Category Archives: Contemporary

I’m tired of the news. I’m tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren’t, and deals so simplistically with what’s truly appalling. I’m tired of the vitriol. I’m tired of the anger. I’m tired of the meanness. I’m … Continue reading →

Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses first met in Introduction to Sketch class at the Ballister Art Institute, a school populated mostly by the wealthy. Mel and Sharon, with their rural poor origins, were out of place until they found each other and … Continue reading →

We pray. Not without ceasing, as Paul instructs, but often enough. On Sundays and Wednesdays, we gather in the prayer room and slip off jackets, leave shoes at the door and walk around in stocking feet, sliding a little like … Continue reading →

Mister Monkey is a terrible musical based on an inexplicably beloved children’s book. And the production at the center of this novel by Francine Prose is particularly bad. But the cast and crew try: They are in this together, everyone is … Continue reading →

I enjoyed Marcy Dermansky’s novel Bad Marie, with its deliciously bad main character. So I was excited to read her new book, which also promised a rebellious lady lead. But Leah is more aimless than outright bad, and although a lot of … Continue reading →

It’s Anne Tyler’s thing to write about families. I’m fairly sure if she set out to write about something else — water rights, for instance, in the Southwest — she’d wind up writing about the ranchers’ parents and grandparents and … Continue reading →

After finishing the Booker longlist, I decided to try a book that perhaps should have been on the longlist, so I turned to Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies, winner of the 2016 Bailey’s Prize. It turns out that it was published … Continue reading →