In her signature style, Fiona Davis reaches into the past to find a part of New York history and uses it as the scaffolding for an impressively imagined work of fiction. The Masterpiece weaves together the stories of two women, Clara and Virginia, across decades and centered around one famous piece of architecture, Grand Central Terminal, and … Continue reading Book Review: The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis
First I sink, Then I trickle, Then I rush. I am here; and here; and here. I touch this surface and also that. I mingle, I quiver with a thousand voices, and all these voices my own. I am a great tumble of motion which torrents all in unison. And learning and knowing are the … Continue reading Book Review: The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Yale lay on the couch that night, listening as Terrance tossed in his sheets, as he whimpered through his night sweats. Yale closes eyes and watched himself, the night of the memorial, from high up on Richard's house near the skylight. He watch himself talk to Fiona, talk to Julian, sip his Cuba Libre. Again … Continue reading Book Review: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
"You have no idea, ladies. No goddamned idea. We're on a slippery slide to prehistory, girls. Think about it. Think about where you'll be—where your daughters will be—when the courts turn back the clock. Think about words like 'spousal permission' and 'paternal consent'. Think about waking up one morning and finding you don't have a … Continue reading Book Review: Vox by Christina Dalcher
As a-ma said, every story, every dream, every waking minute of our lives is filled with one fateful coincidence after another. People and animals and leaves and fire and rain—we whirl around each other like handfuls of dried rice kernels being tossed into the sky. A single kernel cannot change its direction. It cannot choose to fly … Continue reading Book Review: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Sol could talk all he wanted about how the world worked, but he was an American, and he would never know what it was like, how dumbfounding, how confusing, how paralyzing it was when it all went wrong, when the place you lived in your whole life, your city, your beloved country, abruptly and for … Continue reading Book Review: The Lost Family by Jenna Blum
The Phipps building fell. Smoke plumed, the breath of God. Silence followed, then the group's shouts of triumph. Wine glasses clash together, flashing martial light. He sang the first bars of the Jejah psalm. Others joined in. Carillon bells chimed, distant birds blowing white, strewn, like dandelion tufts, and outsized wish. It must have been … Continue reading Book Review: The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
The Life Between Pages 