RaveAV Club...its pages contain a perverse, stubborn glimmer of grace, an irrational hope that can\'t be crushed by the evidence of history or the plans of evil men ... Chabon creates a rich alternate history that turns like a slowly closing door, with everyone either yanking their fingers away from the hinges or wedging a black boot in the jamb. His gift for deadpan dialogue and ironic juxtaposition has never been better employed than in this permafrost noir.
Timothy Egan
PositiveThe AV/AUX ClubAlthough the story can be repetitive on the surface, several compelling figures anchor Egan\'s readable tale ... a reminder that the disasters of our age, while awesome in scale, still have competition from the breathtaking destruction in our past. And its focus on the people who stuck it out, either through tenacity or grim resignation, illuminates those in our own time who cling to their patches of earth, in spite of the wind or water trying to sweep them away.
Vikas Swarup
PanThe A.V. ClubIndian diplomat Vikas Swarup knows how to spin a yarn. In his new debut, Q & A, he tells 12 of them within the framework of a improbable quiz-show victory … Unfortunately, Swarup fails to wrap these episodes in a compelling package. His roller-coaster collection ends with the abruptness of a library storyteller rushing to reach an urgent appointment across town. The crashing denouement diminishes even the best of what has come before. It's too bad, because Swarup, a quiz-show aficionado, has gotten hold of an irresistible premise … His haste to get to the novel's final A makes it look like all the Q's were cheap setups.
Michael Cunningham
PositiveThe A.V. ClubIn Cunningham's new novel, Specimen Days, three central characters in three different historical periods ponder the same book: Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass ... Had he not already written two previous novels in different molds, this Cunningham fellow would risk a reputation as a one-trick pony ...Cunningham seems to have invented his own literary form, and in Specimen Days, he crafts it with a master's assurance ... Names and phrases echo as if the three novellas were connected chambers in a vast underground cavern. Yet Cunningham achieves the same intimacy in this large work as he did in The Hours, fitting worlds of meaning into an unspoken thought ... With skill and courage, he explores the ends to which death can be a means, in a great American novel for the terrorism age.
