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.
OLGA ZILBERBOURG
Wilson’s novel, too, is a carnivalesque feast. It offers a constant spectacle of death and renewal in exuberant, entirely over-the-top settings. Most characters have a tragic death story attached to them. There are deaths in car crashes, fires, several forms of cancer, and an epileptic girl who dies from an attack of epilepsy that happens when she’s in prison.
HOLIDAY READS
Exploring migration from the perspective of plants; mystical historical fiction that will transport you from New England to Haiti; and one woman’s chance to do life over again. We revisited our community’s favorite reads from throughout the year and compiled a list of memoirs, essay collections, novels, and creative nonfiction works to inspire a diverse holiday reading list, or kick off your reading plans for the new year.
OLENA JENNINGS
I feel connected to Mong’s act of viewing from within the comfort of family life. We traverse museums, landscapes, and galaxies. Lines like the “wound of our love” that is “red of rare steak, gray like smudged lace” compose the lace of the poems, a beautiful lattice of words that draws me into the book and asks me to weave in my own experiences.
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