Fiction

Unfaithfulness (from Four Allegories of Love), 1575. Artist: Veronese, Paolo (1528-1588)

The Ardor of Tessa Hadley The Ardor of Tessa Hadley

Her novels are masterful domestic dramas that obsess over the mechanics of adultery and illicit passion.

May 25, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Sophie Haigney

Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space

Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space

The Employees offers a surreal and biting account of all the hazards and indignities of the contemporary workplace.

May 18, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Jessica Loudis

Jennifer Egan’s World Wide Web

Jennifer Egan’s World Wide Web Jennifer Egan’s World Wide Web

Her latest novel tackles a favorite topic of her fiction—the excesses of the Internet and modern technologies.

May 3, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Erin Somers

The Ambitious and Overstuffed World of Hanya Yanagihara

The Ambitious and Overstuffed World of Hanya Yanagihara The Ambitious and Overstuffed World of Hanya Yanagihara

To Paradise attempts to break out of the common insularity of contemporary fiction, but in doing so it often ends up focusing more on the author.

May 2, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Tope Folarin

Me Too and the Not Me Novel

Me Too and the Not Me Novel Me Too and the Not Me Novel

Julia May Jonas’s new novel is a study of a campus scandal and a woman caught in the middle of it.

May 2, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Laura Marsh

Antonio Di Benedetto and the Sound of Madness

Antonio Di Benedetto and the Sound of Madness Antonio Di Benedetto and the Sound of Madness

His bleak and surreal 1964 novel The Silentiary examines one man’s quest for quiet.

Apr 27, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Dustin Illingworth

The Zoological Nightmares of Rafael Bernal

The Zoological Nightmares of Rafael Bernal The Zoological Nightmares of Rafael Bernal

The Mexican writer’s 1947 novel His Name Was Death dramatizes humanity’s ecological arrogance through the story of a mosquito swarm with plans of world destruction.

Apr 25, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Lucas Iberico Lozada

The Absurdist Meets Jane Austen in Bloomington

The Absurdist Meets Jane Austen in Bloomington The Absurdist Meets Jane Austen in Bloomington

Budi Darma’s People from Bloomington engages in a strange realism—where life in a small-town America seems both banal and absurd. 

Apr 12, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Intan Paramaditha

Emily St. John Mandel’s Neatly Designed Worlds

Emily St. John Mandel’s Neatly Designed Worlds Emily St. John Mandel’s Neatly Designed Worlds

Her new novel, a time travel story called Sea of Tranquility, presents a universe lacking in loose ends or messiness.

Apr 11, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Sophia Nguyen

Can a Thriller Capture the Feeling of Being Watched?

Can a Thriller Capture the Feeling of Being Watched? Can a Thriller Capture the Feeling of Being Watched?

Calla Henkel’s Other People’s Clothes mines the gossip and sleaze of early 2000s culture to tell a story about celebrity obsession and spectacle.

Mar 17, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Philippa Snow

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