All posts tagged: Lidia Yuknavitch

Review: The Small Backs of Children

BY LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
Reviewed by ANDREW WILLIS

The Small Backs of Children

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart defended the First Amendment right of movie theaters to show a French art film called The Lovers. With characteristic candor, Stewart wrote that he knew the film was not pornographic because even though he couldn’t strictly define such material, he could say, rather famously now, “I know it when I see it.” When he saw The Lovers, he didn’t see “it,” that “hard-core” obscenity; he saw art. I envy Stewart’s certainty, his uncannily astute powers of perception. I can’t always claim that I see the clear line between art and obscenity, or the times in which art, for art’s sake, justifies the dubious means of its creation. Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Small Backs of Children is merely the latest to leave me wondering about art and the blurred lines it creates.

Review: The Small Backs of Children
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