American
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Review of Breathe by Joyce Carol Oates
A heart-rending meditation on grief. Our protagonist’s battle with losing her partner encapsulates all the stages, every sidereal and ethereal sentiment imaginable.Shaped within the austere landscapes of New Mexico, through achronological snippets of her university life, in and out of the hospital as Gerard succumbs to a generic illness, our…
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Review of Evening in Paradise: More Stories by Lucia Berlin
Hard living. Child rearing. Drug use. Wild desert landscapes. New Mexico, Paris, Mexico. Small town dramas, rocky relationships. Kids playing in dangerous locales. “Hillbillies.” “Gaunt” people. A young girl’s coming of age. Violent men. The tyranny of life without money. With her signature gorgeous prose, Berlin’s stories remain gloriously readable.…
L. S. Popovich 