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In Search of Lost Dream Time: Two New Books by André Aciman
By Jennifer Acker 1. If ever there was a writer disappointed with the here and now, it’s André Aciman. Best-known for evoking the lost Alexandria of his childhood, Aciman writes in a recent essay:...
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Bodies are Genius: The World According to Meg Pokrass
by Lillian Ann Slugoki 1. Roland Barthes argues in his famous 1967 essay, “The Death of the Author,” that the writer and the work they produce are not related. Presumably, he’d never met Meg Pokrass....
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Joseph M. Schuster and the Space Between
By Tricia Khleif 1. At what point does the pursuit of a dream cross the line from perseverance into delusion? This question haunts Joseph M. Schuster’s poignant and unsentimental debut novel, The Might...
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Diana Athill: The Sufficient Self
by Amy Weldon 1. In his book In Other Words, critic Christopher Moore describes the Japanese word shibui, meaning “an aesthetic that only time can reveal.” Shibui signifies the way in which “as we...
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Bee Ridgway: Finding The River
by Nicole Wolverton 1. As a kid I loved anything to do with time travel. One of my favorite movies was Time Bandits. I loved Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Later, I fell in love with...
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Thomas Van Essen: The Ekphrasis of Ecstasy
by Lisa Peet 1. ekphrasis (/’ek.fr ə-səs\): a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art; from the Greek ἔκφρασις (ekphrasis, “description”), from ekphrazein, to recount, describe;...
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Barbara Corrado Pope: Mysteries of the Belle Époque
by Jane Hammons 1. In 2010, Bouchercon—a conference for crime writers and their fans—was held in San Francisco, just across the Bay from where I live. Big names like Lee Child and Roger Crais filled...
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W.G. Sebald and the Chronicling of Memory
by Robert Goree 1. Any writer who spends as much time contemplating memory as W.G. Sebald did is bound, every now and then, to fall into the bittersweet embrace of nostalgia. But the remarkable thing...
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BEST OF BLOOM: Anna Sewell Growing into Compassion
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on April 8, 2013 by Amy Weldon 1. Compassion comes with age, with...
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Best of Bloom: Deborah Eisenberg’s Small-World Stories
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on December 3, 2012 by Lisa Peet 1. I’ve always loved a good...
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BEST OF BLOOM: André Aciman’s Search for Lost Dream Time
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on June 10, 2013. By Jennifer Acker 1. If ever there was a writer...
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BEST OF BLOOM: George Eliot: Strong-Minded Woman and Varying Unfolding Self
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on February 4, 2013. by Rob Jacklosky “When we are young we think...
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Time, Death, and Grief: The Risky Fiction of Paul Harding
by Joe Schuster 1. On the surface, it may seem that Paul Harding made a safe choice when he settled on the territory for his new novel, Enon. It shares the same geographic setting as his debut, the...
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Q&A with Julie Wu
by Terry Hong At 22, Julie Wu had a “vision” about a sad young boy that she immediately rushed to capture in words. From those initial notes, she would take almost a quarter century to bring him to...
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R.J. Palacio: Words of Wonder
by Sangeeta Mehta 1. If there was ever a person who understood what it was like to be different, it was Joseph Merrick. The “Half-a-Man and Half-an-Elephant” curiosity in Victorian sideshows, he was...
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Jane Gardam’s Characters: Organically Grown
by Lisa Peet 1. The names alone hint at underlying complexities: Old Filth, Polly Flint, Fred Fiscal-Smith, Bilgewater (whose given name is Marigold). Jane Gardam’s characters have enormously involved...
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Daniyal Mueenuddin’s Pakistan: Where East Meets East
by Nicki Leone 1. In other rooms, wandering. Standing there on the shore What do you know of my troubles, As I struggle here in midstream. Daniyal Mueenuddin drops this small piece of (unattributed)...
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Transience, Heartbreak, and Mythology: Annie Proulx’s Somber Harmonies
by T.L. Khleif 1. A few years ago, shortly after the publication of Annie Proulx’s eighth book of fiction, a Paris Review interviewer asked the author if she believed she’d gotten a late start writing....
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Barbara Anderson, Unavoidably Detained
By Sue Dickman 1. New Zealand literature recently made the news with 28-year-old Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize win for her 800-page novel, The Luminaries. Though Catton was born in Canada, and her...
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Thought Episodes: Norman Rush’s Novels of Ideas
by Jennifer Acker Shah 1. The novels of Norman Rush are full of sharp-eyed, straight-talking men and women who are fearless in the pursuit of ideas, but who don’t forget to have fun. And though they...
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