RaveOn the SeawallCole’s finest novel yet. It reminds us of the best qualities of intensely personal, diaristic fiction. And it boldly moves beyond the limits of that form. After so many chapters—and really, so many books—of Cole’s distinctive narration.
Hernan Diaz
RaveThe Harvard Review... historical fiction that thrums with the energy of today’s crises ... I confess that the novel-within-a-novel conceit is a pet peeve of mine. All too often the embedded stories aren’t as good as their frames require them to be. But \'Bonds\', the opening political novel-within-a-novel by the fictitious Harold Vanner, succeeds on its own terms before Diaz puts it to other uses. Matching the era’s writing, Vanner’s immersive novel evokes Edith Wharton’s perceptive eye and the muckrakers’ moral intensity. Finely sketched details accrete into compelling portraits. And the plot—a political fable about a capitalist’s hubris—builds steadily to a dramatic conclusion. And then Diaz starts the story over ... Like any good experimental novel, Trust—a clean, linear narrative until this point—shatters to fragments. And, as with any good detective novel, the reader must parse contradictory accounts, dodge red herrings, and hunt for clues to find the answers. For all his deep fascination with political economy, Diaz has written a well-paced, suspenseful novel ... This intricate novel possesses a rare, fractal beauty: patterns first noticeable in the tiny twigs of its sentences recur in the branches of its sections and yet again in the shape of the whole.
Solmaz Sharif
RaveOn the SeawallI’d never once thought that Sharif might have cushioned her critiques in Look. That collection still seems razor-sharp to me. But the new book renews Sharif’s resolution to see clearly, to look—and not only at other lives, but also at her own. What she sees is an outrage that is still insufficient to the violence she catalogs ... Sharif sets the military dictionary aside and clears space for a thrilling taboo rage ... her toolkit has been pared down, resulting in a more direct, cutting voice for her anti-imperialism ... Sharif’s lineation creates a ghostly visual rhyme of the censor’s destruction. We wonder at the erasures, and feel the denial of intimacy ... Sharif\'s rage in these poems is incandescent. It illuminates, shows us how to see ... through her writing, Sharif demonstrates that seeing clearly is a habit that must be practiced — and guarded against ruin.
