MixedThe AtlanticOne of the first works—and, let’s hope, not the last—to meld the old genre of the unhappy family with a much younger variety: the internet novel ... She seems to have found a middle distance between dismissiveness and sentimentality ... This is a novel about the corrosive effect of modern life that doesn’t feel corrosive. Cash is gentle with us—perhaps too gentle ... Implausible ... Villains, in Cash’s novel, can’t seem to commit to villainy. Irreconcilable differences are resolved by short periods of self-reflection. The overall effect is one of deflation ... In joining the Zadie Smiths and Jonathan Franzens of the world, Cash has undermined the tension that makes such novels work. Families can form a strong protective unit, but the price of that bond is that when they fail, they become a grief engine ... This is a shame, because a great family novel of the internet would need to take online danger seriously.
PositiveLARBWilliams is a strange sort of éminence grise of American letters: celebrated but elusive, in no small part because of her multitonal style—half sardonic, half sacred ... The effect—which is rarely imitated—can cause motion sickness, confusion, or a kind of readerly rapture ... The stories in The Pelican Child are no different.
PositiveLos Angeles Review of BooksFor Nick, the end result of his panic attacks is creativity, insight, and art. Does it lessen his brilliance if it’s rooted in divorce and poor healthcare, tied not to any miraculous recovery but to a lifetime of frayed edges? Clune, coyly, doesn’t say. Maybe he thinks the difference doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s panicking. Maybe both.
RaveThe Village VoiceThe book is...rooted in vivid character studies, many revolving around the boxing gym, but Nathaniel’s ghost moves the reader between narratives. Each new perspective naturally emerges from the last, offering more clues, more context, more characters, with every new segment another fragment of a fractured mirror, each new addition getting the reader closer to reality. It’s Rocky in the style of Rashomon with a heavy rewrite from Philip Roth ... Much of Schaefer’s commentary on race is masked under cynical Jewish humor. But even when he’s joking, Schaefer is savvy and sober about how race penetrates different aspects of American life ... Nathaniel’s story is just the connective tissue. All the individual stories that build to his fate are equally rich ... A tremendously strong novel ... There’s a lot to admire here ... The thing I admire most is that Schaefer set himself such a challenge for a debut novel and that he succeeded. I can’t overstate how immiscible the mix of ingredients is in The Slip ... Schaefer takes an unpalatable mixture of ingredients and makes something light, piquant, and satisfying. From disparate, difficult parts comes a great Mrs. Potato Head.
Caroline Blackwood
RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksGritty, nasty, and rooted in the delirious gossip of Blackwood’s own salacious life, The Stepdaughter is the perfect book for people who find Joan Didion too even-keeled, Renata Adler too fair-minded ... She uses short declarative sentences as a way of locating a mind trapped in a small space ... With its letter-never-sent scheme and its claustrophobic style, The Stepdaughter is an innovative text that works. In its own way, it’s a perfect novel, if a small and mean one, a savvy artistic choice and a match for Blackwood’s talents.
