In “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity,” couples therapist Esther Perel asks why people cheat—and spares no one blame.
Books
Janet Sarbanes Wants Protesters to Persist
In her new story collection, “The Protester Has Been Released,” Sarbanes presents a timely meditation on the dangers of authority, the importance of community, and the wisdom of nature.
Poems of Desire, Poems of Self: Lisa Russ Spaar’s “Orexia”
A review of Lisa Russ Spaar’s fifth poetry collection, Orexia: “love has stories not mine to know/ or ever tell.”
Jess Arndt’s “Large Animals” is All About Pushing Limits
Arndt’s debut story collection, “Large Animals,” is both intellectual and experimental.
The Floridian Underbelly: A Review of Sarah Gerard’s “Sunshine State”
Sarah Gerard’s collection of essays is part-memoir, part-investigative journalism about the darker sides of Floridian life.
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman
Blair Braverman’s memoir, “Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube,” is filled with excitement and tells of her toughness, her determination, her passion. And though the specifics are unique to Braverman, her message is universal for all women …
The 6 Female Authors You Need to Read in 2017
2016 has been a difficult year, one that’s seen a type of social and political heartache many would like to forget; it’s also been a year filled with strong female voices speaking out against racism, sexism …
Sharon Olds’ Disgusting and Beautiful “Odes”: Cleavage, Menstrual Blood, Stretch Marks
To go as far as she can, and yes, to be a little disgusting too, is the project of Sharon Olds “Odes.” The poems dig deeply into the thrilling un-loveliness of aging, made lovely by her classic, single stanza poems.
Pages: Patricia Bell-Scott The Firebrand and the First Lady
Patricia Bell-Scott’s new book, The Firebrand and the First Lady, unearths the relationship between two seemingly disparate people …
Pages: Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle
My grandmother introduced me to “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith. “It was her favorite book,” I’d say, “and I was her favorite grandchild.”
Pages: Marguerite Duras’ The Lover
Rejection is either an act or a state of being. Marguerite Duras explores both in “The Lover,” an autobiography that itself rejects conventional prose …
Pages: Tracy K. Smith’s Memoir “Ordinary Light”
The rules of people are so easily ascribed to God: a sleight-of-hand trick to say who can do what, and when, and how.
“Your heart, you never want it to stop”: Laura Kasischke’s Suspicious River
I spent my childhood working at my family’s small, cabin-court motel in upstate New York, a place our guests were always calling “rustic” and “charming,” but that I thought of as a…
Pages: Sheila Heti’s All Our Happy Days Are Stupid
A year after Sheila Heti published her hugely original and popular metanovel, How Should a Person Be?, the director Jordan Tannahill contacted her to see if the play the narrator was struggling to write in the novel was real.