INTERVIEWS:

Multiplicity: An Interview with Ian Hatcher
A digital and print explorer of poetic subjects, Ian Hatcher here discusses the challenges of expressing the complexities of human existence.
Interviewed by Steven Wingate

The Problem with the Future: An Interview with Alexander Weinstein
Award-winning author Alexander Weinstein talks about his new collection of short stories and the challenges of viewing humanity through the prism of an increasingly digitized world.
Interviewed by Garry Craig Powell

FEATURES:

Self Interview in the form of Passages
from Islands of the Mad and A Monster's Notes
In this polyvocal piece, author Laurie Sheck explores the porous, unstable, partly mute, and multiple selves that combine to create a perceived reality to others via the characters of her books.
by Laurie Sheck

Backlist Feature:

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
Thomas Ligotti
Author and horror auteur Thomas Ligotti’s only non-fiction book is an amalgamation of philosophy, literature, and scientific research relating to pessimism. Reviewed by Matthew McGuire

Video Feature:

Snakes and Such: the Work of a Naturalist
Assigned to review Ted Levin’s America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake, our intrepid reviewer Michael Swingen instead made a 30-minute film about the book, the author, and the process of reviewing.
Written/Reviewed by Michael Swingen, Directed by Paul Hoplin

CHAPBOOK REVIEWS:

3 Arabi Song
Zeina Hashem Beck
Beck, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, writes complex poetry about her Arab culture—verse rich in detail and metaphor. Reviewed by George Longenecker

POETRY REVIEWS:

Shingle Street
Blake Morrison
From our first step on Shingle Street we feel the shifting terrain in Blake Morrison’s potent collection. Reviewed by Jane Baston

Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry
Selected and Translated by Paul Blackburn
Edited by George Economou
Begun as a Master’s thesis, Paul Blackburn’s Proensa blossomed to represent thirty poets of the troubadour tradition. Reviewed by Erik Noonan

Magpiety: New and Selected Poems
Melissa Green
The poems in Magpiety disclose Green’s communion with the changing seasons, the flora and fauna of the Massachusetts woods, and the swift current of rivers there. Reviewed by M. Lock Swingen

Only More So
Millicent Borges Accardi
In this challenging and rewarding book, the poet births grotesque monsters to awaken her audience, and then coaxes them to sleep with remnants of a song.
Reviewed by Rachel Slotnick

100 Chinese Silences
Timothy Yu
Yu takes on the poetry elite with his parodic poems, prompting a debate about cultural appropriation. Reviewed by John Bradley

FICTION REVIEWS:

Air
Jorge Armenteros
Craving escape from a stifling relationship, a perfumery student stumbles into lodging at a “fourth class hotel” run by a man who hasn’t changed his shirt—or left the site—in years. Reviewed by Lacy Arnett Mayberry

Marketa Lazarová
Vladislav Vančura
Novelist and filmmaker Vančura’s cinematic story of strong men jostling for supremacy is a revealing portrait of post-WWI 1930s Czechoslovakia. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey

Whiskey, Etc.
Sherrie Flick
Flick’s recent collection of short stories focuses on the pulse of waiting for something, of having that slight weight in your chest and helium in your head. Reviewed by Erin Lewenauer

Native Believer
Ali Eteraz
Pakistani-Dominican immigrant author Eteraz debates what America is in this brilliant and haunting post-9/11 satire. Reviewed by Julia Stein

Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador
Horacio Castellanos Moya
Translated into English nineteen years after its first publication, Salvadoran author Castellanos Moya’s novel ridicules intolerance and brutality. Reviewed by Erik Noonan

NONFICTION REVIEWS:

Why Love Leads to Justice: Love Across Boundaries
David A. J. Richards
In a book both erudite and heartfelt, law professor David A. J. Richards focuses on the poisonous idea of patriarchy as told through the lives of great artists. Reviewed by Brian Gilmore

Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism
Philippe Soupault
This brief memoir of artistic creativity and incendiary intellectual revolt appeared in France in 1963, but it has only now been translated into English. Reviewed by John Toren

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing of America
Patrick Phillips
This book is as much a memoir as it is a history of one particularly horrific and neglected case study of America's racist past. Reviewed by Spencer Dew

Play All: A Bingewatcher’s Notebook
Clive James
Cultural critic Clive James writes perceptively on some of the most influential and popular television series of the last twenty years. Reviewed by Mark Dunbar

Augustine: Conversions to Confessions
Robin Lane Fox
This informative, highly scholarly, and voluminous study of the great Christian thinker of the third century AD is also a history of Augustine’s times. Reviewed by Douglas Messerli