Customer Comments

For fans of magical realism, this collection of stories dazzles and twists like a dream. Gallardo, a contemporary of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has written a series of stories that ring with a poetic, thrilling edge. Gallardo brings the reader deep down into Argentina and then lifts us, sputtering, into the diaspora. Her stories prod at the question: Where does this land end? Where do its people begin? As Gallardo writes, “To emigrate does not mean to forget.” At times reminiscent of Carmen Maria Machado, Gallardo’s collection glows with phantasms. Gallardo’s prose is magical: “She saw herself reverberating like the leaves and the houses and the monsters and the planets and the murmurs in the fountain.” The collection begins with a short story about a captive and a monster, deep in the belly of a mountain. Dreamlike and tangible through the rocks, the fire, the ice that beats down on the mountain, the reader is shell-shocked into accepting the Land of Smoke. Other notables among this collection include a man whose house and garden is transported into the sea, a beautiful dapple-white horse who is the glory of the world, the cat who desires to be a lion, and the thirty-three wives of Emperor Blue Stone. *With thanks to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for the e-copy. All opinions are my own.

Sheila Heti’s Motherhood is an introspective, philosophical work of art that addresses what it means to be a mother, to want or not want to be a mother, the societal expectations of womanhood, and the longstanding implications of our mothers and our grandmothers on our own life experiences. Heti writes as a 39-year old woman, her eggs (as some might say) on the verge of extinction. Is a woman’s life meaningless if she does not bear children? What if she doesn’t want to? Motherhood is a feminist manifesto, timely and deep. Heti explores what womanhood means, writing across the boundaries of her life as a writer and a daughter. In her quest for her truth, she interrogates herself, married friends, those who happily or grudgingly have undergone childbirth, and her 80 year old friend who is happily single and childless. Heti doesn’t provide answers, rather allows that each woman’s experience and expectations will be different. Heti draws us into her corner, to the desk where she writes, and confides in us her desire, her anxiety, and her dreams. Thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the advance digital copy. All opinions are my own.

Pure Hollywood is sharply talented, uncomfortable at times, and thoroughly engrossing. Schutt writes with precision and a sharp lyrical poeticism in this collection of short stories. Her stories focus in on gardens and deserts, cultivation and despair, and finding what comes from loss. Schutt’s prose is clean as a knife, and feels just as dangerous. From an old woman whose husband has died, to a young couple on vacation with their child, these stories ring with a brutal honesty. The story of a woman seeking an escape on a dude ranch is a particular jewel in this collection. These stories stick in the mind like burrs, and how oddly pleasant it is to have been prodded by such a talent as Schutt. Thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the advance digital copy. All opinions are my own.

Hauntingly beautiful or beautifully haunting, Molly McCully Brown has written a singularly chilling book of poems. Brown has lived in the shadow of the Virginia State Colony all her life, and examines the Colony in a semi-biographical way through her poetry. Brown calls herself palsied and unbalanced, so this book feels at once deeply personal and spare. Brown draws the reader deep into the silent, dusty places and opens our eyes to the darkness that lives there. I’ll have to read this book several more times at least.

Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater is a stunning debut by a talented storyteller. Emezi has the ability to weave multiple narrative styles into a cohesive and breathtakingly powerful novel, drawing the reader into the marble room of Ada's mind--Ada, the girl born "with one foot on the other side." Sensual, vibrant, dark--Emezi draws the reader into the unsettling place, between the bounds of flesh and mind. Emezi speaks deeply into trauma, mythology, and the liminal with a story that spits and shimmers. Absorbing, gritty -- Freshwater is about the body and the mind and the ability to inhabit these spaces that should be our own, in ways that are mythical and rooted in a place deeper than flesh.