RaveThe Los Angeles TimesJohn Jeremiah Sullivan’s first collection, Pulphead has it all. It is thoughtful, electric and alive ... Sullivan is a lively explainer: He sparkles when he’s didactic ... he’s well read and thoughtful and curious ... The only real false notes are the musical pieces. Essays on Michael Jackson, Axl Rose and Bunny Wailer, all of which originally ran in GQ, feel off-balance, undercooked ... these pieces seem to lack either a critical distance or a necessary passion, landing in a more generic middle ... He brings both passion and critical distance to the unforgettable, unpronounceable story \'La-Hwi-Ne-Ski: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist\' The subject, a brilliant, deeply flawed early 19th century naturalist named Rafinesque, is captivating by Sullivan’s account. That’s partly because in addition to telling us about Rafinesque, Sullivan steps back to look at how the prevailing ideas of the day undermined his genius ... Sullivan is a writer to be read, wherever his work may be found.
Téa Obreht
MixedThe Los Angeles TimesThe cliché of the superhumanly persistent lawman demonstrates how hard it can be to work within the mythologies of the American West. What is the best way to write about settling a land that was not the empty expanse shown in old movies but home to Native Americans? Obreht has characters of multiple white ethnicities and Latinos — for all of them, the isolation of their Arizona town allows for acceptance and reinvention. Through their 1893 eyes, Native Americans were frightening and seldom-seen villains. But as it’s 2019, it’s unfortunate that among all the varied characters we meet in Inland, Native Americans don’t ever leave the periphery. It’s a missed opportunity. At times, this sweeping story seems almost too big for even a writer of Obreht’s gifts. But it is saved by the camel and his rider Lurie, outsiders who can make a home no place other than the emptiest spaces of the West. Nora provides a difficult but necessary ballast as Lurie reverberates with the yearning of lost souls.
Roxana Robinson
PositiveThe Washington Post...Dawson’s Fall is both rooted in its time and speaks directly to ours. It is also a moving love story between two people whose morality seems, from the perspective of 2019, sometimes to be muddied ... the book has an epic sweep. But it’s also grounded: Robinson vividly evokes settings in just a few sentences ... Here Robinson has pieced together a century-old true crime, a murder in which all the witnesses are long dead. Using far-flung sources and excruciating care, she creates the map; her novelist’s skills render it in 3-D ... the legacy of slavery and the Civil War is still being felt by our nation. Dawson’s Fall is a richly envisioned attempt to reconcile with that troubled history.
