When I think about novellas I’ve enjoyed this year, I recall Poulomi Sanyal’s Colour Me Confounded (2017) and Kerry Trautman’s Irregulars (2023), their settings soaked with the ambiance of their main characters’ workplaces, whether a boardroom or a diner. And I think about Helen deWitt’s The English Understand Wool
It occurred to me to keep The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu as a novella for November. But when I was rushing to leave the house one afternoon, and returned because I’d forgotten my wallet, I slipped TEoKN into my bag on a whim. So, naturally that’s what I read
Despite the rather long title, the core idea of this novel is succinct: “Your truth is not more fucking true than my truth.” Megan Gail Coles situates her story around a downtown restaurant in St. John’s Newfoundland. There, a handful of characters, who are navigating the daily grind, present
"Everything about the restaurant business is made harder by being in it as a woman. And speaking out about that only makes it worse." And, yet, she is doing just that. Speaking out and putting herself out there, in I Hear She's a Real Bitch. Readers meet Jen Agg
Readers familiar with Margaret Millar's suspense novels, will immediately recognize her style and language in Wives and Lovers. (Just yesterday I discussed Vanish in an Instant, another volume in the Syndicate reprint series.) "It was a shoebox of a room, with the ceiling pressed down on it like a lid, and
