Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
Young adult fiction today is as varied and challenging as young adult life has become. Kristin Brower Walker reads two promising new titles, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and When You Reach Me, that seem destined to make the next Newbery Award shortlist.
Read MoreFans of Dan Chaon’s complex, intellectual fiction have eagerly awaited his newest, Await Your Reply. Janet Potter tries to pin down the book’s many identities.
Read MoreIn her new story collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy depicts men and women (but mostly men) who want to eat their cake and have it too. Lianne Habinek tells us how successful these characters, and Meloy, turn out to be.
Read MoreSteve Donoghue’s “A Year with the Romans” continues with a look at the obscure Roman poet Persius – and the great new book about him.
Read MoreIn our second Bestseller feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo.
Read MoreNixon, Bushes, and the War on Terror have been surprisingly good for poetry. Maureen Thorson releases her findings on National Anthem and Dick of the Dead.
Read MoreA local, a booster, and a tourist take on New York; Sam Sacks tours the city with E.L. Doctorow, Colm Tóibín, and Colum McCann.
Read MoreFrom the forbidding North to the torrid South, the poetry debuts of Joshua Harmon and Farrah Field explore the geography of words. John Cotter gives centrality to locality.
Read MoreLydia Peelle revisits the territory of Southern fiction in her short story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, and Karen Vanuska treks the vivid terrain
Read MoreHot-ticket director Guilermo del Toro has co-written a vampire novel that just happens to be about 50 percent flawed. Coincidence? Zombie expert Deirdre Crimmins is on the case.
Read MoreThe primitivism of small-town life gets a thorough examination in Robert Cohen’s Amateur Barbarians; Joshua Garstka strolls these suburbs and reports back
Read MoreBrian Evenson’s stories are populated by wanderers, ciphers, and schizophrenics lost in the fog of their own frustrations. John Madera attempts to navigate the miasma of Fugue State.
Read MoreWho’s the greatest hater, a killer or his victim’s avenger? Deirdre Crimmins takes a stab at David Moody’s Hater.
Read MoreJ. Courtney Sullivan’s novel Commencement has been compared to fellow Seven Sister Mary McCarthy’s The Group. Laura Tanenbaum assesses how Sullivan fills some mighty big shoes.
Read MoreSarah Hudson reviews Michael Mann's Public Enemies, scrambled plot and all: "The exquisite production deserves to be seen on a big screen but no one will blame you if you sit this one out."
Read MoreLambrusco describes Peter Abrahams's Reality Check, as "so gripping, so smart, and so completely worthwhile."
Read MoreAdam Golaski grew up reading Jay McInerney and wanting to walk in his shoes. In How It Ended, those soles are a little scuffed.
Read MoreThe bowling alleys and corner stores of Jim Krusoe’s middle America are the source of oddities beyond imagining—until you’ve read Sharon Fulton’s review of his novels, that is
Read MoreAleksandar Hemon’s prose has scarcely been mentioned without the accompanying adjective ‘Nabokovian’; John Madera looks at Hemon’s new collection of stories Love and Obstacles to see whether the modifier fits.
Read MoreIn The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie has written his most Melvillean novel. John G. Rodwan, Jr. indulges in some Melvillean digressions as he explains just exactly what that means.
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