Objects of Affection by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough Braddock Avenue Books, 2018 $13.00 Polish-born Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough has made a life out of translating, that fraught, “imperfect art which depends on what Czesław Miłosz called ‘the conscious acceptance of imperfect solutions.’” It’s the leveling of two languages and two cultures on ground foreign to each, at minimum a …
Personal Science by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram Tupelo Press, 2017 $16.95 Lillian-Yvonne Bertram writes under the premise that all of her writing is essentially a continuation of the same work. As she puts it in an interview with The Rumpus, her work is: “a single life project,” the books are “artifacts that mark points in time. They …
At the Waterline by Brian K. Friesen Ooligan Press, 2017 $16.95 Inspired by his firsthand experiences while working on the Columbia River, Brian K. Friesen’s debut novel, At the Waterline, is a reflective, multi-faceted story. The book follows Chad, a man with a penchant for the water, through his mission to find himself after his tragic …
I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) by Tatiana Ryckman Future Tense Books, 2017 $12.00 I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) by Tatiana Ryckman is a poetic novella about love, heartbreak, and distance. Over a short but powerful 110 pages, Ryckman details a gender ambiguous narrator’s struggles in a long-distance relationship. Striking …
All the News I Need by Joan Frank UMass Press, 2017 $19.95 The fear of aging is a common concern; our society stresses over it and the media highlights it as a negative process. Finding wrinkles and gray hair is a disastrous discovery, and there is always the worry of becoming too static. This cycle of …
A Moral Tale, and Other Moral Tales by Josh Emmons Dzanc Books, 2017 $16.95 Josh Emmons’s first collection of short stories follows a man, a woman, an artist, a tiger, an egg, and more through a menagerie of tales consisting of both brand new concepts and classic fables rethought with refreshing imagination. A Moral Tale, and …
The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down by Meg Pokrass Etruscan Press, 2017 $15.00 One can only hope that their book review could be as concise and affecting as one of Meg Pokrass’s stories in her collection, The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down. Sporting fifty raw and honest vignettes, this text beckons the reader into explicit …
The Bowl with Gold Seams by Ellen Prentiss Campbell Apprentice House Press, 2016 $16.99 Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s debut novel, The Bowl with Gold Seams, is a touching work of historical fiction which focuses on themes of acceptance, love, and overcoming tragedy. Campbell tells the story of the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania that served as a …