During this holiday week, The Common is presenting highlights from the past year. Today’s highlights come from “Reviews.”
Read Melinda Misener’s review of Townie by Andre Dubus III, here, and Sarah Malone’s review of NW by Zadie Smith, here.
CHRIS JOHN POOLE
Narrative must accommodate reality, yet it can also give it new form. This Is Not Miami fizzles with this tension. Exploiting the duality of the crónica , Melchor asserts that truth and fiction are inextricable.
HILDEGARD HANSEN
For me, to read is often to go in search of something extremely specific but inarticulable, and to be dissatisfied if it is not there. In G. H., Lispector articulates it for me: "a kind of quaking happiness all over my body, a horrible happy unease in which my legs seemed to vanish, as always when the roots of my unknown identity were touched."
WHAT WE'RE READING
Our Editorial Assistants recommend books that match July’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks.
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