Nicole GreavesTWO POEMS Sack of Scarabs The museum’s glass box was hidden from light in between the hopeful columns, the scarabs swarming in a pool of cloth. Somehow they made the presence of my mother’s body more familiar, in the…
Morgan GilbreathTHE GROUND BENEATH MY FEET My artwork is a product of the ground beneath my feet. I do not own a car, so my experience of a place is created entirely through biking, walking, and the occasional use of…
Michael NagelAMERICA The world was churning itself clean. The poisons in the rivers were becoming poisons in the seas. The poisons in the seas were basically harmless, diluted. Rain was moving in cycles, making laps between the ground and the…
Maggie LightQUITTER TAKES ALL A review? In the Times? Impossible. It’s an Off-Off-Broadway. Two offs. And Beth is only sixteen. Yet Cedric Plum’s judgment, the judgment, is seven paragraphs and in her sunburned hands. But why now? Weeks after her…
Lydia PudzianowskiGHOST STORY “Were you looking for ghosts?” The police officer inspected the three of us—twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three years old. There was no way we could tell him the truth. Earlier that afternoon we’d passed my hardcover copy of…
Filip NoterdaemeAMERICAN ARCADIA Spicing up realist landscapes with fantastic nudes and infiltrating austere family tableaux with whimsical eroticism, American Arcadia is a mixed distillation of artful irreverence and subtle mischief. Here is the story of its making. In 2005, my partner Daniel…
Julia HoganREMNANTS The day my father’s friend, Wade, tried to build us a screened-in porch on the front of our house was the day my mother decided to move out. Wade made his living by selling muscadine grapes and handmade…
S. I. AdamsPESANTE CON MOTO/ALLEGRO BARBARO Street signs reflect neon blinks on and off and on and back from the turn signal click-resting-pause between inhales drawn shallow between chapped lips and flaky nostrils. “East” – off – “East” – off…
Bonnie AltucherBOBBY FEAR When Bridget was sixteen, she met a sardonically mumbling School of Visual Arts dropout named Robert Fein while they were both browsing for cheap shoes on Eighth Street. Robert was too bug-eyed and slight to be handsome,…
John Michael MummeON (AND OFF) CONSISTENCY Objective Statement: For the last two years, I worked as a Staff Assistant for the Career Services office at Cedarville University. My job was to review résumés. A student comes in for a peer…
Lauren Guza BrownQUINTESSENCE In the desert, the day after Thanksgiving, a physicist friend told me I would find what we were seeing, sandstone walls mottled and cragged like giant seahorse forests, in a Hamlet soliloquy. Quintessence, he said, that’s what…
Mercedes LawryTWO FLASH PIECES Puzzling The baby ate one of the puzzle pieces, a little bitty piece. He never choked or even coughed. The piece was cardboard and mostly blue sky with just a smidgen of white cloud. Its shape…
Poetry by B.C. Edwards, reviewed by Shinelle L. Espaillat THE AVERSIVE CLAUSE (Black Lawrence Press) B.C. Edwards’s short story collection, The Aversive Clause, alternates between gentle poignancy and visceral revelation, often within the same story. To read his work is…
CALLING DR LAURA
By Nicole J Georges
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 260 pages
reviewed by Amelia Moulis
Nicole J Georges’ Calling Dr Laura, is an acerbic and intelligent addition to the graphic memoirs of 2013. It catalogues Georges’ troubled upbringing and her subsequent quest for love and stability in her relationships, and indeed her life at large. Georges enters this story through her first girlfriend, who takes Georges to a psychic, inadvertently uncovering a deep family secret: the psychic insists that Georges’ father – whom she was told died of colon cancer when she was a baby – is in fact alive. Although this is the ‘hook’ of the story, it is important to emphasize that this is actually not the driving force behind the storyline. It takes many years for Georges to share this information with anyone, let alone confront her mom about it. In the meantime, Georges meanders between cross-sections of her mom’s abusive relationships, the string of ‘father figures’ shaping her upbringing, Georges’ own inability to process stress and emotion, her struggle to establish a family, and the faulty dynamics of her lesbian relationships. But underneath this is the constant tension of when, or if, Georges can confront her mother about her sexuality and the circumstances of her father’s absence from her life.
Nonfiction by Beth Kephart, reviewed by Stephanie Trott HANDLING THE TRUTH: ON THE WRITING OF MEMOIR (Gotham Books) It is a rainy Tuesday in January and I lace up the new cherry-red boots before heading out the door of my…
CARTOON COLLEGE (video documentary)
by Josh Melrod and Tara Wray
L. B. Thunderpony Home Entertainment, 76 minutes
reviewed by Amy Victoria Blakemore
Within moments of its bare opening, I already liked Cartoon College. When I reached chapter three of the documentary—which dubbed comics “better than sandwiches”—I knew that I loved it.
Josh Melrod and Tara Wray keep the first shot simple: the camera shows a man’s back as he rummages through old drawings. We are not coddled by music meant to make us feel happy-go-lucky or sentimental. This meditative simplicity populates the entire film, allowing viewers what feels like a filmic rarity: the ability to listen to a human voice with only that voice for guidance.
A Novel by Adelle Waldman, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P. (Henry Holt) Suburban Mid-Atlantic childhood. Check. Journalist. Check. Book reviewer. Check. Writing book review to keep from working on more substantial essay. Check. First novel…
Poetry by Stephen Kessler, reviewed by Kenna O’Rourke SCRATCH PEGASUS (Swan Scythe Press) Stephen Kessler’s agenda in the poetry of Scratch Pegasus would seem to be that of the artist in his poem “Hopper”: in an era where inscrutable conceptualism…
A Graphic Novel by Blutch, reviewed by Gabriel Chazan SO LONG, SILVER SCREEN (Picturebox) Every film is a ghost story. When we go to the theater, we see flickering images of things in the eternal past yet present which persistently…
Poetry by Charles Bernstein, reviewed by Mary Weston RECALCULATING (University of Chicago Press) Bringing to mind the now all-too familiar GPS phrase, Charles Bernstein’s latest collection of poetry, Recalculating, depicts a poet pulled in a number of different directions and…
A Novel by Rabee Jaber, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin THE MEHLIS REPORT (New Directions Paperbacks) At night, I dream the city; I dream Baldwin’s—and Capote’s—alluring New York at mid-century; I dream Pamuk’s melancholic Istanbul of…
Nonfiction by Martha P. Nochimson, reviewed by Chris Ludovici DAVID LYNCH SWERVES: UNCERTAINTY THROUGH LOST HIGHWAY TO INLAND EMPIRE (University of Texas Press) In David Lynch Swerves: Uncertainty Through Lost Highway to Inland Empire, Martha P. Nochimson presents a radical…
A Novel by César Aira, reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin THE HARE (New Directions Paperbacks) The writer César Aira has a charming trait (at least in the English language translations of his books published by New Directions): at the end of…
A Collection by Various Authors, reviewed by Ariel Diliberto RUST BELT RISING ALMANAC, Vol. 1 (The Head & The Hand Press) Rust Belt Rising Almanac presents a pastiche of short stories, poems, photographs and artwork. Collectively they form a fairly complete…
BARNABY VOL. 1
by Crockett Johnson
introduction by Chris Ware; Art direction by Daniel Clowes
Fantagraphics, 336 pages
reviewed by Travis DuBose
In his foreword to its first collected volume, Chris Ware compares Barnaby, Crockett Johnson's 1940s newspaper strip, to other early influential comics like Little Nemo, Krazy Kat and Peanuts. He goes on to say that Barnaby is “the last great comic strip,” a description that ends up being a little unfair to any first time readers of Barnaby: though there are moments of greatness in it, Volume One mostly points forward to the strip's potential, rather than showcasing Johnson's brilliance firsthand. This difficult start is consistent with the beginnings of other strips, even great ones: the ability to deliver a solid joke, every day, in three or four panels is mastered by very few and even fewer, if any, can do it consistently from the first strip. Barnaby, however, has one of the best rocky starts I've encountered in the medium, and its later greatness is well worth its early fumbles.
Crockett Johnson may not have the immediate name recognition of Charles Schulz or Bill Watterson, but his work is a mainstay of American childhoods: he authored Harold and the Purple Crayon and its sequels, and readers of the Harold books will recognize in Barnaby's protagonist, five year old Barnaby Baxter, the prototype of Harold. Additionally, there are several Barnaby strips featuring a half moon seen out the window over Barnaby's bed, the final, iconic image of the first Harold book. Harold readers will also recognize the art style: stark, bold lines over simple backgrounds that nonetheless show an impressive command of perspective and space.
Poetry by Monica Wendel, reviewed by Kenna O’Rourke NO APOCALYPSE (Georgetown Review Press) Monica Wendel makes every pretense of proving the veracity of her title, No Apocalypse, in her debut collection: as if responding to the question “What are some…
A Novella by Daniel Torday, reviewed by Michelle FostTHE SENSUALIST (Nouvella Books) I’ve been thinking a lot about how I am at once very connected to and disconnected from Germany, and I’ve been exploring this feeling in a novel I’m…
A Novel by Ariel Djanikian, reviewed by John Carroll THE OFFICE OF MERCY (Viking) I had the good fortune of reading Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood,and the Prison of Belief immediately before picking up Ariel Djanikian’s debut novel, The…
Poetry by Daisy Fried, reviewed by Shinelle L. Espaillat WOMEN’S POETRY: POEMS AND ADVICE (University of Pittsburgh Press) Daisy Fried’s new collection, Women’s Poetry: Poems and Advice, illuminates issues that are both specifically feminine (i.e. mother-daughter paradigms) and gender neutral…
A Graphic Narrative by Anders Nilsen, reviewed by Henry Steinberg THE END (Fantagraphics Books) The Humming Bird. The Condor. The Giant. The Hands. I hold your head in my hands and your heart in my heart and I look at…
A Novel by Filip Noterdaeme, reviewed by Michelle Fost THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DANIEL J. ISENGART (Outpost19) Because Gertrude Stein wished readers would pay more attention to the ambitious but largely unread work she considered her masterpiece, The Making of Americans,…
A Novel by Rachel Kushner, reviewed by Chris LudoviciTHE FLAMETHROWERS (Scribner) Early in Rachel Kushner’s occasionally frustrating but fascinating book The Flamethrowers, the protagonist sleeps with a man she’s only just met. She naively believes that her encounter with the…
A Graphic Novel by Ulli Lust, translated by Kim Thomson, reviewed by Tahneer OksmanTODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE (Fantagraphics Books) Note: Lust’s memoir was edited and translated into English by comics visionary Kim Thompson,…
A Novel by Nina Schuyler, reviewed by Nathaniel PopkinTHE TRANSLATOR (Pegasus Books) I noticed, earlier this week, that my friend Cristina Vezzaro had been posting on Facebook in Dutch. This shouldn’t have surprised me. Still, I wondered, “Have you added…
Poetry by Leonard Gontarek, reviewed by Brandon LafvingHE LOOKED BEYOND MY FAULTS AND SAW MY NEEDS (Hanging Loose Press) Reading John Ashbery’s early works in college, I remember begging the poetry to make a goddamn point. My yearnings for intellectual…
CARNIVAL
by Rawi Hage
Norton, 304 pages
Reviewed by Nathaniel Popkin
Fly, the narrator of Rawi Hage’s fabulist novel Carnival, released in the US on June 17, is a literature-obsessed taxi driver—and child of circus performers—who imagines himself a super-hero, avenging wrongs perpetrated on the vulnerable and the poor. Books—particularly the subversive kind—are his sword. One night, he picks up an arguing couple. The woman, Mary, is crying. Her husband berates her for her introverted, bookish ways. He wants some action. “I am tired of this, do you understand?” he says.
Fly flies into a rage, forces the husband out of the car, leaves him by the side of the road, and brings “sweet Mary” back to his book-stuffed apartment. “And she laughed and walked among the garden of books,” he says, “and then we took off our fig leaves and made love in the corner, where verses from heaven touched our bare, cracked asses that hopped and bounced like invading horses in the holy lands.”
A Graphic Narrative by Audrey Niffenegger, Reviewed by Amy Victoria BlakemoreRAVEN GIRL (Abrams ComicsArt) At eighty pages, Audrey Niffenegger’s Raven Girl goes by quickly. We meet two improbable lovers, who have an improbable child, who finds love in her own (you guessed…
A Novel by Ken Kalfus, reviewed by Chris LudoviciEQUILATERAL (Bloomsbury USA) At its core, Ken Kalfus’s Equilateral is about communication: communication between an empire and its subjects; between visionaries and those who finance that vision; between the people who plan…
A Novel by Beth Kephart, illustrated by William Sulit, reviewed by Michelle FostDR. RADWAY’S SARSAPARILLA RESOLVENT (New City Community Press) When I lived in Philadelphia, I sensed its history underfoot. One pleasure of Beth Kephart’s lively new historical Philadelphia novel…
Eric G. MüllerBICYCLES AND FROG RAIN My brother and I followed Dad to the double garage. We were about to get new bicycles – our first. Five years earlier in Basel, Switzerland, I’d loved whizzing through the neighborhood on my…
Kat CarlsonBABY PICTURES We are looking at pictures of my cousin’s new baby. My cousin is nineteen. I am thirty-two. My cousin is eight months pregnant with her second child. I’m on my period. Everyone agrees that yes, it would…
George DilaTHAT SUMMER That was the summer his partner of 54 years died, brain-stroked down to the old kitchen linoleum while he, sweating under a brutal July sun, weeded their half-acre garden. They had had their lunch, remnants of last…
Kathryn HellersteinMY WRITER’S BLOCK It depends how you define writer’s block, whether or not I am experiencing it at this very moment. At sunset yesterday, as I swam my laps, I thought through this essay and decided exactly how I…
Jenny Wales SteeleKEEP THE CHANGE Pizza boy. Howdy. Smug leer, velvet bathrobe. Wobble of warped vinyl, glint of mellow light on it, a diva panting towards a climax. Twelve fifty, sir. Thank you. Grazie. Keep the change, beautiful pizza boy. …
Mark LyonsTHE PLACE OF THE RED-FOOTED ROOSTER IN THE HIERARCHY OF SENTIENT BEINGS A story from the Eleventh Year of Emperor Bunsei (1829), based on a true event I am not famous, but my rooster is immortal. I am the…
Nathaniel Popkin“THE DIG” From LION AND LEOPARD (The Head and the Hand Press, October 2013) Charles Willson Peale, Belfield, November 24, 1818 I woke at half past four, drank two glasses of water, and with the wind in my eyes,…
Nissa LeeTWO POEMS BEFORE GOING OUT after a painting by Fuco Ueda I. About one in every 10,000 doe-eyed girls grow horns. These rare creatures enjoy drawing lines in the dirt and leaping over them for play. When thirsty, they…
Mike HarperI DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL SPONDYLOLISTHESIS Your numb legs were just like Granny’s in her iron lung, and you folded slowly onto yourself before they put you back like expensive origami. This was when I learned what an…
Chris LudoviciDAISY Rebecca Saunders was mean. She was the meanest girl in the fourth grade, the meanest girl in school, maybe the meanest girl ever. It wasn’t that Daisy wanted to think that way about Rebecca Saunders, or anyone else…
Roger LeatherwoodROLLING EMPTY Walking home from the theatre starting at 11:40 at night, I’d be 20 minutes out when I passed the hillsides and into the canyon with the single four-lane connecting the suburbs, through the open land and sky…