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My review of Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau is live at The Nervous Breakdown.
Posted on June 22, 2011 2 Comments
My review of Jessica Anya Blau’s hilarious, touching and heartbreaking novel, Drinking Closer to Home, is now live at The Nervous Breakdown. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this book. It starts off with a ton of characters, and I kept thinking, oh man, this is going to be too soft, to […]
My review of Forecast by Shya Scanlon is now live at The Cult
Posted on May 18, 2011 Leave a Comment
My review of Forecast by Shya Scanlon is now up at The Cult. Vonnegut meets PKD, it’s a fantastic book. I don’t want to repeat everything I said in the review, but following this story from its original publication across dozens of websites as Forecast 42, to its publication by Flatmancrooked (which sadly is closing […]
Review of Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City by Michael Bible is now live at The Nervous Breakdown.
Posted on May 9, 2011 Leave a Comment
My review of Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City (Dark Sky Books) by Michael Bible is now live up at The Nervous Breakdown. Great little chapbook, very entertaining, a lush read. Bits of Hunter S. Thompson, a touch of William Burroughs, maybe Denis Johnson if he was lost in the desert, and a sprinkle of Tom Robbins […]
Review of The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch is live at The Nervous Breakdown.
Posted on April 28, 2011 Leave a Comment
I don’t read a lot of memoirs. But so far this year I’ve read two, and both have blown me away. There was You Don’t Look Like Any I Know, the book about Heather Sellers, and her inability to remember faces and now there is The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books) by Lidia Yuknavitch. What […]
Review of Volt by Alan Heathcock is now live at The Nervous Breakdown
Posted on April 27, 2011 2 Comments
Volt (Graywolf Press) by Alan Heathcock is a linked collection of short stories. It reminded me of Knockemstiff for sure, for its rural setting, and also Sarah Court for its families overlapping, fighting and loving. The testimonial of Benjamin Percy got my attention, but the emotional truths, the revelations and understandings, the prose and the […]
Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello review is now live at The Cult
Posted on April 27, 2011 Leave a Comment
My review of Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello is now live at The Cult. A wonderful collection of short stories, these tales are funny, sexy, and dark, pulling you in and knocking you down. Head on over for the full review. “Van tells me one of his students has written a story about a girl […]
Shroud Magazine gives Transubstantiate a great review.
Posted on April 24, 2011 Leave a Comment
Great review for the book over at Shroud Magazine (love these guys) but some harsh criticism for the typesetting and cover art. “Transubstantiate, when all the pieces fall into place, is an intricate and layered look at action and consequence, the struggle between mislaid control and frustrated effort of self-proclaimed gods of men and the […]
Review of Normally Special by xTx is now live up at The Nervous Breakdown
Posted on March 24, 2011 2 Comments
My review of Normally Special by xTx is now live at The Nervous Breakdown. This is the debut collection from Tiny Hardcore Press and Roxane Gay. INTENSE stuff. How intense? Well, I lead off the review with this quote: “It is difficult to masturbate about your father, but not impossible, as it turns out.” This […]
Review of You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers
Posted on March 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
My review of You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know (Riverhead Books), the touching, courageous, heartbreaking memoir by Heather Sellers, is now live at The Nervous Breakdown. It’s the story of a woman who has face blindness. She can’t remember anyone’s face. Heather came down to Murray State where I’m getting my MFA to speak, […]
Review of Sarah Court by Craig Davidson
Posted on March 15, 2011 Leave a Comment
Sarah Court (ChiZine Publications) by Craig Davidson was one of my favorite books of 2010. I’ve been reading Craig for years now, and am a big fan of The Fighter and Rust and Bone. Head on over to The Nervous Breakdown to read my review, but here’s a quick summary from the dust jacket. If […]
- Richard Thomas - 