REINVENTING POSTMODERNISM: A REVIEW OF CHARLES YU’S “INTERIOR CHINATOWN” JULY 28, 2020by KURT BAUMEISTER Once upon a time, when postmodernism was young—before it became what-the-hell-is-postmodernism-really(?) and post-postmodernism—unique literary conceits were enough to draw oohs and ahs from critics. Think of John Barth with the nested narrative loops and literary equations of Lost in the Funhouse; Nabokov …
TNB Book Review: Teddy Wayne’s Apartment , reviewed by Kurt Baumeister By Kurt Baumeister July 09, 2020 Fiction Reviews On its surface, Teddy Wayne’s latest might seem like an obvious rebuttal to today’s literary culture. Set a quarter-century ago, Apartment is a book about young, white men narrated, not surprisingly, by a young, white man. …
The Once and Future Queen: Amber Sparks’s Weird Realism By Kurt Baumeister Amber SparksAnd I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges(Liveright, 2020) Tension isn’t necessarily fun, but it’s not always bad either. Under the right circumstances, tension can become pressure and pressure can produce the magic of physical transformation. …
Mark Doten’s Trump Sky Alpha Doten combines a genius for fictive architecture with dazzling prose By Kurt Baumeister MARK DOTEN Trump Sky AlphaGraywolf, 2019 In Trump Sky Alpha, Mark Doten writes: “On 1/28, the first commercial telephone exchange is established in New Haven, Connecticut…On 1/28, a fifteen-inch snowflake falls on Fort Keogh, Montana. …
written by Kurt Baumeister September 13, 2019 Intro Wherein Chuck Greaves praises the erudition of Rex Stout, David Abrams hails Agatha Christie’s ability to breed distrust in teenagers, David Huddle discusses the shining sentences of J.D. Salinger, Tim Horvath thanks Renata Adler for broadening his perspective on language, and Kurt Baumeister shares …
written by Kurt Baumeister August 12, 2019 Intro Wherein Robert Burke Warren praises the magical minimalism of Alice Munro; Gregory Spatz reflects on the wild life–and still wilder work–of James Agee; Matthew Specktor muses on the wacky, baffling genius of Wallace Stevens; Nina Buckless discusses what she learned from Tolkien about gaining …
written by Kurt Baumeister July 9, 2019 Intro Wherein Jamie Blaine celebrates the grit of Raymond Chandler, Jesi Bender praises the prose mastery of Carole Maso, Michael T. Fournier shares how Douglas Coupland saved him from a life of suburban drudgery, Ryan Werner breaks from a guitar solo just long enough to …
written by Kurt Baumeister June 13, 2019 Intro Wherein Constance Squires shares how Iris Murdoch taught her not to be afraid of plot, Michael Gillan Maxwell discusses how Gary Snyder’s writing turned him on to philosophy, Sean Beaudoin lauds the life and work of cultural icon Jim Carroll, and Dr. Nancy Hightower …
written by Kurt Baumeister May 10, 2019 (Originial publication at Entropy Magazine) Intro Wherein triple threat (writer/editor/bookseller) Kevin Sampsell praises the humor and honesty of Steven “Jesse” Bernstein, a writer gone too soon; author Samuel Snoek-Brown confesses his love for the one and only Jane Austen; Gigi Little thanks Maurice Sendak for …
TNB Book Review: Gabino Iglesias’s Coyote Songs, reviewd by Kurt Baumeister By Kurt Baumeister November 13, 2018 Fiction Reviews America today is more polarized than it’s been at any point in my lifetime. Socially, politically, racially, economically, religiously…in many ways, this division is born of willful ignorance, the result of small minds …
