by Natalie Mesnard | May 9, 2017
Pull Me Under By Kelly Luce FSG. 2016. Back when I taught English in Japan, the worst thing that happened to me was being denied entrance to a few restaurants. Kelly Luce, author of Pull Me Under (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux), wasn’t so lucky. In this New York...
by Natalie Mesnard | Dec 29, 2016
Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone By Sequoia Nagamatsu Black Lawrence Press. 2016. I don’t often lead off reviews by discussing a book’s cover. But I’m going to do just that with Sequoia Nagamatsu’s book of short fiction, Where We Go When All We Were Is...
by Natalie Mesnard | Aug 20, 2016
Desolation of Avenues Untold by Brandon Hobson Civil Coping Mechanisms. 2015. I’m probably not the intended audience for Desolation of Avenues Untold, by Brandon Hobson, though my experience of reading the book was singular. It’s a decidedly unusual work of fiction, a...
by Natalie Mesnard | Oct 5, 2015
Families Among Us by Blake Kimzey Black Lawrence Press. 2014 Quirk is hard to do well. Magic realism and absurdist tropes can (and often do) serve as tools to avoid the exploration necessary to get inside characters’ heads. Because of this, I’m often on guard when I...
by Natalie Mesnard | Sep 15, 2015
Crude Sketches Done in Quick Succession by Andrew Brininstool Queen’s Ferry Press. 2014 Andrew Brininstool’s debut short story collection, Crude Sketch Sketches Done in Quick Succession, hurts because it hits home. The book is part of a literary tradition I...
