writer | teacher | artist
It’s not like I remember it, this planet. The blues and greens that painted me as a child have been replaced with browns and grays, the color of dry bones. Crouched here among these windowed walls, roofless with decay, I long for my youth. What winter could devastate me then, having known only a few silent snows, spectral with belonging?
Gish Jen’s eighth book, THE RESISTERS, is the feminist, dystopian, baseball novel we didn’t know we needed — and, actually, maybe we don’t.
Jamie wasn’t like other guys. Other people, really. He was happy. And I mean, always happy. No one’s always happy.
If we think only about what we get out of something, be it a Hollywood movie or a national holiday, we don't really deserve it. If we don't know or comprehend the significance of the history behind such things, we have failed our fellow Americans.
MAURA SANDERS was lying in a hospital bed waiting to die. At 24, she couldn't imagine a more terrible fate, but if she was honest with herself, she couldn't really imagine a better one either.
When Kenny shot Charlie, no one was really sure how to react. It wasn't because it was all that surprising — Kenny had had it out for Charlie since day one — but we didn't know whether to rejoice at the end of a feud or dread whatever was coming next.
“Where’s my cannoli?” a little voice behind me says.
I was married, once. She was French. Her names was Inès, and I suppose I should have known that any woman whose name means “chaste” (especially if she’s French) is destined to live ironically.
What impresses me most about this book is it's crazy but clear logic — the skill with which Flynn is able to orchestrate this insane narrative and the meticulous planning she must have done to make this story work.
It was on that first night in August when Lily Böhn tip-toed across the cobbles of Isola Bella to the Pier in her pink ballet slippers that she heard the gospel truth from Harvey Whittaker.
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum 