fiction

Book Review: The Unwavering Gaze — Fabritius and Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”

January 23, 2014
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In Donna Tartt’s much-lauded third novel, Fabritius’ painting “The Goldfinch” and the fleeting nature of, well, everything comes together for a brief and shining moment.

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Book Review: “Heat” — An Imaginatively Imaginary Interview with Actress Jean Seberg

December 28, 2013
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“Heat” is a fictional interview in which Dickinson asks uncomfortably intimate questions and then imagines the answers Seberg might have given.

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Book Review: Martin Cruz Smith’s “Tatiana” — More than a Thriller?

December 19, 2013
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After 2010’s too spare “Three Stations,” fans old and new will find Martin Cruz Smith back in full form with “Tatiana,” creating a taut, subtle, often darkly funny and even moving tale.

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Book Review: “Next Big Thing” — The Music Scene and Rock Clubs of 1980s Boston, Revived

November 30, 2013
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In “Next Big Thing,” Terry Kitchen’s prose brings 1980s Boston, its music scene, and its rock clubs—from the long gone Rathskeller to the still standing Paradise—to life.

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Book Review: “The Hired Man” — A Powerful Novel about the Aftermath of War

November 27, 2013
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Aminatta Forna has given us a novel that belies its modest premise, a book about how the human mind protects itself by not knowing, yet sometimes, due to unexpected circumstances, comes to terms with what it thought it could not.

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Book Review: “Some Day” — A Memorable First Novel about Waiting for Love

November 16, 2013
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In “Some Day,” Shemi Zarhin has masterfully woven together a tangle of bittersweet tales and elusive dreams. it is a book that is a pleasure to read and reread.

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Fuse Book Review: “The Measures Between Us” — A Promising But Scattershot First Novel

November 8, 2013
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We are left with a somewhat scattered narrative written in the third person with an omniscient narrator that moves from one inner life to another, sometimes to good effect, and sometimes leaving the reader stranded.

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Fuse Book Review: “The Translator” — A Bumpy Quest Novel

October 31, 2013
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Nina Schuyler’s uneven novel raises some interesting questions in the course of the protagonist’s quest, and there are many fascinating details about Japan and Noh plays and the power of silence.

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Book Review: “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” — Brooklyn Fiction That is a Breed Apart

October 30, 2013
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The moral urgency and the humane distribution of Adelle Waldman’s authorial sympathy are evident everywhere in “The Love Affair of Nathaniel P.”

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Book Review: “The Woman Who Lost Her Soul” — A Lengthy Tale of Innocence Betrayed

October 21, 2013
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Despite his weakness for overwriting, Bob Shacochis has a good and sad story to tell, and he gets through it with a degree of mastery.

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