Sama opens with a scenario worthy of a Matt Damon hero: threatened with blackmail by an unnamed bad guy, he connects with two ex-Mossad agents in downtown London who deliver the news that “there is a conspiracy to remove you from your job” and demand a cool million bucks to make it go away. Go […]
“Being a black quarterback,” wrote a Los Angeles Times sports columnist, “is like being a member of the bomb squad.” Make a mistake, in other words, and Boom! you’re done. In 1979, an era in which, writes Moore, “it was still a foreign concept that Black men could be the field generals,” two Black players […]
Sixteen-year-old Eirene and her twin, Phoebe, who have light brown skin and curly black hair, live in Zakynthos, a town controlled by Leandros, a descendant of Eros. Women there are manipulated by Leandros’ Desires, magic that seemingly brainwashes them into being under their husbands’ control. After Alexandra, Leandros’ 18-year-old wife, dies suddenly and mysteriously, he […]
Kadsa Abasi’s Grandpa Edoje wants her to care as much as he does about finding his homeland; he’s searched across the continent of Africa for a way back. During their exploration of a cave in Chad, he at last finds a portal that will allow him to return to Marut. Grandpa Edoje, who’s said “she’d […]
At one point, the speaker offers readers a quick framework for his musings, saying that this “story is a memoir in the form of a novel pretending to be a memoir.” After a life spent in Manhattan, where he faced the deaths of many friends from complications from AIDS, the gay storyteller and wanderer moves […]
Comer, author of Surfer Girls in the New World Order and Landscapes of the New West: Gender and Geography in Contemporary Women’s Writing, tackles her subject as a never-ending project rather than an ultimate guide to the complexity of Western feminism. Using the metaphor of travel and road trips (à la Thelma and Louise), she guides […]
Bard College literature scholar Luzzi posits that Dante was “an intensely experimental writer,” one reason that centuries later James Joyce would take so many cues from him. Dante was experimental, Luzzi continues, first because he did not write his Divine Comedy in Latin—a choice that limited his audience, since all literate Europeans would know Latin […]
On August 12, 1984, the oil pressure in the tiny four-seater that the author was ferrying to New Zealand started to fall slowly and inexplicably; when it hit zero, the engine failed. Luckily, when she was 17, Porch had learned to fly in engineless gliders. Now, more than a decade later, this saved her life, […]
High schooler Thomas Harding is a popular internet personality, but in the last year, a number of his pranks have gone wrong, causing scandal and controversy. Tommy, who’s white, is determined to stage a comeback, however, by pulling off “the greatest prank of the century” during the senior class trip to Sunny World Resorts and […]
Every good family saga features a wedding, and this one boasts two. First, Alina marries Fedir. The newlyweds receive land with a dacha built on it to set them up for the future. Soon they’ll have a “sea of gold”—sunflowers that provide food, oil, and mulch. Alina becomes a baker and makes offerings to “BA […]