Editorial reviews

The House of Impossible Beauties does not provide full biographies of its leading figures such as Angie Xtravaganza, Venus Xtravaganza or Dorian Corey, perhaps using fiction where their friends and acquaintances were unable, or unwilling, to fill in the gaps, but it does offer a convincing insight into the world in which they lived.

Sweeping both geographically and intellectually; a literary page-turner.

Alam’s novel, in addition to providing a striking portrait of one privileged woman’s inattention to the particularities of her black loved ones’ lives, vividly illustrates just how far our country still has to go when it comes to recognizing and celebrating the humanity of our fellow human beings...

Some readers may implore Heti’s narrator to decide already, while others may immerse themselves in the vital questions she raises --- questions that shatter many of the assumptions we (still) make about the true value and purpose of women’s lives.

Duchovny weaves a brilliant, complex and fun tale. Because there’s so much in store, it’s easy for just about anyone to board the Duchovny train, take a seat next to Emer, and have the ride of their life.

In My Ex-Life, McCauley never lets you forget that love truly is a many-splendored, not easily categorizable thing.

The story, while moderately diverting, never achieves a truly compulsive rhythm. The eye keeps snagging on formulas in seeming rotation.

This is a memorable book from an important talent.

For a novel concerned with dislocation, there’s a lot of grounding humor in “The Life to Come.” Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser’s observations are so spot on, you’ll forgive her even as you cringe.

While Waiting for Tomorrow is about the longing for recovery, the novel ends on a bittersweet note, reaching a space where, even if they now have grey in their hair and are forever changed, this family can move forward and begin to count tomorrows again.

You don’t have to have any particular interest in Down’s syndrome to connect with this aspect of the book: it isn’t a polemic about special needs, but a detailed and moving portrayal of a kind of radical innocence, one that brings both the cruelty and the kindness in the world around it into sharp focus.

Like Riverton itself, “Summer Hours at the Robbers Library” feels artfully balanced between the reality of loss and a carefully guarded hope for renewal.

An ultimately optimistic and hopeful novel about growing up amid personal and political disarray.

The novel’s main philosophical thrust comes through the narrator’s interest in the writing of Gerhard Mutter, a fictional naturalist who wrote obsessively about cormorants. The narrator’s sublime attempt to see the world as his son sees it is paralleled with Mutter’s trying to know the mind of the birds she so admires.

“We don’t know half the ways poison infiltrates,” the narrator overhears at a frat party, and that is the inspired wisdom of this beautiful, bleak, and hopeful story. We don’t know. But that won’t keep us from trying to it figure it out.

Bukowski and his ilk might appreciate this oddball version of the hero’s journey, soaked in beer and melancholia.

Quirky and sweet.

The Flicker of Old Dreams is an absolute literary delicacy and already is one of my favorite novels of the year.

Let's No One Get Hurt is an excellent coming-of-age novel that explores how we deal, or don't deal, with loss and abandonment, and how we can create new versions of ourselves when we're forced to.