-
And Then? And Then? What Else?, Handler (2024)
Writing, even at its best, is not an act of ethereal genius. It’s nature, which includes teenagers on school buses, snowy forests, and heartbreak, that contains genius. Sometimes…
4 min read
-
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams (1998)
Home is an idea, a mythical place of unconditional love and unquestioned belonging. It’s also a real place filled with what’s most familiar to us—that is, the things…
4 min read
-
One Battle After Another (2025)
At first glance, Bob Ferguson and Daniel Plainview, the protagonists of PTA’s One Battle After Another and There Will Be Blood, respectively, seem to be opposites. Bob is…
4 min read
-
On political violence
Conservative political organizer Charlie Kirk was killed last week. The internet is afire with fury and blame, and there’s a real risk that tensions could spiral out of…
4 min read
-
Martyr!, Akbar (2024)
Every fifty pages or so, I asked myself if I wanted to keep going. For most of its length, Martyr! is perched, maddeningly, just between intriguing and clumsy.…
4 min read
-
A Fortunate Man, Berger & Mohr (1967)
A Fortunate Man is a striking book, made more so by the fact that the country doctor John Eskell (“Sassall” in the text) killed himself fifteen years late…
4 min read
