There are two kinds of people in the world, said Søren Kierkegaard: those who write, and those who don’t. Nunez, best known as a novelist, writes up a storm with her first story, “Philosophers,” a tour de force of resignation. Her protagonist, who back in high school had a crush on a boy with a […]
Hugo’s forgetfulness leads to lost belongings, overlooked responsibilities, and messed-up schedules. Not fun. Hugo suffers so much that he imagines a “sneaky little trickster” who might be behind it all, undermining him. Artistically inclined Hugo even provides a droll labelled portrait of the creature! We follow Hugo through his disasters: missing a soccer session with […]
Thomson begins this book’s last chapter like so: “You may be saying, ‘Look, shifting from one shot to another, I don’t know where this book is going.’ You have a point, but I have no sympathy for either of us. It’s a book trying to keep up with every fresh screen I see.” He has […]
Billionaire Orson Darcy’s fatal plunge from the eighth floor of his Fifth Avenue apartment building would have seemed suspicious even if it weren’t for the sign his killer left behind: “DDD&R, I AM COMING FOR YOU.” The “YOU” presumably includes Darcy’s partners, Peyton Danforth, Richmond Dingell III, and Butch Rapp, and Det. Bridget Washington, the […]
In I Who Have Never Known Men, which was republished in a revised translation in 2022, Harpman’s eerie prescience was on full display in a tale about 39 women and a girl held for decades in a bunker for reasons never made clear to them. The book, which was first published in 1995 in the […]
Recent Irvine, California, high school graduate Edelweiss “Edie” Birch seeks her inheritance: the Hart Creek, Maine, home of her estranged late maternal grandmother, Ludmilla Vovk. The pointy red-and-white structure out in the woods is a character unto itself, not least because it can grow chicken legs and move around like Baba Yaga’s house. Pale, red-haired […]
Kevin Reyes, a newly out gay high schooler in the Philippines, is still discovering his path. After coming out to his parents and being “met with silence” before they changed the subject, Kevin leaves with a group of friends from the school journalism club. They’re attending a party hosted by Raymond, an out classmate who […]
Ten-year-old Kevin Aurelius and his two siblings travel with their vampire parents and a slew of creatures including an ogre, werewolves, and trolls—all members of a traveling circus known as the Carnival Monstromo. When a wrong turn strands them in the quiet human town of Lower Drudging, the carnival delays travel to the Festival of […]
A narrator who resembles her author both in name and occupation guides readers through the sexual proclivities and shades of gender expression that populated belle epoque Paris (with a brief digression to Georgian-era Wales). In cafes, cabarets, and opium dens, she introduces us to what translator Careau calls “the sexual underworld”: lesbians and gay men, […]
Blue-eyed Inna Pallo, who dyes her auburn hair blond, is the new heir to the Pallo empire. She’s determined to investigate her sister’s death while training to take over the family business, the illustrious Horizon Club. The club’s allure is based on sprites—insectlike creatures whose magic makes people feel euphoric. The Pallos market the sprites […]