RaveThe RumpusIn her photographs and her memoir, Hold Still, Mann presents a captivating version of that southern body in all its twisted beauty ... Mann’s words are often sumptuous, and her writing mirrors the visual and philosophical nature of her photographs ... At times her sentences brim over with rich language, becoming a bit saccharine, overindulgent. But these sins are easily forgiven; after all, overindulgence is a southern tendency ... Mann’s nearly five hundred-page memoir lacks a dull moment—partially due to the beauty of her language, and partially because of her striking photographs, and the ones she dug up from the family attic.
Lucia Berlin
RaveThe RumpusBerlin’s language is succinct and tightly focused, its effects on the reader immediate, saturating, and her imagery is crystalline in its formation on the page and in the reader’s mind. Yes, she must be read ... The brilliance of Berlin’s stories lies in a combination of her precise, incisive language and expert narrative-making. There are stories in this collection whose events will cause the rapid beating, and subsequent crushing, of your heart ... In reading Berlin, you will forget where you are sitting, who else is in the house, what you have to do later this afternoon. You will be entranced. With Berlin, the story, above all else, is the thing.
