RaveThe NationA novel that also resembles an unauthorized autobiography of Rosenberg’s own mother, complete with parallel names and parallel timelines. It lures the reader with an aura of fidelity and, as the novel progresses, goes totally off the rails ... Rosenberg’s slip from satire into science fiction assumes that readers will need as much help as they can get to begin to comprehend a transphobic parent’s point of view: In order to fully evoke Barbara’s horror at her child’s transformation, it is necessary to show J. becoming an actual, life-size monster. After all, there would be nothing horrifying about a J. who, day by day, was just beginning to look like himself.
Elizabeth O'Connor
PositiveThe NationBy rejecting nostalgia but still foregrounding landscape, Whale Fall makes space for the more intimate, surreal ways that culture can relate to nature.
