Customer Comments

h has commented on (28) products.

Speedboat by Renata Adler

h, May 23, 2013

Adler has an inimitable voice, but you might also hear Lorrie Moore, David Markson, and even the new writer Vanessa Veselka in this novel that doesn't really have a plot but has a feel. The novel's a collection of fragments and often written in concise sentences that, when stitched together, produce atmospheres of excitement, despair, ennui, confusion, and exuberance. I'll be reading more from this author I've just discovered.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

h, May 4, 2013

Before you see Baz Luhrmann's version of razzle dazzle--3D'd and Jay Z'd--read the original. Fitzgerald's distinctive prose, a wandering romance, the threats to morality from NY money, more and more. The precursor to so many later novels of note, recently O'Neill's Netherland.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment

The End by Salvatore Scibona

h, April 25, 2013

You won't always know what's happening as this cross-generational, place-based novel unfolds. Set in an Ohio city, it moves across time to tell how working Italian immigrants settle into the urban US, especially as demographic and cultural changes take place. But more than the plot, Scibona's skill appears at the sentence level. He gets the pacing right: moving between short and long sentences and paragraphs, sometimes making sources of dialogue clear and sometimes opaque.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment

The Ordinary Seaman by Francisco Goldman

h, April 16, 2013

An author I hadn't heard of until a friend tossed his name my way, an author I'll keep returning to. This novel is spectacular. The plot is based on stasis--Central American seamen stuck on a ship in Brooklyn harbor--but ventures to the civil war in Nicaragua, the Amazon rainforest, penthouse Manhattan apartments, and hair salons owned by a gay exile from Cuba. The prose is captivating; Goldman has a talent for the terse metaphor that crosses the somber with the shocking.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment

Apocalyptic Swing: Poems by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

h, April 3, 2013

If you're looking for a poetry volume to celebrate National Poetry Month, go for this. Calvocoressi's often brief lines punch you as her boxer characters do. She addresses suicide, racial violence, (same) sex, psychological injury but in the subtlest of ways and alongside pure joy at the moments of heroism in everyday life.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment