I’ve been seeing the phrase “start as you mean to go on” flying around a lot as we collectively, tentatively tiptoe into 2019. 2018 was an utter disaster for me, and although 2019 is better so far – touch would, knock on wood, hug wood – I’m afraid of jinxing myself. I can’t say that I’m glad I read Zombie, and I very much hope it’s not how the year continues in terms of reading or anything else. I want to add the qualifier, “It’s not a bad book,” […]
My first memory is of vomiting upon contact with the ginger-drenched air.
I wasn’t initially sure if I was liking this or not liking this book. The challenge is that like a lot of books written from an immigrant perspective there’s a kind of tendency to write into the novel a sense of totalizing voice, as if this will be the only book ever written about the experiences of, in this case, Ethiopian, immigrants. This book does challenge that structure to some extent by the end, especially given that this book is as much a geopolitical thriller […]
An eyesore, a disgrace: tar-paper shanty with old rusty pieces of tin nailed up any which way.
This is Joyce Carol Oates’s first novel, recently re-released with a new cover and new audiobook. I recently read and reviewed her other early novel “them” and found it more or less ok but mired by some issues regarding pacing, tone, and plotting. And the same is true here. Let me start by explaining why I keep reading Joyce Carol Oates. I am chasing a dragon. I LOVE her short story “Where are you Going? Where have you Been?” I think it’s virtuosic and […]
I’m burning the rabbit hutch myself–it’s mine to burn up!
This novel is presented to us in the opening section and author’s introduction from its publication as a “history in novel form” which may or may not have truth to it. (I am dubious about it myself). And there’s a strange middle section that lasts about ten pages where a main character in the novel (there’s mostly two, but kind of a third) writes a series of letter to “Miss Oates” (ie Joyce Carol) as if she were a former student reflecting back on college […]