Abstract: Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki. Hogarth, 2017, 320 pp., $26 (hardcover).The End of Pink by Kathryn Nuernberger. BOA Editions Ltd., 2016, 96 pp., $16 (paper).Good Bones by Maggie Smith. Tupelo Press, 2017, 99 pp., $17.95 (paper).Protection Spell by Jennifer Givhan. University of Arkansas Press, 2017, 76 pp., $17.95 (paper).Hard Child by Natalie Shapero. Copper Canyon Press, 2017, 96 pp., $16 (paper).In a rally leading up to the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump stopped his speech to comment on an unruly member of the audience. "Don't worry about that baby. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. I like it! What a baby. What a beautiful baby." Minutes later he stopped again to say ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Over the centuries, heroes in literature have metamorphosed from godlike leaders to all-too-fallible humans. Prince Hamlet—brilliant, bedeviled, articulate, self-destructive—is an unforgettable early archetype. By the past century, literary protagonists had become complex human beings, even antiheroes, whose lives still represented something greater than their own failings. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby is a modern antihero who in the pursuit of the love of his life creates an ill-fated—even if well-intended and grandly American—palace of illusion.Richard Poirier in A World Elsewhere: The Place of Style in American Literature noticed a tendency in American literature, especially in comparison with British ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Photo by Thomas GrotmolEven before I open my eyes, I smell smoke. At first I think I'm still dreaming—too many memories of my time under the stars, when everyone smelled like smoke or sweat—but then I see Cecil's outline over by the open window. He's sitting in his wheelchair with a blanket over his legs, and I can hear the oxygen machine chugging even as the haze from his cigarette settles around us."Cecil," I whisper. The digital clock on my nightstand reads 2:13, and the hallway outside is quiet.His head is bowed, and he doesn't answer. While I watch, the orange tip of his cigarette falls into his lap."Cecil!" I hiss, and his head jerks. He mumbles, and I pull my chair over to the bed. When I'm fully awake, I ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The man we called Great-Uncle Kimmy lived three-quarters of his life alone in a cabin perched on a mountainside so steep that if you stepped wrong in anger or in drink you'd wind up in the creek bed deep at the bottom of the holler. There lay the remains (he said) of a Model A Ford, a hundred-year-old still, and two commercial-grade highway lawn mowers. If you wound up down there, you'd never be found, but it wouldn't matter because you'd be dead. No one and nothing (he said) ever went down into the bottom of that holler besides the things meant to by nature, and nothing not meant to go there by nature ever came out.The man we called Great-Uncle Kimmy was also the difference between what became of me and what ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Photo by Dar'ya SipThe early-September light on the lake is unreliable. It's late afternoon; clouds race on the wind, and the water laps the shore. Flashes of sunlight glint off restless waves in quick succession. The surface of the water changes from gray to bright blue as the clouds pass over the sun. I am looking out the window over one of the small lakes near our home in Upstate New York. This is after I get married but before I get pregnant. I've spent the summer waiting for a baby to quicken: a baby I know is close but elusive. Beyond the lake is a cornfield, stretched out across the hills. The tips are turning brown. The corn gathers sweetness, waiting to be cut.Standing here in the Perla Suite of the Glass ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Mother bends over Older Sister and hovers above Qian as if she is searching for a secret to keep from us: Father in his newly bought Li-Ning winter jacket and me, Little Brother, though I don't call myself Little Brother outside because my parents don't want to call more attention to us as a two-child household. It's good to be better than the people around you, but not too much better.Mother's ear rests just below Qian's neck. Any minute now, Older Sister will rise up from the cot and shrug off Mother's touch. She'll tear the IV from her arms and say, "Mother, stop that. I'm not a little girl anymore," the way she always does. Or maybe Mother is counting the beats of Older Sister's heart, each one another two ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: We intend to lead a mad and extravagant life.Between 1920 and 1939, independent American publishers flourished in Paris. Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company produced James Joyce's magnum opus Ulysses; Bill Bird's Three Mountains Press published the early work of Ernest Hemingway, Mina Loy, William Carlos Williams, and Ford Madox Ford; and shipping heiress Nancy Cunard handprinted limited editions of experimental poetry by Becket, Pound, and Richard Aldington for Hours Press. Even Gertrude Stein was bitten by the publishing bug. Her imprint, Plain Editions, put out "an edition of first editions of all the work not yet published by Gertrude Stein." At least eight other notable expatriate presses were publishing ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Symphony of Terror, Claggett Wilson, ca. 1919, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Alice H. RossinLike many aspiring artists, Claggett Wilson, born in Washington, DC, in 1887, rejected a conventional gentleman's education at Princeton to briefly study at the Art Students League of New York before sailing to Paris. He enrolled at the progressive Académie Julian, and from 1906 to 1910 showed his work at the Paris Salon, the art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. When he returned to the United States in 1913, Modernism had fully arrived. The International Exhibition of Modern Art, known simply as the Armory Show, featured 1,250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over three hundred avant-garde ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: from Yellow, Kelli Hoppmann, oil on panel, 2014 We take our magic where we can get it, and it's often (always') dark magic.There may be a "massive perturber" located beyond the Kuiper Belt. Scientists believe that the mysterious planet is a dwarf planet that is located three times farther from our star than Pluto is. Astronomers based their theory on awkward disruptions in the orbits of several large space objects in the region.after PH-651, Clyfford Stills, oil on window shade ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Invite as many people as you want. That's what I tell Neela, my mother-in-law. But she sucks her teeth and says, "I have no thick or thin friends." Translated, this means she is not going to invite anyone to my baby's christening. I know better. The one thing I have learned for sure during the relatively short time I have come to know my mother-in-law and, by extension, Indians in South Africa, is to always ask three times.We spend all Sundays at my mother-in-law's house. She and my father-in-law, "George Police," live in Park Rynie, a small coastal town on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa. To get to Park Rynie, where the Indians live, you drive through Scottburgh, where the whites live, and to get to ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Photo by arist0tle21upBonnie starts:We were somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, between Puerto Vallarta and Puerto Quetzal, and Tyler wanted to go ice skating. It was a little before midnight.I don't know. It's hard to to keep track of the hours at sea when you've been drinking.I told Tyler it was a bad idea, but I didn't try to stop him. It's easy to sneak around on a cruise ship. No one cares what you do, and at least half the people onboard are shitfaced at any given moment. And anyway, watching Tyler try to skate drunk seemed like a fun thing to do.We tipped Carl, our favorite bartender at the Royal Flying Viking Lounge, and stumbled out into the warm tropical night. Darkness. The white noise of the ship's engines. ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Photo by RòHe'd put on a little weight, yes, but this was always going to be a sugar-cereal household. Any single-uncle guardian who didn't stock the cabinets with unhealthy shit was a Puritan and didn't understand his circumstances. Ryan scooped the milk from the bottom of his bowl, an odd sodden fragment of Frosted Flake floating across the spoon. Thump stayed evergreen skinny anyway. Like sometimes he worried that people would call the authorities on him."Why are those bushes out front'" Thump said, working on her Fruit Loops."Beautify the yard," he said. "The pursuit of beauty.""Don't think it'll help."True, wise, cheeky preteen. The yard was doomed. But this was a ranch house in a neighborhood. This is what ... Read More Keywords: Crosby, Caresse,; Crosby, Harry,; Wilson, Claggett, PubDate: 2018-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
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