PositiveNew York Journal of BooksBernini does a good job of describing the political and social chaos, the shifting sands of power from one city-state to another ... Well researched with wonderfully vivid details, Bernini presents Machiavelli in all the complications of a life spent navigating political waters, learning to say the right thing or nothing at all, and more importantly, learning how to write about it all.
M T Anderson
MixedNew York Journal of BooksReaders who expect to find themselves in a medieval world will be disappointed. But if a plot full of twists and turns is intriguing enough to make up for that, the book certainly delivers ... Usually writers try to avoid words that don\'t fit the period of their story. Anderson feels no such compunction ... The overall effect can be amusing or jarring.
Joyce Carol Oates
RaveThe New York Journal of Books\"Joyce Carol Oates is masterful in this horrific portrait of a 19th century doctor who treats his patients more as subjects for experiments than as people to cure ... Oates is definitely giving oppressed and silenced women a loud, clear cry in this subtle, complicated story. But nothing is quite how it seems, even Jonathan\'s seemingly \'objective\' motives. Strand upon subtle strand is woven together in a story that\'s part dystopian fable, part family drama, part feminist reckoning ... Weir isn\'t all evil, however. Oates is too good a writer for that, far too nuanced ... It takes a writer of great skill to pull of the feat of keeping a reader engaged through so much brutality. Oates\' writing is so deft and the world she creates so vivid, one keeps turning the pages, all the way to the deeply unsettling ending.\
Tessa Hulls
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksHull is deeply honest and vulnerable in these pages ... This is a richly complicated story of cross-generational trauma. But it\'s also a story about the immigrant experience, about family dynamics, about cultural expectations in China and in America. Hull doesn\'t shy away from any of it ... The only gaps in this complicated story are the mysterious absence of Hull\'s British father and older brother.
Jhumpa Lahiri, trans. by Todd Portnowitz
RaveNew York Journal of BooksThe reader isn\'t truly in Rome because the author herself isn\'t. Instead, she\'s searching for ways to belong. Offering her first book written in Italian is one solution. Each of these vignettes offers others. Roman Stories is more of an interior journey than a touristic travelogue
Emma Donoghue
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksLister is a sharply drawn character, Eliza much less so. We see how hard Eliza works to follow the rules, to be accepted, to belong to this society that has so many barriers against her, but not much beyond that ... Donoghue has created a vivid world here ... Some may find these walls suffocatingly narrow, but others will find Eliza\'s and Lister\'s passion enough to carry them through.
Julie Schumacher
PositiveThe New York Journal of Books\"The English Experience may not present the reader with anything truly British, but it offers a sharp send-up of academic life, perhaps sadly more of an American experience than anything else.\
Katie Siegel
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksEach character is introduced with a brief physical description that belongs more in a police blotter than a novel. The gimmick will be distracting to some readers, stopping the action as it does each time ... After setting up Charlotte\'s skills, the predictable plot wheels start turning ... The book is more a portrait of a group of friends than a social commentary or a humorous farce. Still, a solid mystery is served up.
Charles Frazier
MixedNew York Journal of BooksCharles Frazier conjures up the bleakness of the Depression, making strong parallels between that time and our own ... As an artist, Val doesn’t really come to life ... The historical aspect, however, is accurate ... It’s writing like this that carries the book along, not any sweeping plot nor interesting characters. When the reason for Eve’s escape is finally revealed, there’s no sense of surprise or satisfaction.
Franz Kafka, trans. by Ross Benjamin
RaveNew York Journal of BooksRoss Benjamin has done an admirable job of bringing readers the full text of these many journals, reflecting accurately the obsessive nature of Kafka’s thinking ... Kafka has never been so fully present, as both a man and a writer.
Francine Prose
MixedNew York Journal of BooksThe book functions more as a feminist critique of the legend than a historical view of the life ... Prose asserts that Cleopatra was intelligent and effective, but she doesn’t offer historical evidence to back up those claims ... [Prose] wants the relationships to be romantic, to be genuine, not calculated. They may have been, but there’s no evidence either way ... Prose also stumbles when she accuses the ancient Romans of exoticizing Egyptians—and Cleopatra specifically—as \'Eastern.\' But the Ptolemies were Greek, not exotic at all. And Egypt wasn’t seen as the \'other\' that Prose wants to present ... These are both instances of imposing contemporary values on ancient times, something an historian is supposed to avoid ... The most effective part of the book is when Prose steps outside of history entirely and casts a critical eye on how books and movies made Cleopatra into a villain ... Prose now takes a turn, offering up a different Cleopatra, one formed by Prose’s own feminist sensibilities. The real Cleopatra, however, remains as unknowable as ever.
Alexander McCall Smith
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... aptly titled: reading the book is like sinking into an overstuffed chair, allowing oneself to relax and allow time to slow down. This is a story in no rush to be told. There are many asides, thoughts, impressions, all of which give flavor to the book, evoking a distinctive world. There’s no dramatic pacing, no staccato rhythm to the prose propelling the reader forward. Instead there’s a simple and complete appreciation for the characters and the world they inhabit ... McCall Smith is an author who sees his characters and their world, fully and tenderly. And that makes for a book that is as comforting to sink into as well-worn armchair.
Marcel Theroux
RaveNew York Journal of BooksMarcel Theroux has written a truly enchanting book in The Sorcerer of Pyongyang, something completely unexpected ... Theroux has written a compelling book one that shows vividly how storytelling and the imagination are the sharpest tools to fight repression ... This book is impressive as a picture of life in North Korea, but it goes beyond that, elevating the story into one that gets to the heart of what is so corrosive about propaganda, what is so liberating about the imagination. It winds through its themes to land on a deeply satisfying ending, leaving the reader much to think about and savor. Ultimately, Theroux celebrates the incredible magic of storytelling by giving us this amazing story.
Emily Carrington
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... somehow this isn’t an unremittingly bleak book, as it easily could have been and that is due to Emily Carrington’s consummate skill in the graphic novel format. She draws her rural childhood as full of bucolic moments and is generous in how she describes her clearly dysfunctional parents ... As a prose memoir, this would be tough to read. It’s not easy as a graphic memoir, either, but the format gives the reader air. The full black pages separating chapters provide both a pause and visual emblem for the darkness of the story. And Carrington’s clarity helps. She’s clearly done a lot of work on healing her pain and brings that understanding to her descriptions ... In this way her graphic memoir provides a map for others on the power of storytelling. Nobody can control what she puts on the page, how she uses words and images to shape her narrative, to make sense of her world ... Telling a story, Carrington shows, takes its own kind of courage, and reaps its own deep rewards.
Meg Howrey
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... a beautiful, compelling portrait of dance, those who choose such a difficult profession and how it defines more than a career, but a deep sense of self. Howrey writes skillfully about ballet, both the physically weight (and airiness) of it, and the choreography of it, the story that skillful movements can offer the viewer. She helps us see this art form from the inside out, a rare gift ... Howrey excels at depicting family dynamics in all their contradictions ... raises many more questions than it answers, which is the sign of a book that stays with you long after you finish the last page. This is a story sure to become a book group favorite, rich in discussion topics that are as provocative as they are complex.
Orhan Pamuk tr. Ekin Oklap
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksThe Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk knows how to do historical research and present it in inventive ways ... Pamuk vividly describes the detailed texture of life on Mingheria, the island, along with the tension of a brutal disease threatening an entire population. He introduces a dizzyingly complicated cast of characters both from the present situation and the recent past of the Ottoman Empire. As if that weren’t enough to carry along the tangled narrative, Pamuk adds yet another element: that of a murder mystery, with frequent allusions to the crime-solving techniques of Sherlock Holmes ... It’s a lot to pack into one book, but Pamuk allows himself the time and space to carry it all off brilliantly. The plague story, the political one, the murder mystery—all converge in an unpredictable and satisfying way. This is a book to savor and read slowly, not to race through. Its pattern emerges slowly and richly, like a fantastical Turkish carpet, carrying the reader into a world that’s both imaginary and very real.
Elizabeth McCracken
RaveNew York Journal of BooksMcCracken’s book is pure pleasure from first page to last ... The book gives us the life of a distinctive character: the charming, funny, stubborn mother who is truly the hero of the book ... There is so much good writing here, this review could simply be a series of quotations from the book. The narrator’s descriptions of the people she encounters are master classes in how to evoke personality with few words ... We learn all kinds of details about the narrator, revealing character in the most delightful ways ... Keen observations, often laugh-out-loud funny, are threaded among the rich memories of the narrator’s mother, a woman appreciative of life, observant and sharp in her opinions, as is her daughter.
Yiyun Li
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksLi does an incandescent job of making this relationship vividly real, giving it the weight and impact it deserves ... Somehow Agnes cheats this fate once she’s discovered as an author, but that doesn’t seem to be what really matters in the book, either. The focus remains squarely on Fabienne’s power over Agnes, even across an ocean, how Agnes continues to define herself and orient herself in relation to her powerful friend. And the book we are reading, the one Agnes is writing, is ultimately a book of longing for an absent friend, one who still remains present deep within Agnes.
Nathalia Holt
PositiveThe New York Journal of BooksSome may object to [Holt\'s] wholehearted approval of Donovan, creator of the CIA after his earlier unit, the OSS was disbanded by Truman as having too much unregulated power ... it would have helped Holt’s reliability to mention other views rather than presenting such single-minded hagiography ... This is an impressive book, covering a lot of ground, including incisive critiques of the missions and focus of the CIA, the change from spying to \'covert operations.\' Holt juggles a lot of material and the reader goes back and forth between the different women, tracking their careers during and after WWII in a complicated zigzag. It’s a testament to Holt’s careful research that the narrative all holds together, made vivid by the many details she uncovered ... The Wise Gals who started at the CIA paved the way for the many women coming after them and still provide an inspiring model. And thanks to this book, they’re now a part of our history.
Christopher Buckley
PositiveThe New York Journal of BooksThe writing is lively and funny, as Buckley finds the ridiculous in much of the ordinary aspects of life, during a pandemic or not ... The narrator’s creative process is fun to watch in itself. His other mental wanderings—and there are many—are equally diverting ... Buckley is very funny about the modern tendency to live in our screens. He has found all the bubbles that need bursting in our current preoccupations. If you’re ready to laugh at pandemic absurdities, this is the book for you.
Maggie O'Farrell
RaveNew York Journal of BooksO’Farrell masterfully makes each page incredibly vivid ... O’Farrell makes the story work through her incredibly rich descriptions ... O’Farrell brings us close to Lucrezia’s flinty intelligence, her inner strength. As a story, pure and simple, the novel succeeds wildly, placing us firmly into a specific time and place where Lucrezia’s drama plays out. The characters are subtle and intriguing, not simple caricatures ... The Lucrezia of the book may not accurately reflect the actual person, but she’s a compelling literary creation and the story that unfolds around her is no less powerful for being completely imagined by the author. In fact, in some ways, O’Farrell deserves even more credit for being able to conjure up this new Lucrezia so convincingly.
Ella King
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksWith searing writing, Ella King charts how abuse in a family affects everyone in it ... This isn’t an easy book to read. It is deeply realistic, with each of the three children coping in their own angry way. The richness of detail and depth of understanding that King gives each character is quietly masterful. There is no happy ending, only a growing awareness of how to nurture a sense of self from the ashes of a shared pathology, the cruel ties built between Mama and Daddy and inflicted on all of their children. But there is a germ of hope and sometimes that has to be enough.
Kate Gavino
PositiveNew York Journal of Books...the writing is sharp and funny, the trials and tribulations real and rewarding...For anyone who has a romantic notion of working in publishing, this book provides an antidote...Waiting tables while working on a novel seems like a better idea than the soul-sucking misery these women endure...What bolsters them is their friendship, and the way forward that Vo shows them...Do any of them end up getting published? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Ed. Jo Glanville
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... provides essential reading for anyone concerned with social justice ... They provide forceful historic arguments for the deep roots of antisemitism and show how the ancient hatred manifests itself in different forms on both the left and the right ... These pages are grim reading. But the clarity of the arguments, along with the bringing together of international sources, provides an important structural understanding of why antisemitism is so deeply ingrained and so difficult to uproot. Just as Black scholars are now studying the ways that racism underlay the very beginnings of American society, this book provides insight into how antisemitism was baked into European culture and brought to America. Consider this book a blueprint for a Jewish 1619 Project. Let’s hope it’s as widely read.
Mohsin Hamid
PanThe New York Journal of BooksThe premise is arresting, forcing a white man to literally experience the world as a person of color. And clearly that’s what Hamid is trying to do, force empathy on his characters as well as raising questions about white privilege. But the book ends up feeling like a message delivered in a story rather than a powerful story in itself. The characters and plot all feel like tools created to serve the message rather than driven by any inherent narrative meaning with the message more subtly (and hence more powerfully) conveyed ... Hamid thus dodges the question of personal identity to focus on skin color. It makes his message more direct but immediately makes his characters more one-dimensional. They are simply white people who are becoming brown ... Strangely, however, this change to Anders brings him and Oona, who previously had only a superficial relationship, much closer. The meaning is obvious: They see each other more clearly, now that they’re looking more deeply, beyond the surface. Not exactly a subtle message, but there is nothing subtle in this book ... The chapters are short, the action keeps moving, so the story is a quick, easy read. But surprisingly for the depth of Hamid’s earlier works, this is pretty thin stuff. There are occasional flashes of insight, but they’re glints in the constant hammering of the message ... works as a kind of message-heavy fable, a puddle of a book rather than a deep dive.
Jokha Alharthi, trans. by Marilyn Booth
MixedNew York Journal of BooksThe writing is vivid in the descriptions of village life in Oman, but the contemporary setting of the main character, Zuhour, is blandly indistinct. For a book that is supposed to show, according to the back cover, a \'young Omani woman building a life for herself in Britain,\' there is very little sense of that life at all ... All of which would be fine, if those stories created any kind of narrative build or sense of character development—for Zuhour or Bint Amir. Instead, there are a series of vignettes, of snippets of memories and family lore, all focused on family and love, how one thwarts—or supports—the other ... What, in the end, is the book about? A series of vignettes offers different views of family constellations, of love shared and thwarted, of parental disapproval and constraints. The writing is interesting on each page, even if there is no narrative build, no compelling emotional journey taken by any of the many characters. Perhaps the book is meant as a series of appetizers, with no main meal. For those who enjoy that kind of reading, dig in. Others will need to look elsewhere.
Laura Gao
RaveNew York Journal of BooksThe story in these pages is...messy, jumping around from family scenes to those in church to video game characters taking over the narrative. The effect is a rich texture of Gao’s interests and experiences, plunging the reader headlong into her world. Gao’s voice is honest and direct ... direct honesty gives the book its strength. Gao doesn’t whitewash her story at all. Instead she brings us along as she grows, learns to appreciate her strong roots, reconnect with her family, and explore the person she’s becoming ... The roots are messy indeed, but the tree blossoming from them is brilliant.
Katherine Pangonis
MixedThe New York Journal of BooksUsing many primary sources that are well cited, [Pangonis] paints on evocative picture of a world with shifting allegiances in a region facing constant battles from an array of enemies ... It’s clear that Pangonis knows her history and can lay out facts and figures to support her reading of events. What’s trickier is the tightrope she walks of being true to historical context while being acutely sensitive to contemporary tastes. This is a book for the general public, not historians, so she feels compelled to forestall objections that could arise if modern values are placed on ancient times ... Her contemporary lens also makes her describe and judge the kings and princes in the book, the consorts of the featured women, as good or bad husbands by ridiculously modern standards ... If readers expect royalty to marry out of love, then they should head for the historical romance aisle, not the nonfiction section where this book belongs. Perhaps Pangonis is right to assume that the average reader needs her constant nudges and reminders. We are living in prickly times, after all. But the women in this history are as remarkable as she describes precisely because of when they lived. And we don’t really care how loving their marriages were. What’s interesting is how they ruled, the power they wielded, and the choices they made. After all, would a historian begin the description of a king’s tenure with the emotional state of his marriage? An introductory chapter laying out the ground rules of history and historical context could have obviated the need for the jerking around that happens throughout the book. Still, the basic history here is solid and intriguing, an important addition to medieval and women’s history.
Elena Ferrante, tr. Ann Goldstein
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksFerrante is a generous guide, taking us through her evolution as a writer and the processes she draws on in each story. She is not shy about sharing the discoveries she made along the way, clawing her way to her own kind of realism. This brief book provides a vivid and concise introduction to effective writing for students and professionals alike, as well as intimate insight into Ferrante’s thinking that will be deeply appreciated by her legions of fans. This book is a true treasure and could provide an important guide for other marginalized writers looking for their own voices.
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Tr. Anthony Chambers and Paul McCarthy
RaveNew York Journal of Books... it’s a real pleasure to find these three unknown stories from the author’s early years ... The translators have done a superb job, not just in translating the stories in lucid, luminous prose, but also in giving the social, cultural, and personal context for the work in their Afterword. The stories are all haunting in very different ways ... Together, the three stories show the power of language in all its tones, presenting a kind of master class in voice and how that affects character and plot. The world of literature is much richer now that Longing and Other Stories is available for English readers.
Sophie Burrows
RaveNew York Journal of Books... an exquisitely painful portrait of loneliness, perfectly pitched for the current time of pandemic isolation ... There are twists and turns to the plot as Burrows explores every possible variation on the theme of loneliness, from that in a bar to that on the street to the misery of being in a hospital bed. The desperate need for human touch, for human connection is beautifully evoked in the deceptively simple drawings. When the man and woman finally come together in the self-checkout line at the market, the reader is cheering them on ... The silence of the book, the fact that it is wordless, amplifies the aching loneliness of the characters. This is a story in which every detail has been carefully thought out, providing the reader with a rich narrative experience. That this is a debut leaves one eager to see what Burrows’ next project will be.
Woody Holton
RaveNew York Journal of BooksBy widening the scope of what he looks at, Holton delivers a much more interesting and complicated story than the traditional legend of the nation’s founding ... Holton has righted a long-imposed wrong by telling these stories, introducing tribes that most readers will not recognize, so deeply has their history been buried. He does the same thing for African Americans and women, showing them as active participants in the formation of the United States, not passive bystanders ... Holton throws down [a] challenge to his readers, providing a richly researched, carefully thought-out, and complicatedly inclusive history, an antidote to the current black-and-white thinking that’s proving so divisive today.
Jeremy Dauber
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksNo detail escapes Dauber ... There isn’t a subject that is off-limits to this richly creative format ... The one fault to this encompassing study is that it doesn’t have a single picture (probably due to licensing complications). That’s unfortunate in a book that describes so well the power of imagery to convey meaning. Readers will be forced to track down the cited works, but they won’t be disappointed once they do ... A master storyteller, Dauber shows us just how much there is to appreciate in this uniquely American history.
Judith Mackrell
RaveNew York Journal of BooksA powerful narrative ... The focus on the human element, from refugees to soldiers to concentration camp survivors, lends their writing a raw and intimate power. Their stories are never simple lists of battle statistics, but journalism at its finest in its mission to take chaotic data and shape it into a coherent narrative ... [A] thoroughly researched book ... Mackrell makes each of these women a vivid character ... This is an important book.
Sylvain Cypel, Tr. William Rodarmor
PanNew York Journal of BooksSylvain Cypel argues forcefully for the moral bankruptcy of Israel in its treatment of Palestinians. He has marshalled many sources, quotes many people, but the book never rises above the level of a diatribe because there is not a single instance of presenting any information that doesn’t gibe with his viewpoint. This lack makes the book not a reasoned study, but a polemical screed. Cypel may make good points, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he glosses over major issues with barely a mention. Anyone hoping for an illuminating overview of Israeli policy and social attitudes will be disappointed. Cypel has an ax to grind, and he comes out swinging from the first pages ... This sanctimoniousness adds an oily layer to an already disappointing book, lacking in intellectual, historical, and political rigor.
Allen C Guelzo
PositiveThe New York Journal of BooksAllen C. Guelzo not only covers new ground with the incredible depth and breadth of his research, he does an exemplary job of showing how history should be written, keenly aware of historical context, contemporary values, and the space between them. As statues of Lee are taken down throughout the country, Guelzo could have written a cuttingly critical work. Instead, he is scrupulously even-handed, depicting Lee in all his glory and all his faults ... exhaustively researched ... Guelzo leads us through Lee’s fateful choices clearly and with a wealth of material. He neither exonerates nor blames Lee, instead presenting a clear portrait of the man and his times. He finishes with a strong epilogue of how Lee’s name has continued to echo to this day. Lee lives now as a symbol, one that we as a nation are still wrestling with how to handle. Reading more histories like these would be a good start to dealing with our country’s racist past and the ways it permeates into the present day.
Anthony Doerr
RaveNew York Journal of Books... ingenius ... At first it seems daunting to remember all the individual plotlines, but the narratives refract off each other, like different settings in a kaleidoscope. They intersect and echo each other in marvelous ways, connecting across the centuries (both past and future) and spanning continents ... \'Open the box, walk the lines of sentences: the singer steps out, and breathes a world of color and noise into the space inside your head.\' That’s about as apt a description of what books do as any. And this book is a perfect example of that brilliant magic!
Joshua Ferris
RaveNew York Journal of BooksFerris does something fascinating in this book: He evokes a distinctive family in all its complications while also calling into question every description he gives, every character he presents ... A Calling for Charlie Barnes is a tour de force about failure and success, connection and isolation, about how we shape our lives by the stories we tell about them, and ultimately, how stories redeem us. That’s a lot of weight for one novel to carry, but Ferris deftly pulls it off, proving \'the power you have when you control the narrative.\'
Lauren Groff
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksMedieval life can seem far from our modern grasp, but Groff vividly describes the daily workings of the convent, from prayers to practical chores. She has done her research and it shows in the rich details she provides of working the fields, preparing meals, governing novices ... This story is similarly magical, a beautiful evocation of what women can achieve and what they can mean to each other.
Ann Hagedorn
PositiveThe New York Journal of Books... vividly described with fascinating twists and turns. Hagedorn has clearly devoured a mountain of research, so it’s disappointing when, writing about the discovery of nuclear fission, the author credits \'two German physicists in Berlin in late 1938.\' In fact, although the experiments were run by the German scientists, the revolutionary interpretation that the atom was being split was made by an Austrian Jewish woman who had fled to Sweden. Lise Meitner should have been correctly credited, especially given that one of Hagedorn’s most important sources was a scientist colleague of Koval’s, Arnold Kramish. Kramish wrote a book about another atomic spy, this one for the Allies, who used Meitner to get information about what her colleagues were doing in Germany since they stayed in touch through letters. This lapse makes the reader question the accuracy of other assertions throughout the book. It’s a good adventure story, well told, but how reliable is the research that underpins it when such an error is included? ... What is certain is that Koval successfully passed on information that shortened the time the Soviets needed to make their own atomic bomb. Equally clear is how anti-Semitism ran through both the United States and its rival, and how that hatred affected scientists on both sides. The story of how Koval’s involvement was ultimately revealed is compelling, but the even more gripping narrative is how and why he became a spy in the first place. Hagedorn navigates her way through the many layers of deceptions, telling a story worthy of John Le Carre.
Sunjeev Sahota
PositiveThe New York Journal of BooksThe whole novel is one tightly connected braid of liberty/imprisonment in forms that are political, physical, societal, emotional, and psychological. Sahota has created a complicated vision of the choices we make and the degrees of freedom we have to make them. His words stay with the reader long after turning the last pages.
Cheryl Diamond
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksLike Tara Westover’s Educated, Cheryl Diamond’s memoir tells the harrowing story of how crippling a childhood can be under the despotic narcissistic rule of a controlling father ... There comes a point in the family’s travels when the father decides his family should become Jewish ... Diamond, sadly, doesn’t bring to bear any adult wisdom to her descriptions of this, as she does in other instances of her father’s bad choices ... This is a big flaw in the book, especially now, as anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise ... Still, Diamond has a powerful story to tell, and she tells it well, creating strong characters and settings ... Diamond’s story is one of the family as oppressive, controlling cult ... Diamond raises as many questions as she answers, as the best books do.
Kristen Radtke
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksRadtke uses both words and images to powerful effect in this deep exploration of loneliness in all its facets ... The art is stunning, creating a Hopper-like effect of disaffected isolation. Even more amazing, Radtke is able to keep up the interest and intensity page by page, creating a kind of graphic documentary deep dive into loneliness. The art goes a long way to keeping our interest. Although her writing is strong, the book would definitely be less powerful without her brilliant use of imagery to expand on the text, to create mood and meaning. The art somehow keeps the book from becoming too depressing to bear, as a book on loneliness easily could be. Radtke has found the right balance and given a sterling example of how graphic novels are uniquely able to get readers through tough subjects.
Rebecca Hall, illus. by Hugo Martínez
PositiveThe New York Journal of BooksHall has done some incredibly thorough research to find these missing women and tell their stories as vividly as she can ... In general, though, the art by Hugo Martinez doesn’t add much to Hall’s powerful story, which is a shame, given the inherent potential of the graphic format. The emotional power of creating characters, settings, visual pacing are singularly missing from the art form, which contents itself with visually echoing the text rather than expanding beyond it. If the story were printed as text only or heard as an audio book, there wouldn’t be the sense of missing an important part of the narrative. The one advantage of the graphic format may be that it makes a tough story more accessible by breaking it up over more pages, allowing the reader the rest of the page turn. If the format brings more readers to this important history, that’s reason enough to welcome the graphic illustrations ... a good place to begin retrieving this past. High school students should be especially eager to read this history, a sense of 1700s America they won’t find in their textbooks.
Alison Bechdel
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksAs usual, Bechdel is ruthlessly honest, her sharp gaze helping us see ourselves, our culture, more clearly ... The book captures well her constant search and she beautifully describes the endorphin rush that is the reward of pushing oneself physically. She also does a lovely job of weaving in zen philosophy ... a compelling story ... Bechdel does finally find some inner calm, conquering symbolic and actual mountains, but the book, which brings us into the present with 2020 election, doesn’t end on the expected zen note.
Dorothy Wickenden
RaveNew York Journal of BooksThe book outlines many fascinating and crucial events, with much information packed into each paragraph. Throughout all the details, Wickenden keeps the focus on how attitudes toward slavery and women’s rights changed, how the two causes worked together for human rights at a time when that notion didn’t exist. She’s especially good at showing how strong, determined individuals can make big changes, how lone voices can find others to join into a powerful chorus. There are a lot of names to keep straight but the story is powerfully clear—the horrors of slavery demanded everyone to respond ... Wickenden does a brilliant job of weaving all the complicated threads together, telling a compelling story that we thought we knew well. This is history at its best: personal, powerful, and inspiring.
Menachem Kaiser
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksKaiser has crafted a book that’s several intriguing, intertwined stories. What holds it all together is the author’s voice—intelligent, sensitive, wry, and deeply honest. This isn’t a grand adventure and there are no tidy endings. It’s messy, complicated, conflicted—and deeply resonant ... These are complicated issues and Kaiser does an exceptional job of laying out not just the different perspectives, but his own conflicted feelings. Through it all, the background of Nazi evil and Polish anti-Semitism loom large. But there are no caricatures here, no easy simplifications. Instead Kaiser offers us a richly multilayered series of mysteries, all colored by the horror of the Holocaust and what it means to be a Jewish in the wake of such history ... This is a brilliant book, one that lays out several gripping mysteries and reveals how the personal is very much political, all wrapped in a compelling narrative that will keep readers turning the pages, hoping for a resolution that glimmers in the distance like a mirage.
Bruce McCall
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksMcCall packs a lot into his memoir ... He provides wonderful details about these work environments and the fascinating creative people he met. He has clearly been everywhere and done everything when it comes to commercial art and satire ... With a warm, inviting voice, McCall invites us into his world and shows us the nuts and bolts of creativity. There are no complicated descriptions here, no evocations of a distance muse ... The book is threaded through with these wise and accessible insights ... a warm, humorous guide to the journey.
David S. Brown
RaveNew York Journal of BooksBrown ends up delivering what he proposes: a deep history of American as lived through one man, a man born into Boston’s privileged elite, part of a family at the nexus of U.S. politics and culture ... Brown makes Adams feel like a contemporary ... By writing so thoroughly about Adams’ intellectual development, the reader is shown assumptions and beliefs that still run deeply through American culture. This is history at its finest, proving clearly how the past is very much part of the present. We just have to know where to look.
Ben Katchor
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... isn’t a typical graphic novel, though there is art. Instead it’s a fascinating hybrid format, part history/philosophy/rumination, part graphic imagery ... There’s an immense amount of reading and research crammed into these pages, all served up in an easily digested format ... After reading Katchor, Aleichem’s stories glow with a unique depth and meaning. What seemed like mere folklore take on greater significance ... lovingly chronicles and restores a vanishing cultural fixture for us. This time, though, he’s added a thick lawyer of scholarship and though-provoking musings. He has served up a very satisfying dish here.
Julie Des Jardins
RaveNew York Journal of BooksJulie Des Jardins brings impressive research skills in her biography of Missy Meloney, the most important feminist nobody has heard of ... this one small sickly woman packs more into her life than any ordinary human being. Reading this biography is like reading the lives of several people. Des Jardins rightly stresses Meloney’s role as facilitator and cheerleader, showing how important this kind of support can be for scientists, writers, and politicians. Meloney’s life serves as a kind of blueprint for how women can help each other ... Des Jardins’ writing inspires all of us in the way Missy clearly inspired others. It’s an incredible feat for a biography to serve its subject so well.
Simon Parkin
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksParkin weaves together several stories in this one well-crafted book ...Parkin is a gripping writer, describing the living and fighting conditions aboard the claustrophobic submarines. He presents vivid characters in the commander of the U-boat fleet, Karl Doenitz, and his most effective captains ... Parkin creates clear characters and evokes a world ... Parkin doesa masterful job of evoking the sweep of this vital piece of naval history in both broad strokes and the telling detail. Every war buff will want to read this book. And anyone interested in strategy would be wise to read it as well.
Margarita Khemlin, Trans. by Lisa Hayden
RaveNew York Journal of BooksMaya isn\'t an appealing character. She\'s far too vain and self-absorbed for that, but her voice draws the reader in, introducing us to a Jewish culture that is wounded, trying desperately to recover and maintain some dignity in a country that despises it ... Klotsvog isn\'t an easy story, but Maya is a brilliant character. Not just an unreliable narrator, she\'s an unreliable person, someone raised in hunger and fear who is desperate to find a comfortable place in the world. Khemlin has created an unforgettable character and opened a window onto a world more people should know about.
Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
RaveNew York Journal of BooksProviding the historical and scientific context gives this book a heft and depth ... The use of art, the unique capabilities of the graphic format, are deployed to their best advantages here. Even the most scientifically averse will find these pages compelling, the drama of the storytelling carrying the reader through the scientific and philosophical details. The drawings of Galileo\'s moons are especially lovely ... In this wide-ranging story of exploration, Fetter-Vorm captures both the mystical pull of the moon and the many men and women who worked hard to understand and reach it. This is a complex story, many strands woven together into a brilliantly compelling blend of words and pictures, taking the reader into their own voyage of exploration.
George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Illus. by Harmony Becker
RaveThe New York Journal of Books... a stunning example of how the graphic novel format can make tough subjects accessible ... Takei and his co-authors do a brilliant job of telling this story from several perspectives ... The official reasons and the ugly laws responsible for the internment camps are carefully portrayed, evoking echoes with current forms of demonizing \'others\' as national security risks ... The text walks a careful balance, giving enough bureaucratic language to evoke the full cruelty of the new law without burdening the reader in too much information ... There\'s justifiable anger and outrage in this book, but the writers let the facts speak for themselves ... The art by Harmony Becker serves the story well. It\'s spare, evocative, and emotionally powerful, just as the text is. Together, this book presents a riveting story of a horrible injustice enacted with careful, logical cruelty in the name of national security ... A riveting story of a horrible injustice enacted with careful, logical cruelty in the name of national security. In the wake of similar stories happening now, the publication of They Called Us Enemy could not be more timely ... A copy should be sent to every member of Congress and the Justice Department.
Malaka Gharib
RaveNew York Journal of BooksIn this time when immigration is such a hot topic, Malaka Gharib puts an engaging human face on the issue ... The push and pull first generation kids feel is portrayed with humor and love, especially humor ... Gharib pokes fun of all of the cultures she lives in, able to see each of them with an outsider\'s wry eye, while appreciating them with an insider\'s close experience ... The question of \'What are you?\' has never been answered with so much charm.
Josh Frank, Tim Heidecker, & Manuela Pertega
PositiveNew York Journal of Books\"Josh Frank has done an enormous amount of research, tracking down the elusive scenario ... Frank\'s work pays off ... The magic of two very different temperaments, Dali\'s and Harpo\'s, is both jarring and delightful, surrealism delivered with a broad wink and a tip of the cigar, Groucho Marx style. The creative team behind this book have risen to the challenge and created something completely unique: a graphic novel based on a surreal/slapstick film that was never made. That in itself is quite an accomplishment. Dali and Harpo would applaud their efforts.\
Brian Fies
RaveNew York Journal of Books\"... masterly ... Fies uses vivid language and dramatic art to put us inside his shoes ... This is beautiful writing, visceral and deep. The deceptively simple drawings make the horror accessible and clear. The way the story unrolls, from fleeing danger to recognizing the depth of the loss, is dramatic and natural at the same time ... Just the story of the fire and its aftermath would make for a stunning book, but Fies adds layers of depth to the memoir by including other people\'s stories.\
Paul Buhle, Steve Max, Noah Van Sciver, and Dave Nance
MixedNew York Journal of Books\"Eugene Debs was certainly the most important figure in the movement and Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography does an excellent job of describing Debs’ life and work, his passion and purpose ... The text makes [it esier to cover so much material] by introducing each section with an overview written like a standard history, followed by details made evocative and accessible by the graphic format. Granted, some of the prose tends to be purple ... The one major drawback is the academic backmatter one expects from a subject that was so well-researched. Though there\'s a \'further reading\' page, there is no bibliography. There is a timeline, but no quotations. Are the words put in Debs\' mouth actual quotes or invented dialog? Many readers won\'t care, but teachers and librarians who might use this book in high school classes will miss that layer of academic assurance.\
Liana Finck
PositiveNew York Review of Books...a compelling weaving of stories ... The words are brilliant, but the art is oddly unsatisfying, which is surprising since so much of this graphic memoir is about drawing and the creative process ... The pacing, the visual narrative are all strong despite the weakness of the actual line, which shows how powerful the work is and how much more powerful it could have been ... Finck has written a fascinatingly deep look into our shadow selves, into what makes us complete, what defines us ... The metaphor of the shadow self, part soul, part gut instinct, part core self, is beautifully evoked in each person\'s story. The pages with the shadows are also some of the best rendered. Still, there is an unsettling lack of definition to all the faces in the book ... some readers may be fine with the scribbly minimalism of Passing for Human. But it is also a missed opportunity for visual richness.
Michael Kupperman
RaveNew York Journal of BooksFor readers used to his oddball sense of humor and arcane references, he\'s created his most mainstream book yet in All the Answers, the kind of book his own parents would read ... The writing is clear, direct, and poignant—powerful ... Kupperman does a superb job of showing how intrusive fame can be, especially for a child. He paints his own relationship (or lack thereof) with his father equally well.
