At first, I planned to carry on with my non-fiction and fiction rhythm from my booklog. While I was reading up on Lauren Groff to review her new book for The Chicago Review of Books, I came across her essay “The Ambivalent Activist, Jane Roe” in Fight of the
When Robert’s mother observes Alda’s signature and recognizes the pride and secrecy in its long loops and closed As, I think about the handwriting course that Mme Brounet took in Dédé. But I also think of Mavis Gallant writing long-hand and the hours she spent studying her own cursive
The library classification data for The Outlaw Ocean suggests categories like Fisheries-Corrupt practices, Travel, Special interest, Adventure, True Crime. All of these seem correct and yet none of them seems right. This is just over 400 pages long – with another hundred pages of notes (sources, readings, digressions)
If Marian Engel had not died mid-career, her name might have been as well known today as Margaret Atwood's today. Instead her name graces an award granted to a Canadian female writer mid-career by the Writers' Trust. A variety of forms, a strong feminist voice, challenging female characters, a fascination
Although Middenrammers is set in 1970s England, it is not the England of English literature which Helene Hanff discovered in 84 Charing Cross Road. Freehand Books, 2016 Nonetheless, the hospital which lies at the heart of the story does have a familiar air to it, for narrator and reader
