Six Years in an African Village: An Interview with Jill Kandel
I “met” Jill Kandel in 2006 when she submitted a wonderful essay to Relief Journal, where I was the editor for creative nonfiction. We published that essay, and over the next few years I was not surprised to see Jill publish work in impressive journals, including The Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, River Teeth, Image, Pinch,...
Review of Blake Bailey’s The Splendid Things We Planned
That brother. You know the one. Conversations about him start with a sigh. He’s last on the list when relatives are discussed, the pause long before his name is mentioned. I refer to mine as the “Drunk Brother in a Cabin.” The response, “You’ve got one, too?” Blake Bailey, known for his biographies of Charles...
Review of Eric Freeze’s Hemingway on a Bike
On a whim a few Saturdays ago I tried a new style of yoga—laughing yoga. I didn’t really know what to expect. I imagined myself supine on the island of my own mat, working reflectively through a series of laughing exercises and meditations. I anticipated it would probably be a little uncomfortable, but I also...
Review of B.J. Hollars’ Dispatches From the Drowning
Once upon a time, water leisure was a risky business in Wisconsin. A quick dip or canoe trip might result in death by drowning. Angels made by children in the riverbank snow became tombstones. Picnic? Better not. That anyone, ever, ice skated seems horrific. And so much for father/son fishing trips. Swan-diving daredevils or loggers,...
Review of H.D.S. Greenway’s Foreign Correspondent
For years, I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I watched Jennifer Connelly’s sultry, savvy character on Blood Diamond getting tips from dangerous insiders in exotic places, and longed to be her. It seemed so thrilling. Glamorous, even. I procured a job covering commodities in Mexico at the height of the country’s drug war violence....
Review of Brian Turner’s My Life as a Foreign Country
Of all the issues that can tear a family down the middle over time, deciding how to define and live out service has shaped–and divided–the people I love most. Both sides of my family talk about “COs” but mean different things. Until I moved from Ohio’s Amish country to Appalachian Ohio, I’d never passed a...
Review of Sarah Gorham’s Study in Perfect
Perhaps I was drawn to Sarah Gorham’s collection, Study in Perfect, because for the past few months my life has been a study in chaos. To make a long story short: bedbugs. Before I knew what I was doing, I had spread them to my parent’s house, my boyfriend’s house, and the new house I’d...
Review of Adriana Páramo’s My Mother’s Funeral
Mother is gone. One day I’ll pick up the phone and hear one of my sisters saying these words. Mom’s eighty-one now, and though she’s in relatively good health—survived two bouts of cancer—I know her life can’t go on forever. Mother tries to prepare me. She discusses her bank accounts, goes through her list of...
Review of Sue William Silverman’s The Pat Boone Fan Club
For most of my adult life, I’ve struggled with identity issues, not knowing where or with whom I truly belong. To explain, I spent much of my childhood overseas, as the daughter of a diplomat, moving every few years and not establishing strong roots in one community. I felt as if I could fit in...
Review of Amy Leach’s Things That Are
Spring winds are brisk today and I’m heeding the warning of Greg Brasso, a Massachusetts grower who propagates more than ninety varieties of scented geraniums including apple, rose, and lime. “Keep these on your indoor porch until the weather warms,” he advised as he tucked in my car an extra plant, his favorite variety, Lady...
Review of Daniel Tammet’s Thinking In Numbers
If art is a sort of religion, you might say I’m the equivalent of an ecumenist. I’m drawn to artists and arts I don’t practice—poetry, visual arts, dance, music, philosophy, mathematics, architecture. They’re a mystery to me, in part, because I’m not a practitioner, only an outside observer. I’m always on the hunt for their...
Review of Eileen Cronin’s Mermaid
When I first picked up Mermaid: A Memoir of Resilience (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014) and flipped through the prologue, I began thinking about my own adolescence. I was the last of my friends to land a boyfriend. My German mother was known to serve weird salad. In third grade I pissed my pants in...
Review of M.K. Asante’s Buck: A Memoir
From a very young age, race defined my experience of the world. At the end of my second grade year, my elementary school hosted a party—a catch-all birthday celebration for the summer babies who would otherwise miss that opportunity during the school year. Another student and I were tied in a game, but there was...
Review of Jessica Handler’s Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss
I sat down to read Jessica Handler’s book with a bit of a tourist mentality and a touch of relief, glad that grief and loss weren’t currently on my writing agenda. This would be interesting, like reading a book about sports writing. After all, I wasn’t mourning anyone’s death. I’ve been a fan of Handler’s...
Bringing Characters to Life: An Interview with Susan Kushner Resnick
Book Reviews Editor Debbie Hagan interviews Susan Kushner Resnick author of You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me About Living, Dying, Loving, Fighting and Swearing in Yiddish (Globe Pequot/skirt!, 2012). Resnick has been a writer and journalist for twenty-eight years. Her first book, Sleepless Days: One Woman’s Journey Through Postpartum Depression (St....
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