Khanh Ha’s third novel, Mrs. Rossi’s Dream (The Permanent Press, 2019) is an ideal companion to Flesh (2012) and The Demon Who Peddled Longing (2014). The reader’s guide is Lê Giang: the story begins and ends with him, in 1987, when he is living in a coastal town in the
Can you be trusted to finish a series? My track record with them is spotty, at best. But I'm working hard to improve my reputation. This year, I started and finished reading Amitav Ghosh's trilogy, each volume over 500 pages (but the page-turning sort of pages). Hopefully the other
It is a privilege to confine one's experience of war to a particular season, to the printed page. That must be said. That is certainly a privilege in this world. Even if it should be a right. This summer I have plucked some of these nelgected stories from the
The dead fuel Jesmyn Ward's novels. She feels the weight of their stories; she shoulders them, shares them. In Sing, Unburied, Sing, their chorus of voices - even in the epigraphs but also in the novel - reverberates between and beyond the covers. Ward's are heart-shattering stories. But they
Besides Lori McNulty's Life on Mars and Mavis Gallant's stories, I've been dabbling in some other collections this year too. Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak! (1996) Drawn from a number of literary magazines and publications (including 1994's Pushcart Prize collection), these tales were gathered together to satisfy the readers who yearned
