RavePittsburgh Post-GazetteJoyce Carol Oates may be criticized in the Twitter-sphere for her frank and controversial observations, but her status as the doyenne of the American short story remains uncontested. In 'Beautiful Days,' the prolific author once again delivers a selection of skillfully written stories as powerful as any she has produced in her long and distinguished career.
Ali Smith
RaveThe Pittsburgh Post-GazetteDisembodied heads roll down hallways and coastlines crash through the ceiling of an English country house in Winter, the second installment in Ali Smith’s quartet of seasonal stand-alone novels ... The familial circumstances exist mainly to underscore the relative-ity of perception and belief, which is the book’s overriding theme. And, as is the case with family, readers are likely to feel a combination of affection and annoyance ...It’s impossible, for instance, not to admire the author’s ability to cultivate so much from a sterile season. But then, this is not the bleak midwinter of popular imagination, filled with bracing winds and purifying white stillness ...swirling throughout the book are historical, literary, linguistic, artistic, mythological and religious references that grow overwhelming. \'Multilayered\' doesn’t even begin to cover it ... Despite some of the more dire forecasts issued throughout the book, it seems to be weighted toward optimism.
Annie Proulx
RaveThe Pittsburgh Post-GazetteWith gorgeous imagery, clean prose and remarkable sensitivity, she recounts the wholesale destruction of the rich, wild woodlands of the world while illustrating the constructs of civilization and the paradoxes of human nature that have brought us to the brink of environmental collapse ... In a nutshell, Barkskins is The Giving Tree for grown-ups; a much larger, much more complex version of Shel Silverstein’s children’s classic. Both works depict a state of harmony between man and nature destroyed by the insatiable desire for material wealth and end with a terrifying image ... I would have been happy to keep reading for another 700 pages, but just as the novel hits its stride around the Industrial Revolution, the action accelerates dramatically, skipping generations and speeding through scenes with characters of whom we know little beyond their ancestry. It’s tempting to speculate that this abrupt change came about at the insistence of an impatient editor or because of the author’s advancing age, but it’s far more likely that Ms. Proulx intended the adjustment in tempo to serve as a forest metaphor.
