Incarnadine, by Mary Szybist. Graywolf Press, 2013. $15.00, 80 pages.
“I’m not religious, I’m spiritual”—at long last, the eye-roll inducing mantra is granted explanation and elegance in Mary Szybist’s second collection of poetry. “Incarnadine” is a word whose Latin …
Standing Still in a Concrete Jungle, by Justin Nobel. Zoom Books, 2012. $12.00, 105 pages.
Justin Nobel’s autobiographical psycho-geography of New York is at turns disciplined and whimsical, insightful and playful. Structured around eleven site-specific observations or reflections, the …
All Decent Animals, by Oonya Kempadoo. FSG, 2013. $26, 272 pages.
During Carnival in Port of Spain, with loud Mama look a boo-boo tin pan, rum in everyone, close friends throw answers back and forth to the question: Where …
Speech Begins after Death, by Michel Foucault (in conversation with Claude Bonnefoy). Ed. Philippe Artières. Trans. Robert Bononno. University of Minnesota Press, 2013. $24.95, 96 pages.
In this small, short, and entirely arresting book, the reader gets a brief …
The Listeners, by Leni Zumas. Tin House Books, 2012. $15.95, 352 pages.
In Leni Zumas’ debut novel, The Listeners, the narrator Quinn suffers the loss of her older sister—shot in her sleep after they switched places in a shared …
Contents May Have Shifted, by Pam Houston. Norton, 2012. $25.95, 303 pages.
I have been reading a lot of contemporary literature lately about helpless women. Women trapped in unhappy marriages, women in psych wards, women exploring their sexuality to …
Where the West Ends, by Michael Totten. CreateSpace, 2012. $19.95, 282 pages.
Where the West Ends is a collection of travel essays by the foreign correspondent and policy analyst Michael Totten, whose journeys here span thirteen countries. At times, …
Murder Ballad, by Jane Springer. Alice James Books, 2012. $15.95, 80 pages.
Billie Holiday presides over Jane Springer’s Murder Ballad, winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award. It’s not the public radio cliché of the flower-wearing chanteuse that shadows …
What We Ask of Flesh, by Remica Bingham. Etruscan Press, 2013. $14.00, 85 pages.
When we think of flesh, we think of the body, yet Remica Bingham asks us to reconsider the singularity of such an initial image. What …
The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, by Rebecca McClanahan. University of Georgia Press, 2012. $19.95, 192 pages.
The Riddle Song, first published by the University of Georgia Press in 2002, was reissued in paperback in 2012. The title, as …