House. Tree. Person.
HOUSE. TREE. PERSON. When one is recovering from surgery having books around the scatter is a terrific way to while away the hours between meds. Catriona McPherson’s House. Tree. Person. was just what I needed. My pain was nothing compared to the scary and increasingly hair-raising plot surrounding McPherson’s macabre story. I’m not a huge […]
The Faraway Nearby
THE FARAWAY NEARBY Rebecca Solnit’s collection of nature essays The Faraway Nearby has a distinctive, graceful prose style that in some passages leaves this reader giddy with its effervescence. It is constructed of an assemblage of memories, meditation, ideas, and analyses—often painful, vexing, or merely fascinating. The chapter headings are a palindrome of sorts, the ones in […]
The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide
THE ART OF MISDIAGNOSIS: SURVIVING MY MOTHER’S SUICIDE In The Art of Misdiagnosis, Gayle Brandeis strives to solve the mystery of her mother’s suicide and make sense of her family’s complex relationship with illness—her mother Arlene’s undiagnosed mental health challenges as well as her family’s history of symptoms, illnesses, diagnoses, and misdiagnoses—both real and feigned. It is […]
The Devil In Silver
Never mind that copies of The Devil in Silver were given away at the World Horror Convention, or that its title is spelled out in flaming letters, The Devil in Silver, award- winning author Victor Lavalle’s latest book is not a horror novel. It is the saddest, funniest and most desperately hopeful novel I’ve read […]