About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Amina Cain
Positive Fiction Writers Review The novel turns outward while also, reflexively, remaining its subject. The book does this first through its engagement with art ... But Cain is far too sophisticated to simply offer the reader a series of images that drew on the tropes of painting: still life, image, frame ... what’s most compelling of all—both in its artistry and in its significance—is the way Vitória becomes involved in the actual act of framing, in the actual act of composition ... It...provides a commentary on power, on claiming it, and the less vulnerable people who suffer in its wake—who, in short, invariably clean up the mess.
Michael David Lukas
Rave The San Francisco Chronicle The question of not only who has the right to protect, but also where something, or someone, should live, resurfaces again and again, both in this book and in a larger cultural conversation, as well as questions of intention and culpability ... Though the novel contains elements of a quest — Joseph himself takes off for Cairo soon after receiving the package — there is no final, big reveal. The deep pleasures of this novel come from the interconnecting narratives and how they inform one another: a pulsing energy in the fingertips, or a bleeding hand, or a relationship between cousins, or a love affair ... The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is only one story, centered around one small fragment. But it’s its own very real act of preservation, a fight against erasure, a mingling of history and imagination and mystery.
Zadie Smith
Rave Fiction Writers Review Swing Time, like her previous four novels, showcases her keen ability to examine a character’s psychological landscape while interrogating a cultural moment ... Though the jacket copy calls it 'exuberant,' to me it felt careful, wistful, resigned—punctuated by periods of 'kinetic joy' that come, most often, through dance ... Swing Time is a novel that pours out, unrestrained yet delicately woven, like memory.
Marcy Dermansky
Rave The San Francisco Chronicle ...an exploration of the uncanny [is] one of its many splendors ... The novel swerves away from realism, and the attendant philosophical underpinnings of that move make this novel satisfyingly multilayered. The surreal elements dramatize more pressing preoccupations, and Dermansky’s often deadpan delivery strikes a fine balance with the story’s more emotionally loaded content ... On both sex and marriage, Dermansky is painfully astute, and funny, too ... There’s a particular intellectual and emotional gratification to be found in this smart novel that so wonderfully blurs boundaries of reality, of past and present, of time and space. The Red Car is a remarkable book.
Jessica Winter
Positive The San Francisco Chronicle But beneath all this chatter lies Winter’s complex and intelligent examination of women’s lives, privilege and power, and friendship ... Sometimes the more emotionally charged moments and Jen’s psychological terrain seem eclipsed by the book’s satirical agenda, which often veers close to slapstick — a difficult balance indeed. But there is synergy between content and form.