About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Elsa Morante, trans. by Jenny McPhee
Rave Words Without Borders \"...like the novels of Ferrante and Ginzburg, delves into the deepest recesses of the feminine psyche, reveling in its flows and flaws ... presents a scathing account of the self-destructive pattern of narcissistic love, particularly between women ... If each translation of a book is a metamorphosis, Lies and Sorcery restores the winding, labyrinthine prose to its author, bringing English readers closer to Morante’s original vision. Although it sets out to be a book of lies, I found while reading it that, perhaps more than anything else I have read, this new translation of Morante seemed to express something true about the desire to unravel family history.\
Sarah Rose Etter
Rave Brooklyn Rail Hopeless ... Surrealist writing, with its disorienting, even anarchic associations, exposes the inherent absurdity of human behavior ... Harrowing ... Encapsulates a profound journey of self-realization and how one confronts the impending shadows of unhappiness ... [A] vivid expression of our contemporary reality.
Annie Ernaux, trans. by Alison L. Strayer
Rave The Chicago Review of Books She documents these experiences with unemotional precision, ruthlessly covering such private subjects because, as she explains in L’événement, she would otherwise be \'guilty of silencing the lives of women and condoning a world governed by the patriarchy\' ... not the diary entries of Simone Weil, the French philosopher and mystic; those emphatic aphorisms on the nature of existence and the intellectual benefits of suffering. No, here is an unfiltered look into the mind of a woman capable of a deep obsession ... If the paintings of Renoir could speak, it would be through these diaries ... Between the stripped-down sentences, she allows herself to acknowledge that something as simple as sex has destroyed her ... It’s not a typical story, even for Ernaux, perhaps because most others have too much pride to publish such unfiltered thoughts. In this way, the book’s greatest weakness—its self-indulgence—is also its greatest strength.
Irene Solà
Mixed Full Stop Solà’s novel affords the [Pyrenees] region a profound sense of humanity ... When I Sing, Mountains Dance demonstrates how bitterly difficult it is for humans to process a loved one’s passing. Death, Solà tells us, will always be resisted by mortal beings ... I wanted more of the witches, of the deer, of the fungi and the mountains. Since the novel reads like a folktale, its writing works best when playing with the perspectives of nature. Its shortcomings were especially apparent with each new chapter narrated from the perspective of a human ... most of the human narrators in When I Sing, Mountains Dance are contemporaries living in the same village, leaving the reader to guess who is narrating each chapter. I found myself wanting more of the surreal voice Solà lent to the mountains ... a novel brimming with hope for future generations, and for the vitality of the Pyrenees mountains.
Kathryn Davis
Positive The Chicago Review of Books Davis’ memoir gives art equal weight to real-life events as she reflects on the work of Virginia Woolf, Ingmar Bergman, Beethoven, Peggy Lee, and Grace Paley to find deeper meaning in her experience. By grasping at art to give a sense of purpose to her life, Davis highlights the pain and absurdity of being newly widowed.
Anne Serre, Trans. by Mark Hutchinson
Positive The Cleveland Review of Books Surreal and erotic, Anne Serre’s writing explores woman’s powers, potency, and regions of femininity. Her writing advances notions of women’s sexual pleasure and produces a portrait of feminine consciousness that rejects a classic understanding of womanhood. She does not write in platitudes, nor does she dig up worn-out fairytales of women to depict the intimate lives of her governesses. Instead, Serre’s writing is shaped by a forceful return of a female libido that refuses to be put down and yearns to exist outside culture’s preconceptions. In her book, Serre finds language to describe women that is savage and yet makes itself understood. Even if the governesses do not succeed in carving out their own space in the Austeur mansion, their story warns of a downfall women face when they become complacent in reductive gender roles. In Serre’s economic writing, there is a need to decipher what cannot be said, what is expressed implicitly yet nonetheless arouses the desire for words: that is the drama of The Governesses.