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Recent Reviews
Katharine Smyth
Positive Minneapolis Star Tribune \"... powerful ... Like Woolf’s [To the Lighthouse], Smyth’s memoir imagistically flows across time and space ... Like many ardent acolytes, Smyth’s worship of her literary idol can at times lead to cringeworthy stylistic homage... But there are many lovely moments when Smyth’s prose soars into poetry, as in her final paragraph, the rich description of a final walk she takes with her father by a rusty railway bridge...\
Luis Alberto Urrea
Positive The Star Tribune The House of Broken Angels hurtles forward with linguistic exuberance that can be gorgeous ('the moon was a curl of God’s fingernail') but also exhausting to keep up with. Urrea, who paints in neons rather than pastels, does not write for the emotionally faint of heart in need of personal space ... The House of Broken Angels soars on wings of memory and imagination into the 'imperfect and glorious, messy and hilarious' tragedy and comedy of family history.
Ann Beattie
Positive The Minneapolis Star Tribune Recognizable cultural detritus of the way we live now — absurd, witty, sometimes disturbing — floats through these stories ... Beattie’s dialogue zings, deadpans, meanders and sizzles. If it’s sometimes exhausting to follow, it’s never dull ... I read these stories hoping that someone would make it to solid ground, or at least do a sustainable job of treading water. Not really. The most reassuring things on offer in this fictional world turn out to be a dog and a gorgeous pair of pricey leather ankle boots. But there can also be the exhilarating uplift of Beattie’s gorgeous prose.