Three mini reviews from the 746
No 442 Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
Dear Committee Members contains two of my favourite literary tropes, mixing a hint of the campus novel with an epistolary structure. The novel is a hilarious mix of irascibility, disillusionment, and frustration, narrated in the form of a years worth of letters of recommendation from one Jason Fitger, a harried professor of creative writing and…
No 445 You Are Not A Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
You Are Not A Stranger Here was Adam Haslett’s debut, written in his early twenties while he was studying law at Yale. For a debut, the maturity and complexity on display here is impressive, coupled with a sensitive and intelligent handling of difficult subjects. Haslett doesn’t put a foot wrong across these nine stories, which…
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My Favourite Books of 2020!
A Blogversary and the year when Everything Is Going to be Alright!
No 448 The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
I reviewed Attica Locke’s debut novel Black Water Rising back in 2014 and wasn’t particularly impressed at the time. The Cutting Season, her second novel is a more accomplished and enjoyable crime novel. Almost all the action of The Cutting Season takes place in a historic Louisiana mansion called Belle Vie, once a working sugar…
No 449 Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
Homer and Langley by E L Doctorow is a moving and elegiac novel, based on the real life Collyer brothers. The Collyers were wealthy New York bachelors who lived a reclusive life together in their four-story brownstone in New York. They were compulsive hoarders of all kinds of useless items and were found dead, buried…
No 450 Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico by Javier Marías
I read Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico by Javier Marías and translated by Esther Allen, as part of Novellas in November, but am only getting around to reviewing this little gem now. Coming in at a mere 56 pages, Bad Nature is one of those books that is perfectly formed but you wish…
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No 468 One by One in the Darkness by Deirdre Madden
It just goes to show that in this small country nearly every family has undergone a loss. Even minor psychological scars run as deep here as bullet holes but, without them, our writing would not have its passion and depth. Northern Irish writer Rosemary Jenkinson in The Irish Times One by One in the Darkness…
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