In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by another six Southern states. Among the countless ...
Read ReviewAs Erik Larson recounts in The Demon of Unrest, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter, off the coast of South Carolina, at 4:30 a.m. on April 12th, 1861. Thirty-six hours...
Read ArticleThe Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, Erasure (2001), are about whose voices are heard and in what context. In the movie, Jeffrey Wright and ...
Read ReviewReimagining the Classics from a New Perspective
Percival Everett's James is a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck's enslaved companion Jim. This kind of reconfiguration is a common source of inspiration ...
Read ArticleSet around Lake Superior in the Upper Midwest, I Cheerfully Refuse depicts a near-future America that has collapsed to the point where it more closely resembles the past. The coasts are the domain of ...
Read ReviewLake Superior as Dystopian Setting
'The setting is a character in itself' is a moth-eaten critical insight about any book (or film, or TV show), but I Cheerfully Refuse stops just short of literally making Lake Superior a character. As...
Read Article"We are living in an incredible time of exploration," says Alien Earths author Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, and after reading her new book it's impossible to argue. Only in recent years have we developed the...
Read ReviewFrom the 17th century on, Johannes Kepler, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, HG Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were just a few artists who contributed to a burgeoning awakening of the ...
Read ArticleLuzia, the heroine of Leigh Bardugo's novel The Familiar, is a young woman employed as a scullion in the home of the decidedly middle-class Marius and Valentina Ordoño. Although she appears to be...
Read ReviewThe fictional heroine of Leigh Bardugo's novel The Familiar interacts with several characters based on people who really did live in Spain during the 16th century. One of these is a young woman ...
Read ArticleAmor Towles's short story collection Table for Two reads as something of a dream compilation for those of us who have dearly wished we could spend just a bit more time in the company of his ...
Read ReviewOlivia de Havilland and the Studio System
In the novella "Eve in Hollywood," in Amor Towles's Table for Two, Eve Ross becomes close friends with the actress Olivia de Havilland. It is 1938, and de Havilland's popular new ...
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