PositiveBookPage...a spirited sendup of the frauds found in art, academia and their \"\"liminal\"\" intersections ... Chancellor writes in the established tradition of the American absurd, from Pynchon and Gaddis...to DeLillo and Foster Wallace ... Chancellor may be swinging for the former pair, but lands firmly, and thereby accessibly, in the latter. His language is often bracing and his references to \'late Heidegger\' et al. will please aspiring or ashamed philosophy students. But he is rarely esoteric for esoterica\'s sake, eschewing the obfuscating \'cult of the difficult\' he otherwise lampoons. But is it art? Or Art? Marcel Duchamp suggested that art is whatever appears in a gallery. So is this a novel or something in a \'novel\'? Liminalism suggests it may be somewhere in between.
Monique Truong
PositiveBook PageIn an elegant if rambling style somewhat reminiscent of Stein herself, Truong relates Binh\'s rise from obscurity to semi-obscurity ... In its celebration of gustatory delights and their use as metaphors for human life, Truong\'s novel belongs in the company of such books as Joanne Harris\' Chocolat ... Truong capably evokes Binh\'s disparate worlds, and her depiction of the eccentric, punctilious and almost intolerably narcissistic American ladies rings true. Somewhat less convincing is her ambitious persona as a gay man: one often hears Truong, not Binh, when the writing soars into sentimentality or sensuality.
Ned Beauman
PanBookPageSome novels...are a kind of intellectual indulgence for the author and those in the know. Ned Beauman’s new novel is one such inside joke—likely to be amusing to those who get it, exasperating to those who don’t ... Beauman’s command of the language is first-rate, and the breadth of his ideas vindicates his philosophy degree from Cambridge. But...Beauman’s cavalier attitude toward death makes him unserious. His characters are but shadows of Beauman’s thoughts.
Denis Johnson
PositiveBookPage\"Johnson’s stories are that of a depleted and decadent civilization. He observes trains everywhere going off the rails. The joke of the title story, which is composed of many interlinked tales, is that modern life is distinctly lacking in largesse and sea maidens … His stylistic range is certainly wondrous, straddling the starkness of ‘Starlight’ and the hysterical realism of ‘Doppelgänger, Poltergeist’ … Johnson’s stories are pertinent and engaging. They hold up a mirror to society’s dregs and to that extent are flawless.\
C. Morgan Babst
RaveBookPage\"C. Morgan Babst’s debut novel draws its title from a Japanese phrase signifying ephemerality, but it doubles as a description of New Orleans after Katrina. As a fictional retelling thereof, the book has few superiors ... The author resists the temptation to turn her novel into a tract or advocacy—not that it lacks passion. To the contrary, the novel is very much of our irritable, harried times.\
Hannah Kent
PositiveBookPageKent showcases botanical language and writes in a prose that’s often delectable. Her novel is more literary than thriller; for long stretches of the novel nothing much happens. There is but one central conflict, between Nóra and Micheál, but the resolution is decisive if unsatisfying. Meanwhile, the novel succeeds in imagining a community of violent ignorance and lassitude. As in Faulkner’s best, Kent presents us with shells of people, consumed with survival. (Two decades later, famine would ravage the Emerald Isle.) The novel’s more historical aspects are more interesting and credible than those supernatural—but when most folks believe in angels, one would not want to presume.
John Boyne
RaveBookPage[Ireland] has evolved from an often hateful hierocracy to a seat of social liberalism. Of this evolution, John Boyne’s new novel is an essential witness ... More than a coming-of-age story, The Heart’s Invisible Furies is one man’s journey from persecution to toleration. Punctuated with simple dialogue, its nearly 600 pages betray Maude’s dictum that 'brevity is the key.' But the novel seldom lags and often delights.
