In some ways, the author’s childhood was like one long summer at camp—he and his seven siblings were raised on a sprawling 84-acre Community Conservation Corps–built park property his parents bought at the end of the Depression and rehabilitated over the course of the 1940s. The seventh of eight children, Antil enjoyed an idyllic upbringing […]
Emma Moskowitz has a lot going for her—she’s a licensed marriage and family therapist who’s just turned in the first draft of a book on maintaining healthy relationships; she has a successful YouTube channel; she lives in a very nice Los Angeles apartment; and she’s happily planning her wedding to Ryan, a man she loves. […]
Kinsey’s taut novel tells a straightforward story, but it’s the voice that stands out most. The note of regret its narrator takes when recalling a woman named Asha hints that the story we’re about to hear won’t be a happy one. “I was afraid if I thought about her, her voice would wake up on […]
The story begins by likening words to people: specifically, the way each word is unique and lovely just the way it is. Every word does something no other word can, and when different words meet, “Words are like kids / Who see each other / And begin to play.” The author underscores the anxiety words […]
Alex and his mother (both portrayed with pale skin), along with their dog, Nico, sometimes go on adventures together—but often, “Mommy…wants to play with us but her body can’t.” Over a week, Mom experiences a new symptom each day—her specific illness isn’t disclosed—which Alex then explains to Nico, using easy-to-understand similes: “Mama can’t hike with […]
In 1926, a man named Robert Thomas and a male friend, both Black, had to fight off a white female usher, white manager, and six riot officers to be allowed to take the orchestra seats they had purchased rather than be banished to the balcony at Harlem’s Loew’s Victoria Theatre. This was just one of […]
Although candidate Donald Trump “vowed to drain the influence peddling swamp in Washington, DC,” author Lewis asserts in the book’s introduction, “he did the exact opposite” as president. Particularly egregious is the administration’s intermingling of corporate and foreign interests, which, the author says, benefited many with access to the Oval Office. As an advisor to […]
An unnamed stage actress sits in her apartment, telling her young son a fairy story. Urged on by the ghosts of blood-drenched women that only she can see, she speaks of a boy born in a stately home. A curious, perpetually hungry child with sharp nails and pointed teeth, the boy is abandoned by his […]
Forty-year-old Jaycee Grayson, fresh from a stint in the Betty Ford rehab center after having been fired from her job at a big-name Hollywood studio, is about to embark on a new adventure. Her older sister Meredith Grayson-O’Cochlain, a high-powered attorney, has negotiated a contract for Jaycee to be the new executive producer and vice […]
Trying to forget a violent encounter with a serial killer, Arista settles into her new home in Sedona, Arizona. The New-Agey town seems like a good fit. Interested in magic, she works at a shop called Cosmic Prisms that sells items like crystals and candles. Living with her Aunt Bethie, the co-leader of a coven, […]