A Graphic Novel with text by Paul Kupperberg et al, illustrations by Pat Kennedy, Paul Kennedy and Fernando Ruiz, reviewed by Natalie Pendergast THE DEATH OF ARCHIE: A LIFE CELEBRATED (Archie Comic Publications, Inc.) The Death of Archie: A Life…
CONQUISTADOR OF THE USELESS
by Joshua Isard
Cinco Puntos Press, 249 pages
reviewed by Jon Busch
Joshua Isard’s Conquistador of the Useless is a novel of vertices, exploring the terrain of transitions, where cultural ethos and personal identity evolve in phase. It is this vague middle ground, the no-man’s-land between good ol’ days and dreary futures, where our protagonist Nathan Wavelsky traverses in apathetic strides. The use of this structure manifests in an insightful and poignant exploration of meaning and meaninglessness in contemporary life. What does it mean to live outside the narrative arc?
The novel opens with Nathan and his wife Lisa moving out of the city of Philadelphia and into the suburbs. The move marks a return to the land of his childhood and the end of his rebellious twenties. But Nathan isn’t home in either world. He is neither young nor old, urban nor suburban. The era of his young adulthood has concluded and the shifting cultural tide presents him with the uncomfortable truth that all of his once grandiose, youthful angst has accomplished nothing—the experiences which once felt unique and infused with importance were, in fact, no more than the standard benchmarks of growth that all young people pass.
AUGUSTUS
by John Williams
NYRB Books, 305 pages
reviewed by Ana Schwartz
“Notable Romans”
Those who studied Latin in high school or college might recognize the feeling with which Georg Lukacs introduces his Theory of the Novel. Although the book was published a century ago, it still holds valuable insight into the pleasures of reading. In the introductory sentences he describes those happy ages when the world and self were each visible with sharp distinction. Discrete they were, but also intimately familiar to each other. Lukacs’ framework is present in the first lists of Latin vocabulary; these collections of words alert contemporary readers to a world in which a word meant itself and at the same time more than itself. For example, ferro—iron—could denote the reliable metal; it could metonymically represent a sword made out of iron; and it could metaphorically represent any object of potentially harmful strength. These vocabulary lists imply a world in which such figures were useful, a world in which they could and would be deployed with practiced subtlety, perhaps in response to iron-willed violence.
Fiction by Kathryn Davis, reviewed by Claire Rudy Foster DUPLEX (Graywolf Press) “It is not wise to break the rules until you know how to observe them,” said T.S. Eliot. Author Kathryn Davis has taken the aphorism to heart.In her…
Fiction by Antal Szerb, translated by Len Rix, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin JOURNEY BY MOONLIGHT (New York Review Books) I don’t mind observing that as a child I reveled in erotic games, secret afternoons and evenings of play at sex…
Poetry by Anthony McCann, reviewed by Matthew Girolami THING MUSIC (Wave Books) Anthony McCann’s newest collection, Thing Music, is not unlike a player piano, only instead of standards it plays John Cage or even Merzbow. That is to say, that…
Fiction by Milena Michiko Flašar, translated by Sheila Dickie, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin I CALLED HIM NECKTIE (New Vessel Press) A novel can fly across time and space or it can burrow, it can seek out, hide from itself, emerge…
Poetry by Martha Baillie, reviewed by Jamie Fisher THE SEARCH FOR HEINRICH SCHLÖGEL (Tin House Books) “ERRATICA” Think fast! ____’s fourth novel navigates the tension between fact and fiction, readership and voyeurism, the impersonality of the archive, and the personal…
Fiction by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by Stacey Knecht, reviewed by Michelle E. Crouch HARLEQUIN’S MILLIONS (Archipelago Books) and Fiction by Marjana Gaponenko, translated by Arabella Spencer, reviewed by Michelle E. Crouch WHO IS MARTHA? (New Vessel Press) We had grown…
Poetry by Lissa Kiernan, reviewed by Carlo Matos TWO FAINT LINES IN THE VIOLET (Negative Capability Press) Lissa Kiernan’s debut collection radiates, burns, and fluoresces like uranium glass, like a “bed of plutonium nightlights.” Many of the poems, especially in the…
Fiction by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin OUR LADY OF THE NILE (Archipelago Books) This is how Scholastique Mukasonga’s Our Lady of the Nile ends, in 1979: You remember what they used…
Poetry by Marybeth Rua-Larsen, reviewed by Shinelle Espaillat NOTHING IN BETWEEN (Barefoot Muse Press) Fairy tales often have at least two versions: the Disney translations, in which everyone signs and good guys have perfect teeth, and the Grimm incarnations, which…
Brian CliftonOFFICE SUPPLIES In the back, a Formica table waits on off-white industrial tile. We clock- out, pull paperclips from our throats: purple ones, yellow ones, metallic, pink. Our mouths never seem satisfied. We cough them up enough in jagged…
Robert PulwerTHE CONVERSATION “Are you an anti-Semite?” I looked up from my mother’s crumbling copy of Journey to the End of the Night, which I had pilfered during my last visit home. I was so shocked to hear that someone…
Shannon SweetnamMACARONS We were in the Clotted Cow when we got the call. “I found four thermometers, but they’re all rectal,” Dad shouted over the phone. “Rectal?” I asked, as I licked buttercream frosting off my fingers. “What do you…
Chila WoychikWHAT THE CLOUDS BRING Five years ago, the eastern part of this state was submerged—a Midwestern Katrina. Waters from a snowy winter mixed with an especially rainy spring and ran down our rivers, the Mississippi, the Iowa, the Cedar,…
Anthony CuneoTHIRTEEN MUSINGS AROUND MY CREATIVE PROCESS [slideshow_deploy id=’12332′] I I’m a big fan of uncertainty. I wish to God that the Nazis had been less certain that Jews were vermin. Not knowing you’re doing it right is a good…
Alicia L. GleasonDEADBOLT I always end up back at the apartment on 12th street. We moved in on a dim Saturday morning. Remember how you found that kinked key in the cabinet beneath the sink? A key someone before us…
Tony TracyFEIGN & CUT Indian summer a shroud of humidity that hangs in the form of crystalline vapor over the striped field. Flaming sun falling backside, burning from a ridge of distant pine. Its ruby trajectory caught in a canvas…
Emily Steinberg: Introduction by Tahneer OksmanBROKEN EGGS: A Visual Narrative To read Emily Steinberg’s autobiographical visual narrative, Broken Eggs, a set of sixty-seven images accompanied by sprawling text and recounting her struggles with infertility, is to witness a series of concurrent, sometimes…
You are so far south I keep
looking down at my thumb.
Written on the wrinkled skin
just below the joint
the neon blue veins fan out
flashing the name Utopia.
...read more
Caleb MurrayMETEMPSYCHOSIS John Henry made circles with his bare feet on the carpet. The overhead light was on a fader, which was set low and gave the room an almost hazy affect. Against one wall was a purple couch, its…
Luke StrombergWHEN I SLEEP, I DREAM OF TSUNAMIS I’m walking down Main Street when a blue and strangely beautiful tidal wave rises in the distance, reaching high over roof tops. It’s the sound of wind, of water gathering force that…
Kelly Ann JacobsonRAVEN IN THE GRASS A single blade of grass. Long and thin, streaked like the drag of paint left behind by a brush. A singular shade of green, like the color of nothing except itself. Among others it…
J. Scott BugherTHE BANK LET MY DAD GO I’m alone in a projector booth, dressed in denim and sweat, prying open tin canisters, reels of nitrate film. Tonight’s a double feature, and I’ve been left holding the bag again. Two…
Alli KatzCATS “If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.” —Mark Twain [slideshow_deploy id=’12378′] Mark Twain never met my cat. Five…
Glen ArmstrongTHE LEMON POEM He said “lemon” over and over. Lemon. Lemon. Lemon. Until the word was just a can of creamed lemon. The radio played a marathon of lemon songs. All over the city a million plastic boxes sang…
Kevin ToscaTHE INGREDIENTS OF DOG FOOD Each night my father dipped two fingers into meat and sauce and then passed that wet present down to Django’s drooling mouth. It was no secret. I saw. My mother saw. My father wasn’t…
Merilyn JacksonOYSTERS I am licking the insides of the oyster shells embedded in salt on a plate black as your angry eyes like your love, cooling rapidly as lava. Forgive me. It reminds me of how much I want to…
Jan-Erik AsplundEMILY Desire not the night, for that is when people will be destroyed. Or perhaps: to drag people away from their homes. Or maybe: when people vanish in their place. (Job 36:20), variations The speed was a natural solution…
Karla CorderoMIKEY COMES HOME When I was eight my father told me Mikey our pet turtle ran away from home. I dusted the aquarium for fingerprints. Made reward posters out of construction paper and outlined Mikey’s smile with jungle green…
Dan EncarnacionLENITIVE MAN: from “Hominids” (1) ..the quality or condition of being tortuous;….twistedness, ..crookedness, sinuosity; an instance of this — (2)…figuratively mental … .. .. … … or moral crookedness — (3)..an instance of this; or something……………. ……………that exemplifies it, a twisted…
Marc LabriolaCUTMAN If the needle swung from side to side, it would be a girl. If the needle swung in circles, a boy. Lailah’s three sisters lay her laughing in Ben’s arms as her mother dangled the needle above her…
Julie KearneySUNDAY IN VENICE The alleyway was paved with humped dark stones like so many dead or hibernating turtles. On either side of these stones, walls leprous with peeling plaster inclined inwards towards a sliver of grey sky. The man…
CircusMAGIC TRICK He presses the deck of cards into her hands and says: Shuffle. As you shuffle, think about all the cards in the deck. Concentrate on a single card, but don’t choose one, just hand the deck back to…
Peter BeckMAINE FARM Maine I. Four Season Farm, June. When I first started farming I thought I’d eat well, but the truth is no one eats worse than a young farmer. After a full day of pulling weeds, the last…
Beth SeetchMISS TORRES WOKE US EARLY Just before a) Death We sleep upside-down, toes at bed’s head, pajama seams chafing our buttons tender unless we remember to turn them inside-out and put cold spoons under our pillows. Walking slow in…
Deborah PurdyLAB CHILD THEOREM Automatic habit like a rifle, pistol or pilot, the beach doll hermit told him to hold the bracelet, the bracelet told him to blame the rich hotel, the cloth heir, the rambling hot chili. He touched…
Darren C. DemareeTWO POEMS I. EMILY AS A GRAND ASSUMPTION Tide & fog, the shore lines up like an army, slow to defeat, powerful with neat tongues tucked in to avoid the swallow of salt. It’s not a defense when…
João CerqueiraMAGDALENE’S DREAM That night Magdalene dreamt about Jesus. She was wearing a green overall and gloves, her hair was protected by a plastic cap, and a mask covered her mouth. She was in a large laboratory, looking through the…
Nancy AgatiNOTICING WATER: Public Art As you travel along the river—any river, stream, creek or body of water—what do you notice? Do you see the changing currents, the light that bounces and travels from wave to wave? Do you feel…
“Space and Time” was named a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2015 Amelia FowlerSPACE AND TIME 1. Since very early childhood, I have had a recurring dream of a white room so bright it is dimensionless, boundaries of…
Andrea RothmanLITTLE FEATHERS The bird lay shivering on the lawn, their faces reflected dark and alien in his button eye. The other eye, the one on the left side of his head, was shut, or possibly gone. A clot of…
Thomas DevaneyPHOTOBOOTH Black-and-white film is instant toner for Americans and their famous tans, our fantasy faces, free of talent and a free shot. What summer looks like when the sound is on: bronzed, burnt, black, and red. Just look at…
Steven Anthony GeorgeLE PAIN D’AFFLICTION The piercing, relentless buzz rises and falls in pitch. It starts and stops for only a moment, before resuming again near the upper corner. I have been cared for in this same room for nineteen…
Stephen PerloffTHE TIMES, THEY WERE A-CHANGIN’ – West Philly Days: A Photo Essay [slideshow_deploy id=’12401′] When I arrived at the University of Pennsylvania as a freshman in 1966, men were required to wear jackets and neckties to dinner—and most of…
Carly EathorneMAKING EGGS A thousand ways to make an egg, and I’m attempting one: over-easy. But there past the blotches on my kitchen window gleams the hourglass on the belly of the black widow – she, too, is making eggs.…
Madeline ZehnderTHE TASTE OF OTHERS She walks gingerly toward the man chopping onions, who turns but does not shake her hand. Later she will learn this was politeness; right now she thinks he is rude. He criticizes the oil she…
Amber Officer-NarvasaBORDERLAND The rainwater dripped lasciviously—as rainwater in New York will do—through the sidewalk gratings and down through the mottled, cracked, brown-stained ceilings of the Grand Street subway station. He was standing near the MetroCard machines, begging. Good writers, so…
Sue GranzellaBEAUTIFUL UGLY The temperature outside was 107, but it was hotter where I was that day in 1989, bouncing around with three friends in a dilapidated bus bound for Chihuahua, Mexico. Air-conditioning on this journey was simple: wrench the…