INTERVIEWS

The Hole of Hypocrisy: A Conversation with Kent Johnson on the U.S. “Avant-Garde” and Other Fictions
Gadfly Johnson sheds light on the hypocrisies of American life, but his new book is an lyrical memoir about his meetings with poets over the course of his life. Interviewed By Michael Boughn

American Death Poems: An Interview with Scott Alexander Jones
Jones’s poems emanate from a Zen-inspired awareness of the ephemerality and absurdity of existence.
Interviewed by Shane Joaquin Jimenez

Vietnam Today: An Interview with novelist David Joiner
With its complicated cast of characters and evocative settings, Joiner’s debut book Lotusland is likely the most vivid novel set in post-colonial Southeast Asia that contemporary readers will encounter. Interviewed by Garry Craig Powell

POETRY REVIEWS

Expect Delays
Bill Berkson
Berkson’s new wide-ranging collection includes Dante-inspired cantos, New York School-style prose, and excerpts from his diary. Reviewed by Joshua Preston

The Land Has Its Say
Henry Lyman
Lyman’s poems consider the past and our connection to it, those traces of others passing through before us, whose “footprints” we inhabit. Reviewed by Rebecca Hart Olander

Made in Detroit
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy’s poems are richly layered with imagery inspired by her childhood and city—descriptive, sensual, and deeply personal. Reviewed by George Longenecker

gentlessness
Dan Beachy-Quick
In his latest collection of poems, Beachy-Quick summons the voices of the past in order to reanimate them in all their originary power. Reviewed by M. Lock Swingen

Mr. West
Sarah Blake
Through poetry, Kanye West is viewed from an angle that is both personal and public. Reviewed by Will Randick

The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony
Ladan Osman
Osman’s award-winning poems reflect an insatiable desire to understand, ask questions, and demand answers. Reviewed by Wesley Rothman

The Late Poems of Wang An-Shih
Wang An-Shih
While Wang An-Shi is better known for his Sung Dynasty populist political reforms, he was also a nature poet. Reviewed by John Bradley

Confluence
Sandra Marchetti
In her debut collection, Marchetti touches on confluences of all kinds, between aesthetic styles, lovers, and the sensual and spiritual. Reviewed by Heidi Czerwiec

MIXED GENRE:

Let Me Tell You
Shirley Jackson
This third posthumous collection of Jackson’s previously uncollected or unpublished work compiled by her family members includes short fiction, personal essays, reviews, and family anecdotes, and lectures on writing. Reviewed by Rob Kirby

FICTION REVIEWS

Burning Down George Orwell’s House
Andrew Ervin
Ervin’s angsty debut novel comes to readers ingeniously wrapped in a travelogue. Reviewed By Tina Karelson

The Anchoress
Robyn Cadwallader
While much of Cadwallader’s debut novel takes place in a single room, the scope of the work is sweeping and provocative. Reviewed By Nicola Koh

Jeremiah's Ghost
Isaac Constantine
In this debut novel, the titular ghost bounces through time and place, unraveling the threads of his young life and searching for a meaningful way to sew them back together. Reviewed by Jason Bock

The Guilty
Juan Villoro
Mexican author Juan Villoro’s short story collection is hilarious and wildly absurd, and now we can enjoy an English translation of it. Reviewed by Peter Grandbois

Loving Day
Mat Johnson
Johnson’s latest protagonist struggles with his mixed-race heritage in this semi-surreal and humorous novel. Reviewed by Elizabeth Tannen

Before and During
Vladimir Sharov
This Russian novel confronts big philosophical questions of death and memory, and justifies Sharov’s place in the Russian literary canon. Reviewed by Lori Feathers

Please Talk to Me
Liliana Heker
An award-winning Argentinian author writes of casual moments turned momentous in her recently translated short story collection. Reviewed by Jackie Trytten

Your Face in Mine
Jess Row
This multifaceted fiction accomplishes many things, among them a prescient commentary on racism echoed in contemporary news. Reviewed by Douglas Messerli

The Discreet Hero
Mario Vargas Llosa
Vargas Llosa’s new novel revisits characters and settings from previous books, with underwhelming results. Reviewed by Ed Taylor

COMICS REVIEWS

Two by Dylan Horrocks:
Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen and Incomplete Works
If you want to read a masterful meta-comicbook, go no further than those devised by the endlessly creative mastermind of Dylan Horrocks. Reviewed by Stephen Burt

NONFICTION REVIEWS

Writers to Read: Nine Names that Belong on Your Bookshelf
Douglas Wilson
A recommended reading list by conservative theologian Douglas Wilson, Writers to Read isn’t very revealing—except, that is, when it doesn’t intend to be. Reviewed by Mark Dunbar

Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre
Edited by Joshua Marie Wilkinson
It’s high time that we had a book of essays on Anne Carson, one of our most important and anomalous writers. Reviewed by Mark Gustafson

A Philosophy of Walking
Frédéric Gros
The French philosopher presents insightful essays on the phenomenon of putting one foot in front of the other. Reviewed by John Toren

The Folded Clock: A Diary
Heidi Julavits
This luminous piece of life-writing creates a complex composite portrait of the consciousness that persists amid “soup spills and dirty dishes.” Reviewed by Lindsay Gail Gibson

Mot, A Memoir
Sarah Einstein
A breathtakingly beautiful read, Einstein tells a unique and compelling story. Reviewed by Renée E. D’Aoust

CHAPBOOK REVIEWS

Homage to LeRoi Jones and Other Early Works
Kathy Acker
This chapbook collects some early work from the Acker archive at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Books & Manuscript Library at Duke University, and should stand as the first of many “new,” posthumous collections of Acker’s work from that source. Reviewed by Spencer Dew

Leaving Leaving Behind Behind
Inger Wold Lund
The author, a Norwegian living in Berlin, wrote this chapbook of poems in English in the form of a day-book, offering a doubleness of language. Reviewed by Tova Gannana