Once, when I was going home on a crowded New York City subway around ten or eleven pm, I sat across from a young woman and her son who was about three years old. He was eating from a small bag of Cheetos…

In the past few months I've been exploring autobiographical fiction, an oxymoron that is a legitimate category of literature. At my library, the Brooklyn Public, there are many titles listed as autofiction…

In the past few years there have been a spate of powerful novels that barely reach two hundred pages. I've discussed three of them here: Clear,…

In my last entry, I discussed Clear, the latest novel by the Welsh writer, Carys Davies. I was interested in how the author…

Clear, by the Welsh writer, Carys Davies is magnificent. Published in 2024, it is a short novel that brings together two middle aged Scottish men of different backgrounds and purpose and…

I always look forward to a new novel by Adam Haslett. I've been reading his fiction for years, and his latest novel, Mothers and Sons, like Imagine Me Gone (2016), and You…

A few years ago, I read my first Colum McCann novel, which I loved, and now, having finished his latest, Twist, I see similarities between the two that help clarify what I find compelling…

There are many things one could praise in this impressive and powerful collection: how the stories describe the many shapes love can take in our lives as well as the pressures it exerts, how the stories…

I was rereading one of my favorite novels, News of the World by Paulette Jiles, when I learned that she had just died. Her death is a great loss not only to me, but to all of her readers,…

This is a short, deceptively simple novel that delivers an expansive reading experience because it ends with the interesting question, what just happened? Narrated in the first person by a deeply introspective…