Family can be a tricky balancing act. Lan Samantha Chang, in her newest novel, gives the central family the surname Chao, making them collectively, of course, the Chaos. There are a couple of sections early in the book where she […]
In Memento Vivere (Cabin Bear Books), a tiny volume of rebellion against death, Cedar Rapids poet Laura Johnson creates a still life of delights and damages reminding both herself and the reader: Remember you must live. (For those missing the […]
Midwinter Constellation (Black Lawrence Press) is the collaborative effort of 32 poets paying homage to Midwinter Day, by Bernadette Mayer, on the 40th anniversary of its creation. It is the brainchild of editor Becca Klaver who states in the afterword […]
America loves a good murder. Maybe we’ve always been this way, but sometime in the past few years, true crime evolved from guilty pleasure to passionate obsession. People discuss “blood spatter” and “Munchausen by proxy” with the same amateur enthusiasm […]
When I first received this slim volume in the mail, I panicked. How can one get a ~500-word review out of a book of less than 40 pages? I had assigned it to a freelancer, but held back, not wanting […]
We Heard It When We Were Young (University of Iowa Press) is a love letter to all of us who, like author Chuy Renteria, don’t know whether or not they had a happy childhood or whether or not they are […]
Cedar Rapids author Alicia Dill will be reading from her forthcoming novel, Beyond Sacrifice (Circuit Breaker Books), this month for Prairie Lights. The virtual event will also include a conversation with Sara Maniscalco Robinson, founder of Veterans’ Perspective. Beyond Sacrifice, […]
As a Midwest interloper, I’d never heard the apparently ubiquitous story of the Spirit Lake massacre before encountering this new graphic novel. Of course, we had our own legends of “terrifying savages” back in New Jersey (look up the Jenny […]
You may think you know whimsy, but unless you’re already a fan of Jennifer Black Reinhardt’s illustrations, you haven’t seen the half of it. The Iowa City illustrator pulls out all the stops for the visuals accompanying Iowa City author […]
I think I need to open with an admission of guilt: I am not a parent. I have been a nanny, a preschool teacher, I’ve worked in youth housing — this is to say, I have helped to raise children […]
Matt L. Drabek doesn’t just provide tragic history lessons of American hegemony in his new book Left Foreign Policy: An Organizer’s Guide (Base and Superstructure Press). With references as diverse as Noam Chomsky and Star Trek: The Next Generation, he […]
Donika Kelly’s The Renunciations (Graywolf Press) sees its greatest impact when panned out to see the full picture. Zooming out adds nuance. On the whole, Kelly is, as the title suggests, rejecting the contents inside. They are framed within units […]
