RaveThe Los Angeles Review of Books... an enigmatic, uncanny, and richly rewarding novel ... While we can safely presume Ogawa’s political leanings are anti-fascist, the marketing conceals what might otherwise be presented as a prismatic and multilayered work of literature, one that is insistent on avoiding easy answers to the questions it poses ... In terms of narrative, The Memory Police shares more in common with The Diary of Anne Frank than novels like Nineteen Eighty-Four or Brave New World ... Antagonists can give protagonists a sense of direction, so with no one for the protagonists to come together and rail against the narrative risks feeling rudderless. But Ogawa’s novel is better for it: the struggle to maintain normalcy and continue to be kind and helpful to your friends and family in the face of subjugation and loss becomes central, leaving little room for vapid action. There is much more about the magic of the mundane here than there is action in any traditional sense ... the characters’ sensory perception of what’s lost and forgotten unlocks a history, flooding the work with nostalgia and melancholy but also sweeter and more playful sentiments as well ... remarkably layered and rich without feeling cluttered, or as if loose ends aren’t tied up ... was written almost 30 years ago but still taps into the anxieties and concerns of present-day readers ... What little there is in the way of a concrete ethic is there firmly, but without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. Ogawa, thankfully, is never in the business of sermonizing or preaching ... we’re fortunate to have more work by such a uniquely gifted and idiosyncratic writer who has yet to gain the wider readership she deserves in the English-speaking world.
Terese Svoboda
PositiveLos Angeles Review of Books\"In Terese Svoboda’s expansive new short story collection, Great American Desert, her meticulous and lyrical prose brings these stories to life in ways that are often stunning, deeply felt, and uniquely perceptive ... Taken as a whole, the collection is like layers of stratum that produce a beautiful yet ominous portrait of an ecosystem that’s given more than it can sustain, and people who have taken more than they deserve ... Great American Desert should join the ranks of other landmark short story collections set in the same region, like Ron Hansen’s Nebraska and Annie Proulx’s Close Range. Svoboda has yet to achieve the same level of name recognition as the former two, but she is obviously a master of the form and willing to take the type of risks that are the bedrock of fresh and surprising fiction ... read [the book] soon, before the sea levels rise, the glaciers melt, and the wells have all run dry.\
Lucia Berlin
RaveLos Angeles Review of Books\"It is hard to read Lucia Berlin’s Evening in Paradise: More Stories, which is every bit as generous and perceptive as A Manual for Cleaning Women, and not feel some sense of frustration or exasperation at the fact that Berlin was not more widely read during her lifetime. Considered together, the two collections leave little doubt she is one of the greatest American short story writers of the 20th century ... Paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, Berlin’s prose is vivid and lush—a rich and tactile landscape that often overwhelms the senses while rarely feeling overwrought or florid (and when it does, it’s ironic). But perhaps above all, she is a master of sound and rhythm.\
