler of the moments that affect all of us, even by those who change our lives without us being aware. Aleshire uses the subtlety of narrative rather than showiness of language to put …
I have always been an admirer of everything Italian. Though, admirer does not sound like strong enough a word. Truth is: I believe my soul is Italian, and, in this life, I have been condemned to living away from my culture. For that reason, to …
Sarah Townsend’s Setting the Wire is a mother’s triumph over the unthinkable and a writer’s triumph over the form and the norms. But, most importantly, Setting the Wire acts as a witness to the female awakening. Sarah Townsend did not write about postpartum psychosis; she wrote from the inside of it. She wrote to understand, but what happened, in the end, is that she wrote to save, once again – herself and her family, and then, the other women and families affected by the obscure, still uncharted illness.
It starts out just like any other workday. You board the bus in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, pay your fare, find a seat that isn’t too gross to sit in. The usual morning crowd is there: the Ass-Starer, Newspaper-Guy, and Napping-Woman. Everything’s fine until the pistol-packing …
Shadow Child, a suspenseful and beautifully written literary novel by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, the author of the acclaimed memoir Hiroshima in the Morning, interweaves narratives and voices to reveal harrowing secrets of two generations of strong-willed women. There are three time threads in the novel, …