Much is absent in Taylor Bradley’s latest book. That observation is not an assessment of the component parts of the book — which catalogs segments of Bradley’s life from 2018 to 2020 — rather, “absence” is the aching touchstone of this well-built text. Published in late 2022 by Bradley, a 2013 University of Iowa graduate, […]
Book Reviews
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Book Review: ‘Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America’ by Tara A. Bynum
Scholar Tara A. Bynum, an assistant professor in the University of Iowa Departments of English and African American Studies, is exploring interiority — and exemplifying it. In her recently published monograph Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America (University of Illinois Press), Bynum leverages her research in pre-1800 Black literary history for a deep […]
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Book Review: ‘Invasives’ by Emily Kingery
Emily Kingery’s Invasives (Finishing Line Press) opens in a garden and closes in a garden, repeatedly returning to Eden and tearing it down with one consistent throughline: that which is invasive. The opening poem, “Musk Thistle,” weaves together two concepts such that they are inextricable. It talks about pulling weeds and ponders the difference between […]
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Book Review: ‘The Thing in the Snow’ by William Morrow
The Thing In The Snow (William Morrow) is set in a remote location “where the snow never melts.” Given my fiery hatred of Iowa winters, this was already enough to catapult me into a headspace of inexplicable tension that kept me turning the pages of Sean Adams’ latest novel. Our narrator, Hart, is a supervisor […]
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Book Review: ‘What’s Left’ by Tate Lewis-Carroll
What’s Left (Finishing Line Press) builds its atmosphere immediately — the cover and epigraph synching an ambiance by opening with a formally stylized Nirvana quote followed by a transcription of a sparse voice message from the author’s father (the cover is a cardboard box with the top folded shut, it’s labeled in permanent marker with […]
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Book Review: ‘Tending Iowa’s Land: Pathways to a Sustainable Future’ ed. by Cornelia F. Mutel
While contemplating Tending Iowa’s Land, a poignant story returned to mind. A good friend of mine and his wife, several years ago, lived very near the Iowa River. During a hot, dry spell, he decided to put a pump into the river and use river water instead of well water to resuscitate their parched garden. […]
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Book Review: ‘What Napoleon Could Not Do’ by DK Nnuro
Early in DK Nnuro’s debut novel, a Ghanaian father presiding over his son’s divorce ritual is introduced by his well-read brother to the concept of schadenfreude. “Delighting in [someone else’s] misery,” it’s defined. Again and again, the characters in What Napoleon Could Not Do (out Feb. 7 from Riverhead Books) dance around this concept, and […]
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Book Review: ‘The Wounded Age’ and ‘Eastern Tales’ by Ferit Edgü, translated by Aron Aji
Born in 1936 in Istanbul (and approaching his 87th birthday on Feb. 24), Ferit Edgü has been writing beloved and award-winning work in his native Turkish since 1959. He’s published novels, stories, essays, poetry and even a children’s book. He’s been adapted to film, awarded the Sait Faik Literature Prize and the Sedat Simavi Prize […]
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Book Review: ‘Music-Making in U.S. Prisons’ by Mary L. Cohen and Stuart P. Duncan
In the 1864 novella Notes From the Underground, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky proposes the proto-existentialist notion of “perverse freedom.” There are never no choices in life, because one can always, at any time, choose to act against one’s own self-interest — to act in a way that’s contrary to all expected motivations. Dostoevsky himself spent […]
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Book Review: ‘Sound Fury’ by Mark Levine
Things not to do: read Mark Levine’s Sound Fury while battling a nasty rhinovirus. Here’s why: Levine (deftly) uses so many literary devices simultaneously that one really needs the full use of their faculties to experience Sound Fury (University of Iowa Press). In my first round of reading, while sick, I thought I’d be compelled […]
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Book Review: ‘Oblivion’ by Robin Hemley
What to say about Robin Hemley’s Oblivion? The University of Iowa Writers Workshop alum’s 16th book was released this year on Gold Wake Press. And although it’s short in pages, the novel is not short on big ideas. Oblivion follows a nameless writer who dies and passes into The Cafe of Minor Authors in the […]
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Book Review: ‘Love and Potato Salad’ by Jason Thomas Smith
I won’t lie to you. I wasn’t going to read Love and Potato Salad until I read the press quotes on the back of the book. Riddled with jokes but also, quite possibly, real exclamations from shocked readers (“‘Your novel is extremely offensive. Any further attempts to contact any members of our staff for any […]
