Jack Gorse/Ronan the protagonist of Pamela Erens’s smashing debut novel, The Understory, is a man obsessed: with twins, with vegetation, with books, with his routine, and with a kind-hearted architect named Patrick. He is also searching, it seems, for that other part of himself—the other half of himself. At one point, he hopes he will find that other within Patrick, but really that other … Read More The Understory, by Pamela Erens
+ books, fiction, Matthew M. Quick, novel, writers
You are so going to want to order yourself a copy of The Silver Linings Playbook: A Novel by Matthew M. Quick. The book is not released until September 2nd, but it is already racking up much-deserved praise. Matthew and I have never met in person, but for a few years now have been friends via email. You couldn’t find a more charming and … Read More The Silver Linings Playbook, by Matthew M. Quick
Paula Nangle’s debut novel, The Leper Compound, is a book I won’t soon forget. I’m tempted to call it a novel-in-stories as each chapter is perfectly self-contained and yet the whole does provide one full narrative. Regardless, it is a brilliant effort. The book starts out with Colleen as a motherless child ill with Malaria and ends with the death of her father and … Read More The Leper Compound, by Paula Nangle
Any of you city slickers who imagine small-town life is dull ought to read Laura Benedict’s suspenseful, sexy, and haunting debut novel, Isabella Moon, as this book set in Carystown, Kentucky, proves otherwise. It’s a page turner that is just as much about character as it is about plot. In fact, the characters are richly, artfully drawn with Benedict’s deft hand. And just who … Read More Isabella Moon, by Laura Benedict
myfanwy collins 