Motel, 2019 by Pavel Guliaev (b. 1967)
The Shooting Gallery, 1931 by Pyke Koch (1901–1991)
Carpool., 2018 by Jolene Lai (b. 1980)
The Cage, 2006 by Stefan Caltia (b. 1942)
April Wind, 1952 by Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
The Fools, 2017 by Agostino Arrivabene (b. 1967)
Two new enticing titles from the Dorothy Project: Caren Beilin’s novel Revenge of the Scapegoat and Cristina Rivera Garza’s collection New and Selected Stories.
The Beilin seems like a picaresque surrealist joint, which is right up my alley. Press copy:
One day Iris, an adjunct at a city arts college, receives a terrible package: recently unearthed letters that her father wrote to her in her teens, in which he blames her for their family’s crises. Driven by the raw fact of receiving these devastating letters not once but twice in a lifetime, and in a panic of chronic pain brought on by rheumatoid arthritis, Iris escapes to the countryside—or some absurdist version of it. Nazi cows, Picassos used as tampons, and a pair of arthritic feet that speak in the voices of Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet are standard fare in this beguiling novel of odd characters, surprising circumstances, and intuitive leaps, all brought together in profoundly serious ways.
I spent a half hour reading a few of the stories in the Rivera Garza collection, going from an older track to a few that haven’t yet been published in Spanish yet. The later stories seem more daring in form and content–exciting stuff.
New and Selected Stories brings together in English translation stories from across Rivera Garza’s career, drawing from three collections spanning over 30 years and including new writing not yet published in Spanish. It is a unique and remarkable body of work, and a window into the ever-evolving stylistic and thematic development of one of the boldest, most original, and affecting writers in the world today.
The collection seems like a great introduction to Rivera Garza’s three decades of work. The translations are by Sara Brooker, Lisa Dillman, Francisca González Arias, Alex Ross, and Rivera Garza herself.
The Rooster and the Devil, 2020 by Susannah Martin (b. 1964)
Peacock on a Cherry Blossom Tree, 1930 by Ohara Koson (1877-1945)
Friday, 2004 by Verne Dawson (b. 1961)
[Editorial note: The following citations come from one-star Amazon reviews of Toni Morrison’s complex, abject, disturbing, wonderful novel Beloved.
I’ve preserved the reviewers’ own styles of punctuation and spelling. More one-star Amazon reviews.]
Sex
Too Strange
bodily fluids
rather depressing
unlikable characters
on my book club list
Another slavery book
grotesque & obscene gestures
repulsive scenes of voyeurism
Critics fall all over themselves
perverted-ghost-baby-women
literature is one of my passions,
Slavery, filicide and a poltergeist
Slavery was awful for blacks and whites
I can’t believe this crap is considered literature
must have won the Pullizter for political reasons
some litteray qualities, which the litteraty people dig
granted, no one can possibly fathom the horrors of slavery
relavent in today’s world only as a “politically correct” theme
graphic innuendo that I found offensive, although the language was clean
I got busted for buying as intially it was in the syllabus and later removed
As a graduate student of the School of Education in University of Connecticut,
The setting is some black guys who are slaves in the middle of the 19th. century
Black history is so important but I was looking for more of a mental health narrative
I completely understand the need to ‘remember’ the horrors that happened during the American slave trade
To Kill A Mockingbird was an excellent book about racism, and Amy Tan writes a lot of great books
reviewed as part of a book club that I attend and not one person liked it
People do things with farm animals that they shouldn’t
I was pleased that nobody liked the book
incomprehensible style
the book is super think
too much supernatural
extremely triggering
As a mother myself,
rape and bestiality
definitely R-rated
I must be stupid
jumped around
impenetrable
fright a minute
Very well written
food on the cover
jumped around
I’m troubled right now
finer feelings are diminished
If racism is going to end, it needs to go both ways
down right salacious in content & depressing as well
I am currently an undergraduate at Princeton University
a great story if it were only written in the normal manner
There is also the added element of a ghost, so what she’s up to, I don’t know
that stinky cheese you find after like a year, and its rock hard…. just like me ;)
I read books because I want to read a story with gripping characters, not so an author can try to be clever and symbolic
Every book she writes involves crude, explicit sexuality that is completely unnecessary, and is focused on black people.
We can never understand how horrible slavery is, I understand. Reading 324 pages about people getting tortured and subsequent consequences sincerely will not help you be any happier, gain any form of important insight on life, or become a better person
because it’s about slavery and nobody is allowed to knock books about slavery, it gets all these plaudits
I read many classics and modern classics as opposed to popular novels
quite possibly the worst book that I have ever read
I consider myself fairly intelligent
on my grandaughter’s reading list
Worst book I have ever read
violent and depressing
overboard & weird!
dark and rambled
gush and gaa-gaa
struts and preens
Grotesque content
literary snobbism
Uhhhh…. Huh??
shock value
Hated it
an slog
jibber jabber
an “okay” writer
I’m an avid reader
I’ve read a lot of books
eat dirt & watch the grass grow
I can deal with thick slang but
the hardships of colored people
I don’t care if she was black or white
Having seen part of the movie on TV,
I have to say not a lot of things shock me
overdone, overused, overwritten, overhyped
constant and excructiatingly graphic descriptions of brutality and suffering
I think this book was awful and did not deserve a prize of any kind. I wrote the author years ago and told her so.
We have read about the disgusting things slaves suffered at the hands of their ‘masters’ it was horrible but why do we need another book?
graphic sexual descriptions that are so overwhelmingly uncalled for?
There are so many other things to write about. why pain and anger?
You name it, this book does it wrong
confusing, disgusting, disturbing
cuss words every few sentences
horse (expletive deleted)
Why so much disgust
violence
insanity
race
mud
sex
Theseus Slays the Minotaur, 1904 by Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936)
Biblioklept 