by inthemargin_o2ckmf | Jun 8, 2023 | Blog, book review, fiction picks
The Great Believers, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Rebecca Makkai, is the story of a group of mostly male gay friends living in 1985 Chicago during the rapid growth of the AIDS epidemic. The novel follows Yale and his friend Fiona from those first years of the...
by Krista Timeus | Feb 24, 2023 | book review, fiction picks
On the surface, “My Name is Lucy Barton” is the story about a complicated relationship between a writer and her mother. The novel opens when Lucy is in the hospital recovering from a mysterious complication following what should have been a simple surgery....
by Krista Timeus | Jul 21, 2022 | book review, fiction picks
Sally Rooney’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, follows best friends Alice Kelleher and Eileen Lydon as they navigate careers and relationships in their early thirties. Alice, a novelist, has found unexpected success after the publication of her first two...
by Krista Timeus | Jul 1, 2022 | book review, fiction picks
There There follows a large cast of Native American characters, all of whom are determined—for reasons ranging from the artistic to the criminal—to attend to the Big Oakland Powwow, a gathering for Native American people to honor their culture and tradition. The cast...
by Krista Timeus | Jul 1, 2022 | Blog, book review, fiction picks
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a literary western. It is the story of Håkan, a boy trying to find his place in a foreign country. Like the protagonist, I also emigrated from my home country on the cusp of adulthood, so this...
by Krista Timeus | Jun 22, 2022 | book review, fiction picks
Yaa Gyasi’s second novel, Transcendent Kingdom, is the story of a young scientist named Gifty, who looks to religion, science and writing to find meaning for the pain she experienced growing up. Gifty is a sixth-year candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford School of...
