‘After the Blue Hour’ by John Rechy
After the Blue Hour is a clever psychodrama that blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction
‘Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall’ by James Magruder
This sparkling novel owes much of its success to Magruder’s remarkable ability to manipulate words to get to the heart of all matters, especially matters of the heart
‘A Poet of the Invisible World’ by Michael Golding
In A Poet of the Invisible World, we’re asked to consider the curative role of art and how experience–often painful–can bring us to a deeper understanding of life
‘Delicious Foods’ by James Hannaham
To describe Hannaham’s novel by referencing other writers would be too easy, and perhaps unfair. With Delicious Foods, James Hannaham has himself become a reference point.
‘I Left It on the Mountain’ by Kevin Sessums
I Left It On the Mountain is a spiritual page-turner.
‘Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh’ by John Lahr
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is first and foremost a perceptive and edifying look at Williams’ life.
‘The Snow Queen’ by Michael Cunningham
“In The Snow Queen, Cunningham reminds us that no matter the form in which love arrives, we should consider ourselves lucky.”
‘Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns’ by David Margolick
It’s a sadly familiar story in American literature: an alcoholic gay writer of great talent comes to a tragic end. Think Hart Crane. Think Charles Jackson. And now think John Horne Burns, the subject of David Margolick’s enlightening biography, Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns (Other Press).
‘The Selected Letters of Willa Cather’ edited by Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout
In one of Willa Cather’s letters to her beloved brother Roscoe she writes, “As for me, I have cared too much, about people and places–cared too hard. It made me as a writer, but it will break me in the end.” Losing those near to her very nearly did break Cather, but it is our great fortune that she let herself care as much as she did.
‘Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson’ by Blake Bailey
Blake Bailey has dissected complex, self-destructive literary lives in his biographies of Richard Yates and John Cheever, and Farther and Wilder will no doubt add to his reputation as the premiere chronicler of tormented American writers.
