Matthew Barney, Zhang Huan, and many more...

INTERVIEWS

American Trilogist: An Interview with Kenneth Goldsmith
Interviewed by Kareem Estefan
Acclaimed conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of numerous works of “uncreative writing”—books that record quotidian events or transcribe unliterary texts to reveal permutations in the language and achieve a kind of sculpted beauty.

Surviving the Wolverines: An Interview with Stephen Graham Jones
Interviewed by Gavin Pate
Stephen Graham Jones' great sympathy for his characters is filtered through the everyday detritus of contemporary American life, and the result is a picture that is frightening, hilarious, and all its own.

FEATURES

Seductive Notebooks: Paul Auster’s 21st-Century Fiction
Reviewed by Dennis Barone
In Auster’s post-2001 writing, protagonists have gone from being hunger artists to ill artists, and instead of the fluidity of identity that characterized the earlier fiction, the recovery of identity has become paramount.

REVIEWS: FICTION

Super Cell Anemia
Duncan B. Barlow
Through first-person journal entries, third-person narrative, and the occasional tract of modern anthroposophy, Super Cell Anemia offers a wide-ranging jaunt into a gnarly and somewhat schizophrenic urban universe. Reviewed by Christopher Lura

Girl Factory
Jim Krusoe
Krusoe’s fictional landscape is a world dictated by pure chance, where oddness is the norm, and where the strip-mall blandness of American suburban life is rendered hilariously surreal and violent. Reviewed by Michael Jauchen

Geek Mafia
& Geek Mafia: Mile Zero
Rick Dakan
The geek grifters of Dakan’s crime fantasy novels are anarchists, or claim to be, interested in causing chaos and making money. Reviewed by Spencer Dew

Unlucky Lucky Days
Daniel Grandbois
In his debut assortment of fabulist flash fiction, Grandbois delights us in small, with his chiseled prismatic shards. Reviewed by John Domini

America America
Ethan Canin
Canin offers a compelling story in the Iowa style—reading this novel is like sitting down with an articulate old timer and listening to him talk until the pot of coffee runs out. Reviewed by Luke Finsaas

The Lazarus Project
Aleksandar Hemon
Hemon expertly interlaces the narratives of two people effected by the brutal murder of Lazarus Averbuch in turn-of-the-century America. Reviewed by Salvatore Ruggiero

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

The Letters of John Cowper Powys and Emma Goldman
Edited by David Goodway
This new addition to the Powys letters covers the period between 1936 and 1940, and brings to print the correspondence between these two fiery literary figures. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey

How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology
Edited by Zong-qi Cai
Implicit in the question "How to Read Chinese Poetry" is whether reading Chinese poetry is any different from reading non-Chinese poetry. Reviewed by Lucas Klein

George Oppen: Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers
Edited by Stephen Cope
Over a decade in the making, Cope's selection presents an in-depth presentation of Oppen processing the poetics behind his highly acclaimed poetry. Reviewed by Joseph Bradshaw

In Search of the Blues
Marybeth Hamilton
Hamilton provides a solid overview of the efforts of several individuals who dedicated their lives to recovering the lost folk music of African-Americans. Reviewed by Tim W. Brown

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad
Dan Kennedy
Imagine landing your dream job, only to realize that this job completely destroys and invalidates the dreams you once had. Kennedy recounts his hilarious journey to disillusionment. Reviewed by Ellen Frazel

REVIEWS: POETRY

The Collected Poems
C.P. Cavafy
& Selected Poems
Federico García Lorca
The Oxford World’s Classics series has been issuing some of the finest in world literature for over one hundred years; these two bilingual editions are no exception. Reviewed by John Cunningham

The Ghetto and Other Poems
Lola Ridge
This 1918 volume received critical acclaim and accolades from major poets, yet for decades her work has been overlooked until now as it is being brought back into print. Reviewed by Michael Aiken

The Floating Bridge
David Shumate
In his recent collection of prose poems, Shumate explores such diverse subjects as translation, amateur Zen masters, and Franz Kafka’s first date. Reviewed by Kristina Marie Darling

Your Country is Great: Afghanistan-Guyana
Ara Shirinyan
Shirinyan’s new volume of Flarf-esque poetry is a testament to the self-defeating potential of descriptive language. Reviewed by Katie Fowley

REVIEWS: GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite
Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá
Apocalypse Suite begins with a full-page illustration of a wrestling match between a human and a giant space-squid, setting both the time and the tone of this breathtaking story. Reviewed by Rudi Dornemann

Metronome
Veronique Tanaka
Tanaka isn’t interested in drawing as expression, but as an abstract visual music. Reviewed by Ken Chen

VACUM FALL FEATURE: ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

How To See A Work of Art in Total Darkness
Darby English
English investigates the limits of the proverbial American freedom in the work of five African American artists at the turn of the 21st-century. Reviewed by Christina Schmid

Driftless: Photographs from Iowa
Danny Wilcox Frazier
Frazier’s images endeavor to shed light on the people and places that mainstream media neglects to illustrate. Reviewed by Callie Clark-Wiren

Matthew Barney
Brandon Stosuy, Domenika Szope, Stephan Urbaschek, Matthew Barney
The primacy of the body as object—its fluctuations, trainability, aberrations, procreation, and death—is in a nutshell the Matthew Barney glass-bead game. Reviewed by Sean Smuda

Zhang Huan: Altered States
Edited by Melissa Chiu
Raw meat, blood, flies, nudity, animal hides, and ashes have made appearances in Zhang Huan's brutally confrontational and cathartic performances and sculptures. Reviewed by Carmen Tomfohrde