Jazzy, experimental ... Alison’s loose lyricism relies on syncopated rhythms and fluid punctuation; she stays on point even as she plays with Joycean techniques. Villa E is both paean to the legacies of modernism — from Gray and Le Corbusier to Joyce — and a beautiful book from a writer who boldly tacks against the winds of literary realism.
The effect is elegant and enveloping, if at times so allusive that one is tempted to put the book aside to check Wikipedia ... Ms. Alison’s previous work was the critical study Meander, Spiral, Explode (2019), which explored geometric patterns in narrative fiction. Villa E artfully puts those concepts into practice.
