PositiveWashington Independent Review of BooksThis is a complex book that’s often more conceptual than concrete, and despite Megan McDowell’s accessible and artful translation that likely mirrors the accessible and artful way Fonseca writes, a reader might find herself (as I did) having to go over passages again ... The road of this finely crafted work leads readers in numerous directions, the purpose of the journey as chimerical as memory itself.
Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi
MixedThe Washington Independent Review of Books... therein lies one of the weaknesses of the novel: We never fully learn what happened ... The narrative, told from the depths of Arezu’s internal point of view, circles and repeats and inspects the emotional impact of whatever her trauma was. And while this is a realistic response to trauma, it is not a particularly effective way to write a story ... The flashbacks of that summer are sparse and get to be somewhat redundant ... these ideas — interesting as they are — can be didactic without a robust narrative to fold them into ... s at its best a little more than halfway through, when Arezu and Ellie are fully present on the page together. Scenes begin to emerge, character interactions develop ... Some parts of Savage Tongues read like a heady, contemplative essay exploring the nature of personal and historical trauma. Others tell the story of a powerful, essential friendship and how it might help to ease the pain of such trauma. Each of these ways of telling are fine, and in this case, well written. Side by side, though, they can be unbalanced, each coming off a little half-formed. Neither this nor that.
Nadia Owusu
RaveThe Washington Independent Review of Books... stunning ... [a] complex and compelling narrative ... At times, the memoir is lyrical, and other times, told with straightforward scenes and narrative techniques. Some readers might long for more story, for the writer to more fully tell these scenes and plumb those experiences. This is not that sort of book. It is as much an exploration of Owusu’s interiority as a retelling of anything she observes or does ... The foreshocks and main shocks and aftershocks of her story create an unsteady and surprisingly satisfying, shifting narrative ... It is this, then, Nadia Owusu’s earth-shaping, that pulls the elements of this memoir together. It is her terraforming that allows her — and by extension, her readers — to inhabit this world of Aftershocks.
Alexandra Kleeman
RaveThe Washington Independent Review of Books...strange and compelling ... the most satisfying of this collection’s stories are the ones that are built on familiar foundations: the juggling act of taking a baby for a stroll; the impulsive, petulant, unwise flirtation that comes after a lovers’ quarrel; the invitation made to a stranger out of loneliness. These stories are complex and lovely, filled with real moments and strange abstractions and parallels that lend further authenticity and resonance to the narratives. Even in the tricky stories, though, the opaque ones, there is much to be admired.
