Women and Children First
reviewed by Rachel Barenblat
Issue No. 41 ~ October, 2000
[Prose's stories] left me feeling that, if I approached my own life with her scalpel-like intensity, I would find something extraordinary in me, too.
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Book Lovers Archives
Jackstraws
reviewed by Elizabeth Knapp
Issue No. 27 ~ August, 1999
In the deep sea of American poetry, Simic is our winning angler. He reels in the catch, and we sit down for the feast, supping on a poetry of succulent thrill and delight.
Turnip Blues
reviewed by Vivian Dorsel
Issue No. 27 ~ August, 1999
"When Mrs. Lemack reads in a newspaper article that the late blues singer, Bessie Smith — her lifetime idol — rests in an untended grave in a run-down cemetery, she is determined to go there and make sure that Bessie receives the care and respect she deserves..."
Amnesia
reviewed by Scott Urban
Issue No. 27 ~ August, 1999
Cooper's novel moves like a dream in which one knows one is dreaming and yet can't wake up. The narrative voice shifts so often that the first half of the book is unnecessarily confusing ... [and] not everything is neatly explained by the end - but then, it rarely is in a dream....
Robert Frost: A Life
reviewed by Melanie Kirkpatrick
Issue No. 27 ~ August, 1999
According to Parini, Frost was initially viewed as a wise and genial man. Then he was perceived as the 'farmer-poet offering homespun wisdom from the lecture platform.' Finally, and most recently, Frost has been condemned a monster.....
Elvis Costello, A Biography
reviewed by Cara Bobchek
Issue No. 26 ~ July, 1999
In the end, Elvis Costello remains to us an invisible man, and we're left living on the outskirts of a life that, while still in full creative force, deserves to have some of its past detailed...
Scars of Sweet Paradise
reviewed by Michael Dunaway
Issue No. 26 ~ July, 1999
Janis [Joplin's] story is a thrilling, inspiring, and finally a heartbreaking one, and even with her flaws Echols is an excellent guide...
White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness
reviewed by Rachel Barenblat
Issue No. 25 ~ June, 1999
I wanted to like this book. A combination of memoir and extended musing on race and race theory, White Lies is the work of Maurice Berger, a white boy who grew up Jewish in a largely black Lower East Side housing project. His father was …
Sabbathday River
reviewed by Dea Reeves
Issue No. 24 ~ May, 1999
Suffering from the lack of appealing characters ... Korelitz's writing varies from pedestrian ... to pretentious ... to inept.
Planet Doonesbury
reviewed by Rachel Barenblat
Issue No. 24 ~ May, 1999
The best thing about Trudeau's political wit is that no one is immune from it ... Trudeau takes shots at liberal parents and conspiracy buffs alike.