RavePloughshares... flatters Western-style writers like the book’s namesake, Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, and Roberto Bolaño, and then cuts them down to size. Packed with the outlaws, quippy dialogue, and violence of his influences, Quentin Tarantino emphasizes the tragic circumstances that fuel these kinds of stories, proving that a Western is neither a setting nor a gun. It is a mindset and a circumstance. The result is a kaleidoscopic collection that begins faithful to influences, then morphs into a postmodern wrestling match between the seduction of capitalistic thought and the economic inequity that keeps the characters in such claustrophobic and dangerous internal worlds ... MacSweeney’s English translation imbues the collection’s narrators with the same enterprising charisma as she did the enigmatic Highway in Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth ... an ambitious, generous boon. While this deliberately challenging read might turn off a casual reader, Herbert’s parody of Tarantino’s style and MacSweeney’s lively translation chart unmarked territory for other artists to explore. This book does future writers a kindness: Herbert is practically begging to be turned into kitsch.
Melissa Faliveno
RaveThe Harvard ReviewFaliveno’s debut essay collection Tomboyland makes visible a Midwest region that was considered \'flyover country\' before the 2016 election and became subject to all manner of sweeping generalizations after it. Across eight essays, Faliveno expertly braids memories of her upbringing with interviews and research to render Wisconsin a living, breathing thing ... With a characteristic generosity, the essays of Tomboyland look back on the Midwest’s complicated past and forward to an optimistic future ... Faliveno’s voice is charming, and most so in the moments that exhibit traditional Midwestern culture without recognizing it ... Tomboyland is a strong, vulnerable debut. Melisssa Faliveno hones a singular style of interlinked optimism in her essays, which paint Wisconsin as a place of immense, ancient histories and a place with hopes for great change in a shifting world. Her writing would make a native to the region proud of its complexity.
