“‘When you’re a child you’re the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They’re only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you’re your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It’s worse, […]
“‘You’re growing up. Maybe that’s it,’ he said softly. ‘Sometimes I think the world tests us most sharply then, and we turn inward and watch ourselves with horror. But that’s not the worst. We think everybody is seeing into us. Then dirt is very dirty and purity is shining white. Aron, it will be over. […]
This fiendish novel dug its claws into me and didn’t let go until the very last page. Alissa Nutting’s Tampa is rich in imagery and metaphor, teeming with keen observations about the dark sides of American culture, and saturated in seduction. It’s a book that would have overflowed with its own verve if Nutting hadn’t […]
I’ve never been partial to James Joyce, but consider it part of my due diligence as a committed reader to get to know him. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, widely considered his most accessible work, seemed like a good place to start. Joyce wields words carefully, opening the novel with stripped […]