[{"id":104658,"date":"2026-09-16T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104658"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:23:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:23:26","slug":"critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics in Conversation: Our First Incursion into LitRPG with “Dungeon Crawler Carl”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Critics in Conversation is a \u201cpodcast on the page\u201d feature in which contributors discuss a book or issue currently making headlines in the literary world. Read our piece on Angel Down here<\/a> and Yesteryear here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Here at the Chicago Review of Books<\/em>, we take great pride in the intellectual rigor, insightfulness, and erudition we put into our literary criticism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we also like to have a good time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if there\u2019s one, universal, prevailing opinion regarding the runaway hit Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em>,<\/a> it\u2019s this: \u201cIt\u2019s just really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eponymous first book in the series was first published in 2020, but the books really took off like a Goblin Copper Chopper when Ace Books began republishing the series with flashy new cover art in August 2024. The latest novel in the so-far eight-book series came out this past May, and rumor has it, at least two more are planned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the uninitiated, here\u2019s a one sentence summary: When the world is destroyed by an advanced alien race, a dude named Carl and his ex-girlfriend\u2019s cat Princess Donut are thrust into a Running Man-like \u201creality show\u201d in which they\u2019re forced to beat increasingly difficult bosses and monsters in an underground dungeon to advance to the next level, all while doing so with style and charisma to appeal to the show\u2019s trillions of fans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At local indie bookstore, RoscoeBooks, we also are always up for a good time, so my colleague Adi Alsaid<\/a>, who had just finished the first book on audio, agreed to write this feature with me about the Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em> bandwagon. In addition to being a skilled bookseller, Adi is a novelist whose books include YA hits such as Let\u2019s Get Lost<\/a><\/em>, Before Takeoff<\/em>,<\/a> and Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the conversation below, Adi and I discuss our experience reading\/listening to a book both of us would probably admit is outside our comfort zone, why these books have become runaway hits, whether you (yes, YOU, CHIRB<\/em> reader) should give them a try as well, and what Carl’s success means for the very future of books.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Greg Zimmerman:<\/strong> Adi, this was my first foray into the genre known as LitRPG. I even had to look up what LitRPG actually meant (Literary Role-Playing Game, for anyone who was in the same boat as me) before starting this book. But this was fun, wasn\u2019t it? My biggest difficulty with the book was just saying \u201cDungeon Crawler Carl\u201d without sounding like I had a mouthful of marbles. Why is it so tough to say?! Anyway, so you said you read the first and have started the second. What was your reading experience like? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adi Alsaid: <\/strong>Totally agree with the mouthful of marbles comment. When I first heard the title spoken out loud without having seen it written, my brain could not piece the sounds together into words. Strong Rural Juror<\/a> vibes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sister was pushing for me to listen to the audiobook, though I wasn\u2019t convinced until one of the book clubs I\u2019m in and rarely attend chose it for September. The audiobook seems to have accrued plenty of word-of-mouth buzz on its own, but shortly into the novel it\u2019s easy to see what draws people in. The narrative voice is fun, the action kicks off right away, and the world is imaginatively constructed (and Dinniman skillfully never ceases his construction, Winchester-mansion-style). Plus, despite the main character being a white cismale former Coast Guard capital-D Dude, his sensitivities align closely with those of many a modern fantasy reader (I assume). Carl comes off as a fun, conscientious guy who\u2019s well-read and though he\u2019s cantankerous, he\u2019s not a full-on asshole, so it\u2019s easy to spend time with him and root for his survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Zimmerman:<\/strong> So true. Some of my favorite moments of comedy are when Carl\u2019s exasperated with Princess Donut\u00a0 (catchphrase \u201cGod damnit, Donut\u201d), which endears us to both of them. But truly my favorite parts of this first book were the stupid jokes the dungeon makes when it\u2019s explaining a new monster, or experience, or reward box, etc. The humor is perfect for someone who watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead <\/em>while drinking cans of Icehouse in their freshman year dorm room\u2026and whose sense of humor hasn\u2019t evolved much since. I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s me, but it’s definitely not NOT me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s also one of the reasons I\u2019m so interested in why these books have taken off. They\u2019re apologetically geeky, and don\u2019t, on the surface, seem to have wide appeal. But they do! They have!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Adi, why do you think Dungeon Crawler Carl <\/em>has become such a phenomenon?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adi Alsaid:<\/strong> My guess has something to do with my former roommate Joshua. Joshua is a wonderful, sweet human who spent what I considered to be an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube clips of other people playing video games. Which led me to discover that millions of people do exactly that. My niece and nephew did this for a time as well, and though I silently judged these great people in my life for indulging in that confounding behavior rather than playing the video games themselves, I\u2019m also someone who follows one sport or another 95% of the year, so who am I to complain? I know all too well that it\u2019s satisfying to watch someone who is extremely good at what they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fictional though he may be, Carl is very good at the high-stakes video game he\u2019s involved in. Granted, if we think too long about the fact that there are eight books and counting, the stakes are softened quite a bit, implying his and Donut\u2019s survival. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019re meant to think too long about anything in the Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em> world. Or feel too much either. He\u2019s vanquishing baddies in inventive and funny ways, surrounded by an ever-revolving cast of characters, and we\u2019re meant to be on the couch along for the ride, taking in his commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The YouTubers Joshua watched playing video games also, allegedly, have fun personalities that make following along interesting (I never saw evidence of charm above a level 1), and we as viewers don\u2019t have to know details about their personal lives or care about whether they are growing as people to enjoy ride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least with Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em>, there are some emotional threads and moments dotted here or there to make us feel like we\u2019re reading about people, not just video game characters, so I think it veers away from \u201cguilty pleasure\u201d territory (please no guilty pleasure discourse in my inbox) and lands, for most people, squarely in the pleasure area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Greg, do you think you\u2019re along for the entire eight (ten, twenty)-book ride? Or do you see yourself hopping off sooner? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Zimmerman: <\/strong>Great points! Yes, our bookstore colleague Olivia, who is a huge fan and has read through book eight already, made a good argument when I was talking about this with them the other day: One of the reasons the books are popular is because we like to see someone beat such a carefully constructed challenge, like there\u2019s something universal about cheering for Carl and Donut\u2019s innovation in engineering solutions to overcome whatever is thrown at them. (Easy examples from this book: The way they beat the pig boss, and the strategy they deployed to destroy the elemental.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not to be a Donnie Downer about the state of the world these days, but also I think people just need a good diversion. And this is exactly that: A book and series that can hold the horrors at bay for a few hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to answer your question, yes I do plan to continue. I\u2019ll be honest, for about the first 200 pages, I wasn\u2019t sure. The world-building seemed a little repetitive at first. But it was in the back half of the book that we get some real threads of plot that seem as if they\u2019ll carry through to the next book and beyond. So I\u2019m all in! They\u2019re a perfect plane or train read, I think, and so I\u2019ll mix them into my regular \u201cboring\u201d lit-fic rotation when I have a chance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to get back to something you mentioned at the start\u2014how the audiobooks have become their own runaway hit. I just read that Jeff Hays, who narrates the audiobooks, is voicing Princess Donut<\/a> in the upcoming TV series based on the books. What specifically do you think makes these audiobooks special?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adi Alsaid: <\/strong>That\u2019s fun! I\u2019m just now learning it\u2019ll be a TV series, though I\u2019m not surprised by that. Congrats to Jeff! His performance really brings the book to life. There are a few steps taken in the production to up the experience as well (voice effects during the achievements and rewards Carl receives). He does accents and voices and they\u2019re all perfectly in line with the book\u2019s geekiness and humor. There\u2019s also something about the action being performed for you by a professional actor that elevates the action and works particularly well for the story, especially when contrasted with the terrible accents that our inner reading voices can actually conjure up in the act of reading. Unless I\u2019m naively speaking for myself here! Greg, do you do different voices in your head when you\u2019re reading quietly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Zimmerman:<\/strong> I do! And this one was especially fun. Carl was basically my own voice, but Princess Donut was oddly the same voice I use for my dog Winnie (don\u2019t @ me about voices for dogs, everyone does it!) which is sort of high-strung but breathy. Like Taylor Swift on speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, last topic: I\u2019m always interested in positioning a novel in a larger context of the literary moment. We\u2019ve already seen several more LitRPG books and series coming out from publishers, but as a bookseller, I haven\u2019t noticed\u2014and maybe your experience is different\u2014quite as many readers coming into the store to ask for the \u201cnext Dungeon Crawler Carl.<\/em>\u201d There could be a number of reasons for that, but Adi, do you think Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em> represents the start of a trend or is it a more singular success?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adi Alsaid:<\/strong> Oh, I\u2019m certain there\u2019ll at least be a trend of DCC imitations. For the next five years agents and publishers are going to get pitched \u201cIt\u2019s Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em> meets X\u201d, and a lot of them are going to jump at the opportunity to get involved. The problem is (let me whip out and comfortably arrange my soapbox), publishers are so often focused on the idea that a success can be replicated. That we as booksellers face an onslaught of readers with that exact demand: \u201cI want the next Dungeon<\/em> Crawler Carl<\/em>!\u201d In my experience, readers don\u2019t actually think that way. They might want a book that made them feel<\/em> like DCC<\/em> did, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s going to be a LitRPG book, or have any perfect parallels to this series. Like you said, DCC<\/em> is taking off in part because of the wider societal context, and how we all just need to have some fun rooting for someone who\u2019s not a fascist. Maybe in a year we\u2019ll be clamoring for books with more emotional depth because we\u2019re drowning in \u201cfun\u201d AI slop. Maybe we\u2019ll be tilling some trillionaire\u2019s fields eighteen hours a day and will only want to read stand alone novels that max out at 200 pages. Maybe! I don\u2019t actually know. No one does, is the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there are obvious trends that readers clamor for, and it\u2019s not the worst business decision in the world to give your consumers what they most recently wanted. I\u2019m sure millions have been made correctly predicting that people want 10 (or 20 or 30) books of the same concept, but I also bet millions have been lost chasing a formula for success that doesn\u2019t actually exist. And as any parent of a toddler who demanded eggs for breakfast and then looks with disgust at the eggs you served him will tell you: people themselves don\u2019t actually know what they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also know that I\u2019m not telling people who work in publishing (publicists, marketers, sales reps) anything new. But Publishing itself, that Level 93 beast, refuses to be sated by the shrugging emoji that comes with predicting what readers want. Publishing has to throw money at something<\/em>, and I suppose replicating the last known success is a reasonable enough approach. (I personally hate it, but I\u2019ll tuck away the soap box for now). <\/p>\n\n\n

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FICTION
Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/a><\/em>
By Matt Dinniman
Ace
Paperback published December 30, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Read our piece on Angel Down here and Yesteryear here. Here at the Chicago Review of Books, we take great pride in the intellectual rigor, insightfulness, and erudition we put…","og_url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/","og_site_name":"Chicago Review of Books","article_published_time":"2026-09-16T10:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":203,"url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-7.31.08-AM-500x203.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Greg Zimmerman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@grzimmerman","twitter_site":"@ChicagoRevBooks","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Greg Zimmerman","Est. reading time":"11 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/"},"author":{"name":"Greg Zimmerman","@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5ef7179f0657bb1b73cf548ca2cdab09"},"headline":"Critics in Conversation: Our First Incursion into LitRPG with “Dungeon Crawler Carl”","datePublished":"2026-09-16T10:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/"},"wordCount":2195,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-7.31.08-AM.png?fit=2916%2C1184&ssl=1","articleSection":["Features"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/","url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/16\/critics-in-conversation-our-first-incursion-into-litrpg-with-dungeon-crawler-carl\/","name":"Critics in Conversation: Our First Incursion into LitRPG with \"Dungeon Crawler Carl\" - 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But what happens when you Irish Exit out from a party and through a revolving door to another version of yourself wearing the skin of another life. Emily St. John Mandel\u2019s new novel <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780593321461\">Exit Party<\/a><\/em><\/strong> explores an apocalyptic America where the United States untie themselves into factions and a revolving door offers a different tale for the same characters in another life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ari, recently released from prison, lives with Gloria in Los Angeles or schematically what we know of this city. They scrape by their days working and surviving at least until Kareem throws a party kind of like the party at the end of the world, the tilting axis on the precipice, the spinning top in <em>Inception<\/em> that tells you the world might not be as it seems. Ari, born with a sense of knowing, from the moment she landed in jail for attempted murder of her cousin, to smelling death before it happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This party is not like other parties. The mathematics of the universe are off and there are too many people. As soon as they walk in the door there is Saraya in multiple outfits and Gloria with a doppelganger called Ibari, a legal name she never uses out loud. The novel\u2019s structure follows that of a record A side and B side, which do not demand symmetry, and are each organized into their own song and dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The night Kareem disappears at his own party, Gloria doubles, and Ari leaves embarking once again on a life of crime in a lawless land with a nagging thought: what happened at that party? I sat down with Emily St. John Mandel for the <em>Chicago Review of Books<\/em> and cracked open this essential plot question as it derived from the author\u2019s craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several of St. John Mandel\u2019s novels feature the setting of New York with a sense of dark iconography. Who could forget the line, \u201cwhy don\u2019t you swallow broken glass\u201d from the <em>New York Times<\/em> Bestseller <em>The Glass Hotel<\/em>. The A and B side serve as a divide not of geography but on the space time continuum featuring Los Angeles and Paris as the predominant two settings across the aging life of our anchor character Ari and Ibari. This is peppered in with narrations of Kareem, Fayed, Sebastian, and Marlowe weaving across third person with chapters embedded within larger titular sections like \u201cThe Birthday Present\u201d and \u201cTrue Diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Readers of <em>Exit West<\/em> by Mohsin Hamid will draw parallels from the sci-fi and speculative elements of doorways across the current landscape as a form of escape. Literary influences include the modern news cycle, and <em>American War<\/em> by Omar El Akkad as an oral history of the Civil War. The most direct parallel named during our conversation is <em>The City & The City<\/em> by China Mi\u00e9ville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe premise is the premise struck me at the time as fantastical, but now it feels oddly real. He imagines a world where two different cities exist in exactly the same geographical location. So let’s just say, just for the sake of explaining this, there’s say a blue city and a red city. The people in the red city have a completely different culture and train themselves to only see the red buildings. The people in the city train themselves from childhood to only see the blue buildings. There’s a degree of mutual hostility, but they cannot be at war with each other because it is exactly the same city. It’s just like every third building on the street, one color or the other,\u201d said St. John Mandel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Therefore, the introduction of multiple characters living within the same cities across different universes: Ari and Ibari, Gloria and Nico, Kareem and Fayed. To the point raised, although the novel exists in third person, giving the reader a sense of remove documenting the speculative history around them, there is a sense that \u201cit is exactly the same city\u201d across the A and B side just with different outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One constant across these worlds is the use of art as a portal and consistent piece within these character\u2019s lives, <em>Swan Dive<\/em>, gets its own small section as a prelude to the events in the novel, embedded towards the end detailing how the painting came to be. Perhaps the largest lesson from this allegory for lack of a rose-colored glass or a duct taped pair (you\u2019ll understand once you read the novel) is the staying power of art, the analog, and the physical in a world surveilled and destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI feel like art is profoundly important, and we live in a society that doesn’t value it particularly highly. But I think that art can remind us of what it means to be human, and it’s hard to say that without sounding grandiose. But just that reminder\u00a0that we need something more than just food, water, and shelter. You know, we kind of aspire to something a little higher than that, and that’s what our art is and what it reminds us of,\u201d said St. John Mandel. The technical component of <em>Swan Dive<\/em>\u2019s inclusion remains for consistency as an anchor or two sides of the same coin demonstrating the differences between characters through their relationship to the piece and changing of ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Exit Party<\/em> as speculative fiction incorporates craft elements of the analog record, transcripts for a dimension traveling interrogation, and a cut to a painting\u2019s origin, not quite a cold open in chronology. To overexplain the plot would defeat the purpose of Ari as a narrator on the A-side guiding the reader with her profound sense of knowing that something seems off kilter and her survival instinct honed through time atoning in prison and true diligence. While Ibari\u2019s side of the coin as an officer of the new age law must intuit the systems she operates within and the secrets harbored by the slippage in time.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"755\" data-attachment-id=\"104936\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/15\/ill-take-the-irish-exit-the-concept-of-leaving-in-emily-st-john-mandels-exit-party\/attachment\/9780593321461\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?fit=600%2C906&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,906\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"9780593321461\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?fit=500%2C755&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461-500x755.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104936 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?resize=500%2C755&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780593321461.webp?resize=32%2C48&ssl=1 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>FICTION<br><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780593321461\"><em>Exit Party<\/em><\/a><br>By Emily St. John Mandel<br>Knopf<br>Published September 15, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68356 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indie rock artist Eliza McLamb\u2019s song \u201cIrish Exit\u201d details the slow fade out from intimacy towards the safety of oneself or at least the concept of being known. But what happens when you Irish Exit out from a party and through a revolving door to another version of yourself wearing the skin of another life.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145660,"featured_media":104935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[309],"tags":[22717567,1747,892858,1745],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-emily-st-john-mandel","tag-fiction","tag-knopf","tag-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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The novel jumps immediately to the narrator\u2019s past to reveal the disturbing childhood of Liv and Finn, the children of the wolf. Young Liv recounts horrific memories of violence and a life dominated by her abusive father, a modern-day Viking, Ulf (translation: wolf) Thorvaldsson. Told with a backdrop of untamed nature and Norse tradition, the story feels mythic or fablelike at times as Liv tries to make sense of her obsessive father, a mysterious dead mother, and a locked basement door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The novel opens with Liv\u2019s earliest memory. When she\u2019s four, she helps her seven-year-old brother Finn mop suspicious red \u201cpaint\u201d from the living room floor, douse it with lye, then burn their clothes. Raised in isolation in rural Iowa, the children roam freely on a vast forest-filled land enclosed by razor-sharp barbed wire and peppered with unmarked graves. Ulf teaches the children the traditions of their Viking ancestors and trains them in the battle tactics of warriors. But Ulf is mercurial, prone to rage and regularly knocks Finn unconscious or cuts him during sword play. Liv learns to stitch her brother’s wounds, to wield a knife and keep house in the tradition of their Swedish ancestors. Sudden phone calls take Ulf away from home for indeterminate lengths of time during which the children have to fend for themselves. When Ulf returns, he locks himself in the basement where high-pitched squeals and guttural moans can be heard. Liv may be too young to understand what is going on and admits her memories are fuzzy but the reader, and Finn, know Ulf is up to no good and the children of the wolf are not okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The story really gets moving when Finn turns his father into the authorities. The FBI raids their home, the children are taken away, and their serial killer father is imprisoned for life. Twenty years pass and the siblings have created a quiet, rural life of beekeeping in Haven, Michigan. But when several local men go missing, fear disrupts Liv\u2019s attempt to heal. She compulsively checks and rechecks the prison database to make sure her father has not escaped. Her paranoia grows when she takes a lover with a mysterious past, a woman who lives alone in the woods, and has a locked room Liv is forbidden to enter. As secrets are revealed, Liv\u2019s memories bleed into an inescapable legacy of violence and an obsessive love that brings her face-to-face with her father once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stories of child abuse are always a tough read, but throughout the novel Geni juxtaposes the horrors of Liv\u2019s childhood with the beauty of the natural world and the epic fantasy of Norse myth. Liv simultaneously recalls splinting her brother\u2019s broken arm, the sweet smell of lingonberry jam and the honey-scent of beehives. The bee metaphor swarms in and out of the story, as beekeeping is the family livelihood. Like Vikings, bees are violent and loyal to their hive. Like humanity bees are fragile, interdependent, inexplicably die yet still persevere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Liv\u2019s memories are intertwined with Swedish tales of soothsayers, Valkyries, and the promise of Valhalla. At times Geni depicts a pastoral idyll where Liv and Finn swim in the pond and spin fantastical stories of trolls and fairies. Stories and storytelling are integral to Liv\u2019s understanding of her world. Liv is telling a story, carefully curating the details for maximum tension. She frequently interrupts her memories with references to stories and how they are told which contributes to a softer, fablelike feel of the story and lends a bit of unreliability to the child narration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The characters are rich and the familial relationships complex. Ulf is larger than life, strong, dangerous, and wise like the Viking gods of his stories. Yet he also displays gentleness. He reads to his children for hours telling epic sagas of Viking gods and warriors. He weaves flower crowns for Liv and braids stems into his beard to celebrate Midsommar. He rollicks with laughter at his own jokes, caresses Liv\u2019s face with praise and meaningful endearments. Shielded from the worst of Ulf\u2019s violence by Finn, Liv idolizes her father\u2019s physical strength, his bravery and longing for Valhalla. Liv and Finn are resilient and share a sibling bond that fuels their survival. Young Liv\u2019s voice is innocent, and the frequent retrospective insight of adult Liv signals a brighter, albeit unusual, future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Geni\u2019s novel is both a page-turning thriller and coming-of-age tale of epic proportions. The power of her narrative is more than the salacious plot of Viking lore and childhood trauma. The unique familial relationship, Liv\u2019s loss of innocence and Geni\u2019s lush description of the natural world are immersive and heartbreaking. Thematically, \u201cChildren of the Wolf\u201d depicts violence in all its forms, the unredeemable violence of abuse, the necessary violence of survival, the animal violence of the natural world and the inevitable violence of revenge and justice. Geni creates a fated sense of nurture\u2019s imprint on nature where Liv cannot escape her legacy. The novel poses major thematic questions. What are the limitations of love, loyalty, and forgiveness? Is violence ever justified? Can you heal from an abusive childhood? And finally, how does normalized violence shape our values and the choices we make? The novel is gripping, not for the faint of heart and will leave you wondering if these children will ever be okay.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"755\" data-attachment-id=\"104926\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/15\/in-children-of-the-wolf-the-children-are-not-okay\/children-of-the-wolf\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?fit=600%2C906&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,906\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"children of the wolf\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?fit=500%2C755&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf-500x755.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104926 lazyload\" style=\"width:250px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?resize=500%2C755&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/children-of-the-wolf.webp?resize=32%2C48&ssl=1 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>FICTION<\/strong><br><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798217299539\">Children of the Wolf<\/a><\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781593768171\"><br><\/a><strong>By Abby Geni<\/strong><br><strong>Ballantine Books<\/strong><br><strong>Published September 15, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" 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data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"book_button\" data-affiliate-id=\"318\" data-sku=\"9798217299539\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Children of the Wolf, the new novel by Chicago-based author Abby Geni, the ominous prologue teases a story of murder, secrets, and chaos. The novel jumps immediately to the narrator\u2019s past to reveal the disturbing childhood of Liv and Finn, the children of the wolf. Young Liv recounts horrific memories of violence and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145734,"featured_media":104924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[309],"tags":[208490174,5732411,1747,1745],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-abby-geni","tag-ballantine-books","tag-fiction","tag-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>In "Children of the Wolf," the Children Are Not Okay - Chicago Review of Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/15\/in-children-of-the-wolf-the-children-are-not-okay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In "Children of the Wolf," the Children Are Not Okay - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Children of the Wolf, the new novel by Chicago-based author Abby Geni, the ominous prologue teases a story of murder, secrets, and chaos. 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When the community\u2019s founders are killed, the narrator-protagonist is on the cusp of puberty and forced to make do with two other survivors, Heiko and CeCe. Filling their days by doing what is needed to survive in the wild, all three navigate how to live as a new family unit. In Peter Rock\u2019s new post-apocalyptic novel, <em>Makeshift<\/em>, they are made sisters by this shared experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever end-of-times catastrophes gave birth to the novel\u2019s initial status quo don\u2019t really matter, the reader quickly discovers. The titular community is gone and the three sisters have to find shelter from a storm, an ethos that animates similar post-apocalyptic narratives. This setup might feel familiar, given the subgenre\u2019s popularity in novels, television, and podcasts alike. However, <em>Makeshift<\/em> still manages to shine in a crowded field thanks to a few canny decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The post-apocalyptic subgenre is, perhaps, popular these days because it reveals anxieties shared by people across the political spectrum. If people on both the left and the right see collapse on the horizon, imagining survival scenarios through novels like <em>Makeshift<\/em> makes sense. The subgenre also allows authors to approach the world with fresh eyes. The more practiced of fiction writers can skirt clich\u00e9 by approaching trite subjects with a hue of abstraction or alienation, refreshing the narrative function of objects, places, and relationships. Rock\u2014previously known for the novel <em>My Abandonment<\/em> (2009), which was adapted into the film <em>Leave No Trace<\/em> in 2018\u2014achieves just this through a beautifully sensitive narrator. <em>Makeshift<\/em> is at its best when narrating how food (and its scarcity) have to be constantly considered, and when imbuing a map or a compass with the sparkle of portent needed to make a dangerous, desolate world feel lived in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Genre trappings are also applied with a light touch; <em>Makeshift<\/em> deftly intertwines the challenges of survival with the emotional extremes of adolescence. The reader first accompanies the sisters while they maintain shelters, collect water, forage food, and set traps. But the novel then quickly moves on to unearthing a variety of human preoccupations with curiosity: the psychologies of protagonists who are beginning to understand themselves in relation to gender, their bodies, lives lived in kinship with animals, and relationships beyond the nuclear family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Furthermore, all three named characters are clearly defined. Each one has their own competing or overlapping preoccupations. For example, while Ari wonders how to rebuild what has been lost, Heiko and CeCe are convinced of the futility of returning to anything that might have existed before or outside the island, since they were both born before their community\u2019s founding. The latter two are anyways too busy focusing on the solar powered machines working away at mysterious ends in the forests or hiding from the boats of foreigners that keep circling the island. CeCe, the eldest and de facto leader, is also spending time away from the group, having sporadic meetings with some unknown party. And there is also that one other kid who might still be out there somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the novel\u2019s horizon, beyond the few details shared above, lies a more complicated story, one with a handful of sneaky-but-satisfying twists. These give the reader\u2019s feelings room to change, grow, or evolve. While caught in the morass of vividly painted teenage feelings and an efficient survivalist plot, larger questions emerge. What makes <em>Makeshift\u2019s<\/em> characters sisters? How much should they take from the land? Can one ever truly give something back to the land?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"756\" data-attachment-id=\"104910\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/14\/peter-rock-makeshift\/image-99\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?fit=600%2C907&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,907\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"image\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?fit=500%2C756&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-500x756.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104910 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=500%2C756&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=198%2C300&ssl=1 198w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png?resize=32%2C48&ssl=1 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>FICTION<\/strong><br><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781593768171\"><strong><em>Makeshift<\/em><\/strong><br><\/a><strong>By Peter Rock<\/strong><br><strong>Soft Skull<\/strong><br><strong>Published August 25, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68356 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ari was born in a community of survivalists living on an island somewhere off the coast of Canada. When the community\u2019s founders are killed, the narrator-protagonist is on the cusp of puberty and forced to make do with two other survivors, Heiko and CeCe. Filling their days by doing what is needed to survive in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145737,"featured_media":104914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[309],"tags":[1747,711769365,8176676,711765984,711765734],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-fiction","tag-makeshift","tag-peter-rock","tag-reviews","tag-soft-skull"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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from the Voice \u2014 On Mentors and Teachers and Mantras in Our Heads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Most writers have probably heard the admonitory voices of teachers or mentors in our heads, reminding us of the mantras we picked up from them well after we left their tutelage. Hearing commandments like <em>Write every day<\/em> or <em>Write what you know<\/em> or <em>Show don\u2019t tell<\/em> during our formative years makes it more likely that we\u2019ll hear them beyond that phase, though the voices change in function over time. I\u2019d like to talk here about what these voices actually do (and don\u2019t do) for us and how to keep them from becoming poisonous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to start with the second topic because it sheds light on why the first is so important. Internalized mentor voices can become disruptive to our writing practice, or even cudgels we beat ourselves with when we don\u2019t live up to our own expectations. If we heard <em>Write every day<\/em> over and over again during our apprenticeship, we might find that inner voice rising up against us whenever we don\u2019t follow that advice. But sometimes we need to step back and say nothing for a while, such as after we finish a big project\u2014a totally reasonable time for a writing pause. Life gets in the way too, as we\u2019re not likely to write on the day we bring our partner or child to the emergency room. Should we still <em>Write every day<\/em> simply because someone passed that advice on to us once upon a time with the force of commandment? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course not. I\u2019m going through a silent stretch this very minute, since I\u2019m so disgusted with AI\u2019s encroachments on the literary life that sitting down to write only makes me think of somebody else setting up an AI agent to write the exact same words. Should I write every day just to keep the commandment? Not a chance. I know when I work best and when I work worst, and under current conditions it\u2019s better to stay silent until I\u2019ve built up such a head of steam for a project that I don\u2019t give a rat\u2019s bottom about AI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The problem is that I\u2019ve heard <em>Write every day<\/em> so many times\u2014and spoken it even more to my own students\u2014that its weight as a commandment keeps getting heavier. Even when I know I need a break, I still keep hearing that voice telling me to <em>Write every day<\/em> when I break the rule. All that changes is which teacher or mentor the admonishing voice comes from, but whoever is speaking, I feel like I\u2019ve let them, myself, and the muses down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Write every day<\/em> helped me become a writer because it gave me discipline and focus. But now that my practice is well established, this mantra no longer helps me develop as a writer because I\u2019ve lived through too many instances where blindly following it was counterproductive. Lately, I\u2019ve done my best writing after a good stretch of <em>not<\/em> writing. This is why we have to examine the voices of mentors and teachers to make sure we\u2019re updating their advice to our current writerly operating systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So what role <em>do<\/em> those inherited mantras play years or even decades after we first internalized them? For starters, they can be a great way to remind ourselves of the fundamentals of our craft. If we hear one, it could simply be us reminding ourselves of a fundamental idea that applies in the moment. Mantras can also be a tremendous self-assessment tool if we\u2019re willing to separate them from the emotionality of mentor-prot\u00e9g\u00e9 relationships and look at them with a colder eye. We don\u2019t need our emotions to have good relationships with our mantras. When they arise we can use them to calmly assess where we are at, whether on a specific project we\u2019re working on or in the development of our writing practice. Each time we hear one, we are actually inviting ourselves into a deeper conversation about what\u2019s happening <em>today<\/em>\u2014not who we were when we first internalized the mantra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the hard part that requires some self-training, especially if we have ever used our mantras as cudgels. Hearing one gives us an opportunity to begin an internal conversation about why we\u2019re doing (or not doing) something on the page or in our practice, and each time we do this we have a chance to reinterpret them in the context of our own writerly development. We benefit from being aware of how their meaning has changed <em>for us<\/em> over time, because <em>we<\/em> certainly change over time. Re-encountering a mantra can become a tool we apply in specific moments to make specific changes, which is vastly more beneficial to us than leaving them as bland commandments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As an example, let\u2019s look at another mantra that many of us have internalized: the dreaded <em>Show don\u2019t tell<\/em>. This is obviously useful advice when it applies, and it can bring a tremendous sense of presence to our work because showing pulls the reader into a moment instead of describing that moment. But taken to its extreme, as it often is in workshops, it prevents us from moving through time. Sometimes you just want to say, <em>Four years later, the neighbors moved out and abandoned their cat until Jocelyn heard it yowling in the window<\/em>. The <em>Show don\u2019t tell<\/em> mantra, as useful as it can be, handcuffs us when we apply it unquestioningly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hearing that mantra in a teacher or mentor\u2019s voice is probably not our imagination telling us to walk through every single scene the same way. It\u2019s more likely our imagination inviting us into a conversation about the balance between what we\u2019re showing and what we\u2019re telling on the page, which can help us write better. Figuring out how to make use of an internalized mantra in this way is an outstanding writerly self-management skill to develop. If we don\u2019t learn to turn our mantras into useful working questions, it will be difficult for them to be anything but commandments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is not, and never will be, one way to write, and we must remember that some of the mantras we internalized were passed on to us by teachers and mentors as guidelines <em>for them<\/em> that may have gotten calcified over time. (I am virtually certain that at least one of the mentors who told me to <em>Write every day<\/em> stopped doing it years ago.) Teachers in academic settings, like I was, often boil down their teaching into pithy statements that leave little room for nuance. It may help us, as we try to loosen our grip on our mantras and use them more wisely, to know that the people we picked them up from may also have gone through the same loosening process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our ideal relationship with our mantras is not monolithic, and they are more useful to us if we let them change over time. Jobs and parenthood alter our writing practices, as do the fluctuations in our energy levels as we age. But if a mantra is good enough for us to remember years after we first heard it, then it\u2019s probably good enough for us to reconsider at various phases of our writing lives. In the long run, we need to make choices about all our mantras: use them well and consciously, or let them grumble as calcified commandments in our heads that lock us in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"62174\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/03\/30\/libertie-kaitlyn-greenidge\/chirblogoend-1-2-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62174 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest installment of his craft series, Steven Wingate considers how maturing writers should process the foundational advice of their mentors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145716,"featured_media":83537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9548,711769285],"tags":[20799,1747,8518,422,711764359,711769288],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-writing-from-the-voice","tag-feature","tag-fiction","tag-nonfiction","tag-poetry","tag-steven-wingate","tag-writing-craft"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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His thirty-year teaching career included stints at South Dakota State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the College of the Holy Cross. Find him at www.stevenwingate.com and https:\/\/substack.com\/@stevenwingate.","url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/author\/stevenwingate\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75tvT-re0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/HowIFoundMyWayBackToWriting_1920x675.jpg?fit=1920%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199145716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104656"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104893,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104656\/revisions\/104893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104656"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=104656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":104215,"date":"2026-09-10T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104215"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:11:47","slug":"running-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/10\/running-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poetics of Stunning Proximity: A Conversation with Michael Lauchlan about “Running Lights”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I first met Michael Lauchlan in 2004 at Grounds Coffee Shop on University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s campus. We were both adjuncting there at the time. I was fresh out of grad school, while Lauchlan was recalibrating after a chronic illness had derailed him from teaching and poetry for a spell. If memory serves me right, I\u2019d brought the Ohio poet F. Daniel Rzicznek to campus for a class visit and a reading, and Lauchlan was kind enough to show up. If memory serves me right, there was cigarette smoke in the air (you were still allowed to smoke indoors in public places back then), though none of us were smokers. <em>Sudden Parade<\/em> had come out several years before with Ridgeway Press, and I told Lauchlan I wanted a copy. He gave me one the following week, and when I realized we were both living in Dearborn, I started bugging him to hang out and swap poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s now been twenty two years of that, and there\u2019s nobody who has taught me more. Lauchlan\u2019s poems are true to life and place. He\u2019s an incredibly intelligent writer, but he writes with a humility that comes from the several lives he\u2019s led. Before becoming an academic, Michael worked for a general contractor in Detroit doing about everything one can do on commercial and residential job sites\u2014plumbing, roofing, cement work, etc. His poems reflect this both in their figurations and in the way they are drawn, the lines like plumb chalk lines, their textures carefully bevelled. He never leaves the reader behind either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The kind, thoughtful, and generous speaker you meet in Lauchlan\u2019s poems is the guy you meet in real life. He knows how to get stuff done and knock things down when they\u2019re rotten, and he\u2019s helped countless people and organizations with projects ranging from building bookshelves and fences to fixing drains and installing appliances. He brings this builder\u2019s sensibility to the way he reads and responds to poems, too\u2014measuring, knocking out the rotten stuff\u2014and he\u2019s incredibly giving of his time, serving as a mentor not only to his gifted students, but also to so many of us in the Detroit poetry community. I hope this interview allows people to get a glimpse into the generous and brilliant spirit behind the poems in Lauchlan\u2019s stunning new collection, <strong><em>Running Lights<\/em><\/strong><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" data-attachment-id=\"68342\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/testowl-6\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?fit=100%2C100&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"100,100\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"testowl\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?fit=100%2C100&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68342 lazyload\" style=\"width:50px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?w=100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Many of these poems, especially in the first section of the book, \u201cMercy,\u201d deal with the human voice and the way it gets transmitted and preserved through technologies, including our poems. I\u2019m thinking specifically of the poem, \u201cListen, for Larry Pike,\u201d where you hauntingly pick up an analog telephone and start dialing the number of a dead friend. How do you define \u201cvoice\u201d and how do we retrieve it when it\u2019s become disembodied?  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the miracles of the human brain is our capacity to retain a large catalogue of remembered voices. Perhaps the voices of our dead friends are not truly \u201cdisembodied\u201d when we call them back into our consciousness, when we shiver faintly at mom\u2019s voice still calling to us. These voices are \u201cre-embodied\u201d and, when we manage to capture them on a page, reenacted for (and in) our readers. Because of the passing of mutual friends, Larry has been on my mind of late, his explosive smile, his resonant greetings. He wasn\u2019t a big man, but he was a physical, sensual presence. Many years ago, I built a back porch for him. I can still see him\u2014utterly joyous\u2014standing in the upper doorway, pulling on a rope, helping to lift the frame of the upper deck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the larger sense of \u201cvoice\u201d is carried in our minds, as well as brains and bodies. We are hungry for the recognizable human presence borne along in cadence and syntax, image and assonance. In this moment, technology threatens that essential presence that reminds us that we\u2019re not utterly alone. So, yes, the old phone plays a role in the poem, as does the mental slippage (recalling a friend and forgetting his death). Larry and I tore poems from typewriters and called each other. You and I do a version of the same thing and for much the same reason, making judicious use of an otherwise distracting technology. We dive into the loneliness of the poem and emerge gulping air and coughing incoherently with the few friends who also know the rivers and lakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Man, I love that answer. So much there that speaks for itself and I\u2019d rather not unpack it. Of course, when you\u2019re speaking of Larry and me, you\u2019re speaking of friends you know personally. Who are some of the poet friends you find yourself speaking to outside of time? Who are some influences, in other words, and what do you take from them and what do you give them back?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tom Lux appeared on my front porch in the middle of the night about five years after he died. In his kind, lumbering way, he chided me for being so tentative in my work. His dreamt voice actually had an effect on my work. A new permission, I guess. I met him at Goddard in 1980 (and then again at Warren Wilson in 1990, after the program moved). But I went to Goddard because of the voice I found in his collection, <em>Sunday<\/em>. He was a mentor, but his work was also a shaping influence, though I don\u2019t try to emulate it. I\u2019m fairly confident that you can go through the work of a good many poets and find turns of phrase that suggest Lux. Sometimes in revision I have to revise shifts that are too clearly Luxian. He offered me permission to leap from one level to another. His work encouraged empathy and a kind of dirt-honesty. And he was brilliant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few years before that I was failing out of my undergrad program, a very disorganized young man. But I read the collected Dylan Thomas, over and over, struggling with lots of the poems, but captivated by the cadences, the music. Then I read all of Merwin. The music and form of the <em>First Four Books<\/em> carried me along. I was empowered by a teacher who pointed out that I could simply look up allusions. I would sit in the library with the unabridged dictionary and the classical encyclopedia. The next four books demanded radically different attention, of course, but by then I was hooked. And his translations led me to Neruda, Lorca, Mandelstam and Akhmatova. Levertov helped me link my nascent anti-war activism with poetry. Maybe we feel a little less crazy and a bit more at home when that kind of merge happens. So when I picked up a stray <em>New Yorker<\/em> and opened to Levine\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/1980\/02\/25\/rain-downriver\">Rain Downriver<\/a>,\u201d I was stunned to find out that Detroit\u2019s buses and streets could be infused with literary potency (\u00e1 la Dublin or New York). Of course, Robert Hayden and Dudley Randall had been doing this forever, but I didn\u2019t find them until a bit later. Similarly, I heard Gwendolyn Brooks read somewhere in Highland Park and Chicago neighborhoods appeared in the air. Place became an important focus for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I\u2019m able to give back is a question for other people to answer. But I know that I was propelled beyond a myriad of obstacles by writers, including Lux and Dudley Randall, who were kind to me when they had no reason to remember my name. When I was an undergrad at U of D (now Detroit Mercy), Dudley Randall was Poet in Residence. I recall his pipe and his generous smile as he walked around the library. He generously attended my first public readings. As I now teach on the same campus, I hope I can channel some of his goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I know for a fact that you do, and how cool that you are now the Poet In Residence at University of Detroit Mercy. What will that role look like for you? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An honor and an utter, unmitigated gift. I will teach, as always, and try to be present to students and my astonishing colleagues. This has become a vital community for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In many of your poems, your history as a construction worker shows up, and mundane and strenuous construction tasks seem to serve as figurations for poem writing. Do you think it\u2019s important for poets to have had occupations outside academia to draw upon? What are some of your favorite poems that draw upon this past life of yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love my colleagues but my ideal reader also includes people who are not primarily concerned with teaching (and producing) literature. I think it can be a real gift when poets draw on the places and jobs that are located in the reader\u2019s domain. Your life in music (and the local venues where firefighters rub elbows with barbacks and waitstaff) has given your work a real grounding. William Carlos Williams became important to me partly because he wrote while he sat at his patients\u2019 kitchen tables waiting for fevers to break and babies to arrive. Or waiting for death. It\u2019s not hard for me to picture him at the yellow formica table I grew up with. For the moment, I\u2019m going to pass over Wallace Stevens\u2019s labor of counting money. Levine\u2019s poems\u2014\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/52173\/what-work-is\">What Work Is<\/a>,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poetrymagazine\/browse?volume=134&issue=6&page=12\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poetrymagazine\/browse?volume=134&issue=6&page=12\">To Cypriano, in the Wind<\/a>\u201d\u2014are obvious examples. They provided a lot of encouragement for me. I also think of Rukheyser, Wright, and others for whom the WPA [Works Progress Administration] was a doorway into the lives of otherwise voiceless people. Rukheyser\u2019s accounts of the testimony of the \u201cwhite lung\u201d workers, who had drilled through a mountain in inhuman conditions, would fit well into any post-modern\/post-colonial anthology.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In our culture, some of these images don\u2019t make it to the page, because a waitress who drags her sore feet home to put a couple children to bed doesn\u2019t always sit down at a computer and start typing. If she is somehow able to return to these images later, you get a Tillie Olsen. But publishers are not often looking for unheard of older voices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The poem \u201cFulcrum\u201d contains some of the grim elements of work: tasks that suggest futility, time that is elapsing on a day, and the serious price we pay with our bodies when we ourselves must leverage weight out of the earth. Of course, I wrote this poem a few decades after I stopped building porches for pay. It took a long time for my writing skills to catch up with the demands of memory. \u201cKnuckles and Words\u201d is a quirky example, blending my passion for etymology (and public radio) with the grit of trying to fix a crappy car using crappy old parts. Being economically on the edge means you end up making imperfect decisions (<em>Will the starter actually work?<\/em>) and performing tasks that you aren\u2019t very good at. Writing often involves imperfect, improvised turns, as we bludgeon our language into place on the page. Someone could undoubtedly write this more deftly, but he wasn\u2019t lying under a car looking up and I was. So I have to do the best with what I have. Work is often a doorway into empathy and community. I heard partners and crew members utter some remarkable lines of wisdom and pain. \u201cLike a Song\u201d leaves out my favorite roofing line, after one friend saved another from slipping off the eave: \u201cThanks just doesn\u2019t seem like enough.\u201d And, of course, only in a plumbing supply shop could I be confronted by a guy who was convinced I had been killed, and didn\u2019t seem pleased to be dissuaded by my corporeal evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019s fitting that in that last answer you end on a dark joke. Your poems don\u2019t shy away from mortality and the sense that time is running away with us. I was just re-reading the poem \u201cLaughter,\u201d which seems to encapsulate your preoccupations with time passing, with finitude, and with work. What separates your stuff, though, is also your gift for both dark and whimsical irony. There\u2019s laughter here, in other words. How do you strike that balance between irony and earnestness in poetry? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I do, it\u2019s luck, I think. Through no effort on my part, I wake up in a good mood most days. And then I read the news. But the act of writing is often exhilarating for me, even when I\u2019m revising something that began long ago, even when I\u2019m wrestling with work that will never take a readable shape. The work of writing is illuminating. Also, I am surrounded by writer-friends that challenge me and enliven me. I appreciate your use of the word earnestness, though I suspect some writers would shy away from it. I suppose I am perpetually ready to rush in and make a fool of myself\u2014as when I was a kid pacing beside a coach until he inserted me into the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to earn irony, rather than wear it. The root irony was identified by Camus: our fierce attachment to enter a future which is more proximate to our deaths. A more topical irony lives in our culture\u2019s current proclivity (with ancient roots) for valorizing and empowering intellectual and moral bankruptcy. My earnestness keeps me showing up to work for demonstrations and elections. My irony helps me cope with the results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the page, I think I am carried along by the thrum of music, by the truth that rises from a well-struck line, even in an obscure or incomplete context. I came of age reading without a lot of guidance, so cadences and sentences carried me past elements that mystified me until much later. I write in the spirit in which I speak to a friend. I am trying to sort things out and hoping that something makes sense. I write in the hope that readers will find something of value even in poems that seem \u201cinnocent\u201d or disjointed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I like the phrase \u201cthe thrum of music,\u201d and allusions to music, especially twentieth-century jazz, show up periodically in your poems. I\u2019m looking at \u201cThe Fourth\u201d and \u201cGetting a Drink\u201d with references to Etta James and \u201cSt James Infirmary.\u201d What do we love about music, and how should it inform what we do in poetry? Do you trust our love of music? Do you listen to music when you write?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I believe Frost was on to something when he said, \u201cThe road to the heart is through the ear.\u201d So music wields potent magic, sometimes awakening deeply submerged memories or offering us the architecture of emotions we might not otherwise access. It sometimes offers a clarity beyond language. Of course, this also suggests a potential to engage an emotional response or to promote nostalgia, ethnic exclusivity, violence. The same issue exists in poetry, when convincing cadences are married to solipsistic (or banal) thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I once played Tommy Flanagan’s version of \u201cSunset and Mockingbird\u201d for an entire evening, while I tried to find phrases to match the highly suggestive \u201csyntax\u201d of Ellington\/Flanagan. That experiment \u201cfailed\u201d to produce a successful poem, but I may again be seduced into following the lead of music. Maybe it\u2019s always there. Maybe I just can\u2019t afford to (or haven\u2019t learned to) let it lead the way. I sometimes begin with a solo pianist (Flanagan, Hank Jones, Bill Evans) or even someone playing Debussey. As the writing develops a focus, I opt for silence. What passes for silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGetting a Drink\u201d combines some late learning about a truly fundamental American blues with an experience of hearing you perform in a local bar. Tragically, you did not include \u201cSt. James Infirmary\u201d in your set, so I had to invent. It is stunning to me how those roots lyrics, from Ireland, the Delta, etc. have been carried forward, often unconsciously, in our language. The wisdom and pulse of the poorest folk undergird our every sentence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>There\u2019s a part of me that dislikes music, especially the music that I play, but I like the idea of trying to get close to silence when we write. \u201cWhat passes for silence,\u201d and what does it have to do with finitude? I\u2019m thinking of \u201cVanishing\u201d and \u201cOn a Marsh.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love that you connected those poems. One describes a remembered\/imagined sax player vanishing into his solo. The other describes a friendly parting outside a jazz club, a conversation with the very real and fondly remembered McKinney brothers, kind lions of the mid-twentieth-century jazz scene. When we are fully engaged, I think we (our personas, egos, social security numbers) do vanish into our art. No one is around (thank goodness) when we are writing, but musicians do it nightly in public. It\u2019s truly one of the miracles, when someone is really playing, when someone is there to listen and to watch. Unlike Keats\u2019s \u201cunheard\u201d melodies, these poems describe a sound still hanging in the air, heard as it slips away, recalled after the musician is gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to avoid sentimentalizing this essential vibration of our humanity. \u201cWe are the music makers\u201d and the music listeners and the people who can, with a little effort, attend and recall. All of this marks us as human. Like poetry, music endures in spite of overwhelming odds. In the past, of course, countless performers have gone unrecorded. Some must be imagined. Others left an indelible (if anonymous) mark on others, who carried the gift forward. Many years ago, a student in one of my college comp classes revealed that he performed traditional West African music. From Kefense Chiki, I learned that the rhythm of \u201cNight in Tunisia\u201d was from ancient Mali, a kingdom that vanished more than 500 years ago. Somehow, the gift endured the Middle Passage and emerged in Dizzie Gillespie and Art Blakey. Unspeakable, unimaginable, and true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I hope to write in the thrall of the last tones of a brushed cymbal. In that near-silence, I need to breathe in something I haven\u2019t known before. And what emerges may be loud or soft, it may be a public matter or something entirely intimate. My job is simply to give it room to emerge into light and language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I know the poetry of place is important to you, and your first full-length collection,<\/strong> <strong><em>Trumbull Avenue,<\/em><\/strong> <strong>is a very Detroit book. Although Detroit and Dearborn spots show up in<\/strong> <strong><em>Running Lights<\/em><\/strong><strong>, the sense of place seems more subdued in these poems. How much of that was by conscious design as you were drafting these poems, and how would you contrast this book with your earlier work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not an easy question. Writing about place is crucial because <em>thereness<\/em> is part of our humanness. It\u2019s crucial that our poetry notice the people around us in the place. Also trees, a stray dog, this morning\u2019s blue jay. All of that is part of being alive, but it\u2019s easy to get confused and actually just write about the names of places or about an ideology of place without evoking an immanence, without fully inhabiting my own skin within a place. If I\u2019m not first within my own skin, then the meaningfulness of my distracted self being in a coffee shop in a strip mall or a church that houses a soup kitchen doesn\u2019t really matter very much. If I\u2019ve reduced myself to a pretentious video recorder and voided my own personhood, who should really care where I place the camera? If I\u2019m really inhabiting myself and conscious of the place, I just might bring the bodied work to the page. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing when I\u2019m at my best in terms of writing and just being a human being responding to the dystopia that we find ourselves in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Early on, I was deeply affected by \u201cwitness poetry\u201d from all over the globe: Russia, Chile, Ireland, etc., as well as from Detroit. Of course, the trick about such work is that the writer needs a good deal of humility and self-awareness. Why am I choosing to frame these individuals in this way? Who am I, anyway, and where am I standing, and what (self-aggrandizement?) motivates me? Seamus Heaney famously warns against \u201cHere come the good guys\u201d poems. Reginald Dwayne Betts warns against becoming the hero of your own poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We moved a few years ago. OK, almost 30. My heart hasn\u2019t completely caught up. Maybe the move shook some of my assumptions about writing poems of witness. To the extent that I appear in my narrative driven poems, I think I\u2019m a more complex, flawed persona. Maybe that suggests growth in self-awareness. Maybe it was fortunate that I got knocked loose from a too-familiar urban starting point. I think the poems of recent decades are more formally and thematically varied than earlier work. I hope my work \u201cplaces\u201d me in an open-handed way. Those within my immediate view (an elderly stranger at the corner table) have a claim on my compassion simply by their proximity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let me expand the scene a bit. If someone reads my poems a decade on, they might recognize something about the time and place and ask how I responded to the cataclysm of our moment in this place. My poems can\u2019t (shouldn\u2019t) contain diatribes, defenses, or rhetoric\u2014all too easy to be helpful\u2014but if they don\u2019t occasionally touch down in southeast Michigan in the dystopia of 2026, they will be little more than the fluffy rom-coms where all the characters seem to have their pockets stuffed with cash for the dinners, cabs, and hotel rooms in which they enact their personal crises. I\u2019m thinking here of Eavan Boland\u2019s critique of easy romance in <em>Against Love Poetry<\/em>. If I want my poems to engage the world in a credible way, I need to <em>inhabit<\/em> that world with my eyes and ears open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cal Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How does a city poet navigate the noise with ears and eyes wide open and get back to the kind of silence you mention earlier in this piece? And would you mind retelling the story you\u2019ve told before about walking into the closed Detroit auto parts store after a long day and calling the police on yourself for trespassing? It\u2019s a great story, and perhaps emblematic of the way your poems not only note vivid facts about the exterior world but also come to epiphanies about your place in it? I read a poem like \u201cConsider Utopia\u201d and realize that the “unmapped realms\u201d are quite magical but not necessarily remote. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Lauchlan<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So funny that you asked about that story, which I just retold for the benefit (?) of my grandson. He got the short version. I was in my mid-thirtiess re-roofing a porch for a neighbor, trying to finish up and hustle home. Planning badly, as always, I realized that my bright silver flashing would be visible from a block away against her red bricks. All I needed was a can of auto primer to make them a tad less conspicuous. Across the street was an auto parts store that I had been single-handedly sustaining with repairs on a series of old cars and trucks. I left the ladder and tools in place and literally sprinted to the store, glad that I actually had five dollars in my pocket. I pushed through the glass door and spotted the primer instantly. Then I noticed that I was quite alone in a strangely silent place. The analog clock over the counter gestured at 6:05. The store was closed, but no one had locked up. I was uncharacteristically alert and my tiny experience in the world included an awareness that a silent alarm would be buzzing at the police station and that I would very soon be confronted by armed men in blue. I went behind the counter and dialed 911. I was still on the phone when the officers arrived and handed one of them the phone, which seemed to ease the tension. I think I actually pointed out my ladder, quite visible from the door of the shop. In a few moments, we found the owner\u2019s phone number (remember handwritten phone lists?) and the cops allowed me to take a can of primer so I could finish the job. I think I left some cash on the counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s impossible to overlook the layers of privilege that made my trespass excusable. And it\u2019s also true that much of my adult life has been spent in some form of crossing, or passing, or transgressing. I\u2019ve done work for which I was not prepared in the customary ways. At many points, people might have stopped me and asked: \u201cLauchlan, do you have any idea what you are doing?\u201d In those roles, I\u2019ve had surprising access to a wide variety of people. As a preteen, I heard the coach who shaped me recount the forces that shaped him as an African American man. Though his words were directed primarily to my African American teammates, I was included. In my time doing rehab, I replaced a garbage disposal while a mother and daughter discussed what men found attractive in women. Of course, they eventually asked me (lying on my back under their sink) to weigh in. As a teacher, I watched students unroll incredible griefs. My responses were not always on point. At times, I was less than helpful. But I was allowed in through a door that might have been locked, and I was transformed by what they shared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can\u2019t remember what launched me into \u201cConsider Utopia.\u201d But once there, snared by the perfectly obvious etymology, I was enchanted by memories of time spent in alleys, those secret connectors favored by wandering kids and desperate mechanics. Sometimes, as busy adults, we get \u201cmazed\u201d by our habitual paths through our cities. By what routes (in soothing tones) will our chosen map program direct us to work today? But the city is stitched together quite differently and there are other ways of \u201cgoing.\u201d One of my brother\u2019s friends lived across the alley from us. On his way home from school, he regularly cut through our house, pausing in the kitchen for a glass of water before continuing out the back door. I can\u2019t help but think of the many circulatory systems of the body (lymphatic, arterial) and of the myriad of ligaments and the mysteries of nerves and fascia and skin. Without which no one lives. Likewise our friendships and our communities are intricately woven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You, for instance, have occasionally written about Ecorse Creek, a water route that links neighborhoods which, superficially, seem quite separate. I want a poetics of such stunning proximity.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"773\" data-attachment-id=\"104823\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/10\/running-lights\/attachment\/9781968148591\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?fit=600%2C928&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,928\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"9781968148591\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?fit=500%2C773&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591-500x773.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104823 lazyload\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.6468380017326018;width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=500%2C773&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=194%2C300&ssl=1 194w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=97%2C150&ssl=1 97w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=370%2C572&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=20%2C31&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781968148591.jpg?resize=31%2C48&ssl=1 31w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>POETRY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Running Lights<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>by Michael Lauchlan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cornerstone Press<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Published on September 15, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68356 lazyload\" style=\"width:50px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A conversation with poet Michael Lauchlan about his new collection, “Running Lights.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145727,"featured_media":104822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[831],"tags":[696883,11788,711769360,422,711769361],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-cornerstone-press","tag-interview","tag-michael-lauchlan","tag-poetry","tag-running-lights"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Poetics of Stunning Proximity: A Conversation with Michael Lauchlan about "Running Lights" - Chicago Review of Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/10\/running-lights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Poetics of Stunning Proximity: A Conversation with Michael Lauchlan about "Running Lights" - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A conversation with poet Michael Lauchlan about his new collection, "Running Lights."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/10\/running-lights\/\" \/>\n<meta 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and Not Here: an Interview with Ankur Thakkar on \u201cBlow Yourself Up\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">The title of Ankur Thakkar\u2019s debut novel comes from an advertisement for Boost, a fictional new app that\u2019s sort of a mashup of social media present and past. However, much like the novel itself, the phrase operates on multiple levels. It refers to the way one of the dual protagonists, Payal Bajwa, earns fame on this new platform, yet it also refers to how the other protagonist, Arjun Vohra, must blow up the self he has imagined he would one day become. Third, it serves to highlight the acts of international terror that tick away in the background until they explode. The novel is ostensibly a love story amidst a grim dissection of internet culture that follows Arjun and Payal from high school to separate colleges halfway across the country to a precarious adulthood unduly influenced by the pressure and pleasure of life online. It is also a story of success, how we define it, who gets it, what it means specifically for South Asian immigrant families, and the emotional and moral costs exacted in its pursuit. I\u2019ve known Ankur for almost twenty years when we met at an orientation for our MFA program, and since then we\u2019ve shared a lot of work, eaten a lot of oysters, and had a lot of cocktails at AWP hotel bars. While success for Payal and Arjun remains murky, Ankur\u2019s success as a writer is undeniable, and I\u2019m so excited to be able to talk with my friend about his stellar first novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>As I mentioned,<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480645\"><strong><em>Blow Yourself Up<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <strong>is primarily a love story, but it\u2019s also a treatise on internet culture. Arjun thinks: \u201cThe internet used to be this shiny new thing, but it had crept into every crevice of culture because we let it. To protest meant you were too late. This was how the internet had won.\u201d And yet, the novel feels like a protest. Is this an attempt at fighting back? Or has the internet won? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m glad we\u2019re starting out light and fun. In this novel I wanted to capture how we shaped the internet as it shaped us, shifting our behavior in ways both glaring and subtle. That\u2019s literally the marketing copy. But to drill into Arjun\u2019s perspective, as a musician who cares deeply about the details, he\u2019s reacting to how readily we\u2019ve accepted the degradation of art in the name of modernization. We strain to see bands or paintings between raised smartphones recording footage that disappears into the camera roll, so much of our streaming audio is compressed to shit, and our rich history of professional criticism is being replaced with algorithmic selection, the impacts of which aren\u2019t noticeable if we aren\u2019t paying attention. And when you look at the lexicon underpinning this change, the language of modern software development, terms like master and slave, user, blacklist, feed, even follower, these concepts are drawn from subjugating structures of power. So yes, it\u2019s a war. And what we\u2019re fighting for is our own attention. Every novel is an attempt at fighting back, another bomb thrown in the war on attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I felt anxious reading many of your scenes where characters are scrolling through their phones, which is a testament to your skill at capturing our internet-fueled anxiety. I\u2019m thinking specifically of when Payal is on a date and she can\u2019t stop looking at her phone because her Boost is getting some love. She is occupying multiple places at once, present but not present. In some ways, the novel is asking if this fragmentation of the self (and our attention) is an inevitability or if we might do something about it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks for bringing this up, because the representation of other media (texts, notifications, audio, etc) came up early with Megan Stielstra, my brilliant editor. We discussed at length my decision not to separate the notifications Payal sees with italics, or a different typeface or color. I wanted to have the phone notifications render as subtly as possible on the page while still remaining distinct, because I think, in our minds, the experience isn\u2019t actually that fragmented. You\u2019re with a friend at a restaurant, they wonder if they should order some appetizers, another friend texts that they\u2019re omw!, then quickly spell out on my way because they\u2019re embarrassed by the autocorrect, and you tell the first friend maybe you could put in drinks to start. We\u2019re constantly shuffling between modes of communication as we\u2019ve adapted to these devices, for better or worse, and my intention was to render it as faithfully to actual cognition as I could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In addition to asking philosophical questions about the self, consciousness, fate, free will, morality, the novel is rich with philosophical references, and Arjun studies philosophy at U of C. Was the intention to counter the immediacy of the internet with references to a type of thought that is deeper and slower and more attentive?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love philosophical texts because, at their core, they illustrate the workings of a mind trying to explain what this is, where we are, and how we should be. Of course there is also math and formal logic depending on the author\u2019s level of freak, but their concerns were exactly ours. There\u2019s a comfort in that. Novels from other eras give you this same feeling. We\u2019ve always been thinking about the same things, which means the past isn\u2019t really as past as advertised. The internet also flattens time, but does so in a way that heightens the immediate. It\u2019s only ever just now. Which isn\u2019t exactly wrong, but I wanted to explore the tension within these divergent time signatures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The novel has a certain untethered quality with respect to time. You might mention terrorist attacks and wars and apps, but they\u2019re non-specific. This parallels the looping structure of Boost videos and the idea that everything is always looping anyway, one war leads to another war, etc. Why was it important for you to stay away from specific temporal touchstones?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You\u2019re right. The guiding shape of the novel is a loop, which mirrors the Boost videos, but also complicates the flattening of time we just discussed. It\u2019s a well-worn cliche that history doesn\u2019t repeat so much as rhyme, and because the internet moves culture so rapidly, it was important to stay general about certain things so that readers could enter the story through their unique referential frames. That said, there are some touchstones. We know 9\/11 has happened, and later that we\u2019re in the dawn of AI, but in the intervening years I wanted the freedom to invent, to compress and structure the plot to tell the best possible story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The novel alternates between Arjun and Payal\u2019s points of view. Did you always conceive of this as a dual narrative, and what challenges and opportunities did that structure present?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both Payal and Arjun were in this novel from the very beginning, as well as other perspectives that didn\u2019t make the cut. I wanted to show how differently people can experience the same moments. I think it was especially important for a love story, to follow both characters as they grow together and apart over time. I think this counts as both a challenge and an opportunity, but the fact that they live in different socioeconomic realities as well as in different cities allowed me to explore the themes of the novel more broadly and deeply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Characters in<\/strong> <strong><em>Blow Yourself Up<\/em><\/strong> <strong>are often in transit: cabs, buses, ride shares, planes, trains. What is it about these\u2014and I hate this word because of its overuse in lit circles, but here goes\u2014<\/strong><strong><em>liminal<\/em><\/strong> <strong>spaces that make them a recurring setting? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wish I could say I was conscious of this. <em>Blow Yourself Up<\/em> is a cities novel, and trains are how a city connects to itself and where people of different backgrounds interact. And because it\u2019s also a novel about ambition, about going somewhere, it felt natural to keep my characters in motion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>New York and Chicago feature prominently in the novel, both places you have lived and worked. Tell me about how each city nurtured you as a writer, the similarities and differences between the two writing communities, and your favorite food each city claims as its invention.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rebecca Makkai wrote, in her discussion guide to <em>The Great Believers<\/em>, that \u201cChicago is, in a way, the great love of my life.\u201d This feels true to me. Chicagoans are obsessed with their city. This includes those of us who had to leave. Chicago is a city that shows up for you. The writers I met there, you included, didn\u2019t care about hierarchy, just whether you had something interesting to say. It took me many years in New York before I found my people, and whenever I meet someone from Chicago we are instantly bonded. As for food, I think both Chicago and New York have a claim on this delicacy\u2019s history in this country, and neither fucks with ketchup. For peace and unity, I\u2019d like to propose my ideal hybrid glizzy: poppy-seed bun, all-beef dog, yellow mustard, giardiniera, and celery salt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Payal gains fame in part because she pokes fun at her South Asian heritage and how some people within the community contribute to their own fetishization and exoticism. But at the same time both Payal and Arjun are hyper aware and proud of being part of that heritage. Does this cultural conflict resonate with your own life and writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Absolutely. Way too much ink has been spilled about the experience of growing up othered, less so about the depths of self-othering within communities of color. It\u2019s so fascinating how the South Asian immigrant communities also checked in their cultural baggage on those international flights, and modeled stratification in America as they reinvented themselves. I come from a relative place of privilege because of my complexion and gender and the religion of my parents, even though I was the only brown kid in my school. During cultural events, I was seen as weird by other Indian kids because I listened to Bad Religion and played drums and refused to wear Express track jackets. It wasn\u2019t until my last year of college when I joined a bhangra team and a South Asian acapella group and befriended Sikh and Muslim students, an experience that I heavily drew from for this novel. College is also when I first read novels from the Diaspora\u2122\ufe0f which is how my villain origin story began. Many of these mango and curry novels were really about whiteness, about translating an experience to make it palatable, and they instilled the fire in me to figure out what comes after, a project I share with so many talented South Asian novelists publishing right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeremy Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>There\u2019s a joke late in the book where you list all the ways Arjun is trying to help himself fall asleep, and \u201cliterary fiction\u201d is included. Your novel blends certain genre elements from romance and Bollywood, so is this whole genre vs. literary thing a tired and largely manufactured divide? How did you deliberately include genre elements and what do you think each side of the divide might learn from the other? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Ankur Thakkar<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The divide is so boring, isn\u2019t it? The evil site\u2019s classificatory robots think <em>Blow Yourself Up<\/em> is historical fiction, for reasons. Look, I think there\u2019s value in helping people discover what they like to read, and to suggest other titles that may deploy similar conventions or elements of craft. But we can\u2019t confuse the existence of a lane with the belief that there aren\u2019t other roads. Some of the most exciting writing right now deliberately blurs genre elements to create new paths altogether, which is the truest expression of what \u2018novel\u2019 means. To invoke our beloved Chicago once more, the only thing that matters is having something interesting to say, to tell a great story. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"762\" data-attachment-id=\"104805\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/09\/here-and-not-here-an-interview-with-ankur-thakkar-on-blow-yourself-up\/9798899480645-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?fit=600%2C914&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,914\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"9798899480645\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?fit=500%2C762&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1-500x762.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104805 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=500%2C762&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=197%2C300&ssl=1 197w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=98%2C150&ssl=1 98w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=370%2C564&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480645-1.webp?resize=32%2C48&ssl=1 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>FICTION<br><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480645\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480645\"><em>Blow Yourself Up<\/em><\/a><br>By Ankur Thakkar<br>TriQuarterly Books<br>Published September 15, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"62174\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/03\/30\/libertie-kaitlyn-greenidge\/chirblogoend-1-2-2\/\" 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data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title of Ankur Thakkar\u2019s debut novel comes from an advertisement for Boost, a fictional new app that\u2019s sort of a mashup of social media present and past. 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F. Kuang, college freshman Lily Chen travels to Taiwan for an intensive Mandarin program, hoping the trip will help her understand the culture she inherited as a heritage speaker. But the place she hoped she\u2019d feel an instant connection to doesn\u2019t feel like home. Quickly, her roommate Anna clocks that Lily is afraid of being seen for who she is: a foreigner breaking the unspoken rules of her host country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The coursework is demanding, the summers are punishingly hot. Her anxiety spikes during unrehearsed interactions or when she fumbles for new phrases. Whenever a cashier responds to her in English, she feels she has lost a small battle: she has failed the litmus test of really being from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her language skills are improving, but seemingly only enough for her to notice the gaps. Every new lesson only makes the distance more visible. Despite wanting to grow closer to her grandparents in Guangzhou, she avoids calling and misses out on applying for a visa to the mainland to visit while she\u2019s overseas. Once she gets better at Chinese, she can get to know them, she thinks, hoping to move past their childish, awkward, faltering video calls, where they talked of nothing real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But then her grandfather dies. He is no longer alive to answer her questions about their traumatic family history and migration to the States. And now that she is finally old enough to ask, her mother isn\u2019t particularly interested in telling her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Taipei Story<\/em> follows Lily\u2019s coming-of-age summer as she grapples with self-discovery and grief as the fantasy of homecoming breaks down. The novel is often sad and introspective, sometimes bemused by the systems that bring international students there\u2014from wannabe CIA agents doomsday-planning against Chinese dominance to language influencers and radical academics who can\u2019t read the foreign books they study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where <em>Taipei Story<\/em> shines is in her grief over her grandfather\u2019s death, but also in this sort of strange regret for how she could\u2019ve been\u2014a nostalgia for a life she never had. Much of her days are spent feeling trapped by her limited language skills and adrift in a new place she expected to feel familiar. Her estrangement felt evocative and realistic, like she were simply drowning in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crux of the book is interesting. Can learning your family\u2019s language actually bring you closer to home or resolve those questions of history or identity? And what will you do if it can\u2019t?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The book itself, however, is a bit boring. Not much truly happens. Chapter after chapter is consumed by the elusive process of learning a new language and the disorientation of culture shock, without unearthing new truths or upping the pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I worry this sounds as though I hate literary fiction and prefer the grim dark fantasy for which R.F. Kuang is known. That is categorically untrue. I fuck with books where, quote-unquote, nothing happens. I love a little Sally Rooney in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This novel is certainly a departure from the warmongering shamans and ivory-tower-educated magicians who defined five of Kuang\u2019s previous six novels. But beyond its compelling thesis, much of <em>Taipei Story<\/em> reads like a study-abroad diary. Pages upon pages of tofu puddings, boba drinks, soup dumplings, film festivals, and fine music concerts fill her temporary tourist life. Perhaps too many are devoted to the flashcards of words she has memorized and forgotten. After a while, it becomes repetitive and devoid of narrative, leaving Lily to wander from aesthetic cafes to bookmarked landmarks without much direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You get a sense of her family drama\u2014grandparents she meant to be closer to, rigid scholastic expectations, and a tumultuous older sister\u2014that created her need to succeed in school and keep her family stable. A falling-out with her roommate and a hot springs trip gone wrong leave her isolated from friends and drowning in her temporary home, and perhaps trapped away from character relationships that would\u2019ve made the novel more interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The novel is full of out-of-placeness, like the world is happening to Lily, but it often lacks tension. Occasionally, I wished she were brattier or more annoying\u2014anything that would let her act against it instead of meandering toward final exams. By the final page, I had built up no particular affection or contempt for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chapters after the midpoint, as Lily deals with the grief of her grandfather\u2019s death, are the ones I\u2019d return to if I were inclined, because they briefly give the novel the emotional pressure it otherwise withholds. At times, the book seems to speed away from its strongest conflict, especially given its slim 288 pages, only to retread older ones. I bought the book\u2019s central thesis, but it didn\u2019t move me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Toward the end, Lily takes Ted Chiang’s science-fiction novella <em>Story of Your Life<\/em>, where learning the language of visiting aliens can rewire people\u2019s brains to experience time completely differently, very seriously. She combs through linguistic research on how speaking different languages can alter our perceptions of the world but also our understanding of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In her final exams, she talks about being ashamed of her Chinese self for being too immature and inarticulate, and how she tried to keep it from embarrassing her, only for the gap between her two selves to grow wider. A chapter from her grandfather\u2019s perspective gives their estrangement a dual characteristic as he writes about feeling lost in America and knowing he could never settle down there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The separation between who she is and who she could\u2019ve been if she\u2019d grown up in her family\u2019s homeland is genuinely palpable and the guiding force of the novel, making it a good read for diaspora fiction enthusiasts learning how to connect with this concept of home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"755\" data-attachment-id=\"104812\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/08\/taipei-story-rf-kuang\/attachment\/9780063473768\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?fit=600%2C906&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,906\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}\" data-image-title=\"9780063473768\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?fit=500%2C755&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768-500x755.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104812 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?resize=500%2C755&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9780063473768.webp?resize=32%2C48&ssl=1 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>FICTION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780063473744\">Taipei Story<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By R.F. Kuang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>William Morrow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Published September 8, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"book_button\" data-affiliate-id=\"318\" data-sku=\"9780063473744\"><\/script>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68356 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our review of R.F. Kuang’s new book, “Taipei Story.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145527,"featured_media":104811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[309],"tags":[140569,711769343,110607,711766193,1747,4363,91586,711768265,711766236,1745,2200110],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-asian-american","tag-chinese-american","tag-coming-of-age","tag-diaspora","tag-fiction","tag-immigration","tag-literary-fiction","tag-popular-fiction","tag-r-f-kuang","tag-review","tag-william-morrow"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u201cTaipei Story\u201d Is a Homecoming Full of Contradictions - Chicago Review of Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/08\/taipei-story-rf-kuang\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cTaipei Story\u201d Is a Homecoming Full of Contradictions - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our review of R.F. 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I\u2019ve heard people say that writing prompts are a crutch or a distraction from the serious business of sitting down to write. It feels like writing prompts sometimes get equated with bad daily journals you\u2019ll find at a bargain bin, which are often vapid and stunted. \u201cWhat did you do last summer?\u201d A rote, shopworn set of questions and answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For me though, good writing prompts can often be a gateway. They can put the tire on the tracks rather than sitting at the table endlessly looking at maps and possibilities. They are also a bit like a meal: if you don\u2019t like it, don\u2019t cook or order it again. And there\u2019s always another one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So when I encountered 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXHw9huk6z9\/\">Guggenheim Fellow<\/a> Lucy Ives\u2019s book <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781938221378\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781938221378\">three six five: prompts, acts, divinations,<\/a> it was the weirdest and most wonderful set of writing prompts I\u2019ve ever encountered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI really wanted this to be something that would shelter people, engage them in a way that would help them be freer in thought and their writing,\u201d Lucy told me on the newest episode of <em>Book Stuff<\/em>. \u201cYou can use this book to write a lot, but it\u2019s also meant to be a space of absorption, like something that holds you in a certain way.\u201d Ives made this book as a form of literature, but also a practical fire starter for writing, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of these prompts are impossible: \u201cDescribe something you’ve completely forgotten.\u201d \u201cLocate a form of knowledge or practice that has either already been lost or about to be lost.\u201d Or challenging: \u201cWrite a thirty-page sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But mainly, these prompts, acts, and divinations are meant to encourage engagement with the reader\u2019s surrounding world. You\u2019ll find plenty of opportunities; these prompts are meant to strengthen relationships with people and places around you. As Ives writes in the introduction, the exercises in this book are meant for \u201crefamiliarizing yourself with your home and the broader ecosystem you inhabit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Examples of engagement with the world include keeping a record of vivid descriptions. Make a notebook out of recycled materials. Create a spider web of your family, or a fictional character\u2019s family. Pick up a random set of books from unfamiliar sections of the library and write about the experience. Or collaborate on a piece of writing with an animal. \u201cMicroscopic beings are welcome.\u201d You\u2019ll find a jungle gym of ideas and inspiration to write about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the conversation, we get into the abundance of human intuition, specific prompts in the book, and what it means to write about something forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enjoy this episode on the <a href=\"https:\/\/thebookstuffpodcast.libsyn.com\/?_gl=1*ome4tu*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3ODUzMzM3ODguQ2p3S0NBandwY1ROQmhBNUVpd0FkTzFTOXEwY2JUckFlakpQalhIYkJwcXlIMkNVdy1NalZ6X1pTUks5NFVDajVaTVBEaVZ0OW41ZXR4b0NaSU1RQXZEX0J3RQ\">Book Stuff website<\/a> and on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/book-stuff\/id1896920189\">Apple<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/033xj8816TdeeANnmSQm8U\">Spotify.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stay curious, keep reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe data-testid=\"embed-iframe\" style=\"border-radius:12px\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/7i31tUsxT13twzbz0lmwey?utm_source=generator&si=475d46c588d04de3\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" data-attachment-id=\"56947\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/17\/fortress-beseiged-qian-zhongshu\/chirblogoend\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/chirblogoend.png?fit=2000%2C2000&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"2000,2000\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/chirblogoend.png?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/chirblogoend.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56947 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I talk with writers, I\u2019ve noticed a dislike of using writing prompts. I\u2019ve heard people say that writing prompts are a crutch or a distraction from the serious business of sitting down to write. It feels like writing prompts sometimes get equated with bad daily journals you\u2019ll find at a bargain bin, which are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145717,"featured_media":104353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9548],"tags":[711769195,711769364,1142,711769362,711768461,711769363],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-book-stuff","tag-journaling","tag-podcast","tag-self-help","tag-writing-about-writing","tag-writing-prompts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Book Stuff: Lucy Ives on the power of the writing prompt - Chicago Review of Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/08\/book-stuff-lucy-ives-on-the-power-of-the-writing-prompt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book Stuff: Lucy Ives on the power of the writing prompt - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I talk with writers, I\u2019ve noticed a dislike of using writing prompts. I\u2019ve heard people say that writing prompts are a crutch or a distraction from the serious business of sitting down to write. 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Among them were several literary adaptations, which also range from excellent to\u2026not great. Here\u2019s a brief recap of a few literary adaptations that came out in August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But first, in case you missed it, my favorite adaptation of the month <em>Late Fame<\/em> was discussed <a href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/21\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" data-attachment-id=\"68342\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/testowl-6\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?fit=100%2C100&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"100,100\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"testowl\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?fit=100%2C100&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68342 lazyload\" style=\"object-fit:cover;width:50px;height:50px\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?w=100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/testowl.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Samurai and the Prisoner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kiyoshi Kurosawa\u2019s <em>The Samurai and the Prisoner<\/em> hit select theaters in early August. It\u2019s an adaptation of Honobu Yonezawa\u2019s 2021 novel <em>Kokurojo<\/em>. <em>The Samurai and the Prisoner<\/em> is Kurosawa\u2019s most ambitious project yet, featuring extensive set design, a larger cast of characters, and more dense source material than his backlog of suspenseful thrillers, which includes <em>Cure<\/em> (1997), <em>Serpent\u2019s Path<\/em> (1998), <em>Pulse<\/em> (2001), and <em>Cloud<\/em> (2024). The movie benefits from his experience in building intrigue and tension, as well as his clear admiration for samurai movies. Some scenes are so clearly an homage to the Kurosawa who came before him, they felt like a colorized version of the beloved black and white films from the 1950s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In what is clearly a modern production, Kurosawa builds a textured and complete world that maintains the feeling of a story set in the 1500s. As always, the sound is layered and stacked, bringing the story beyond the screen. You feel like you\u2019re in the room with them\u2014feeling the cold of the chains in a prison cell, shuffling your feet on dirt floors, dipping your pen in ink as you search for a killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kurosawa uses the almost three hour runtime and the four season framework to explore the samurai themes of karma and mercy, the tension between believing in advancing to paradise and retreating to hell. He pulls the audience into these themes and the central mystery slowly, with heavy dialogue. The first notes of music don\u2019t hit until deep into the first third of the movie, and even then the notes rise with restraint. The entire production is Shakespearean with its whispered words, its tragic characters, and its conflicted hero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This movie won\u2019t be for everyone, but it is not trying to be. This is for fans of Shakespeare, lovers of samurai and westerns. At its core, it\u2019s a saga that drags the films of old fully into the present. I loved every minute of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"flex-video widescreen youtube\" data-plyr-embed-id=\"dY5kXykdbLo\" data-plyr-provider=\"youtube\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1170\" height=\"659\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dY5kXykdbLo?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The End of Oak Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bear with me here. <em>The End of Oak Street<\/em> isn\u2019t actually a literary adaptation\u2014it\u2019s a wholly original story written, produced, and directed by David Robert Mitchell (<em>It Follows<\/em>) about a family in a suburban neighborhood that gets transported from the 80s to a time where dinosaurs roamed the earth. One of the leads, Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway in her fourth movie of the year) is an aspiring novelist who ultimately writes a book about the events of the movie. For the purposes of this list, we\u2019re counting this as a connection to literary adaptations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The End of Oak Street<\/em> is the perfect summer movie. It\u2019s just shy of 90 minutes with great effects, great action, and some decent laughs. Anne Hathaway delivers her best performance of the year as Denise, the aforementioned aspiring author who is unhappy in her marriage to Greg (Ewan McGregor, doing a terrible American accent) and wholly committed to saving her kids during the time-travel-dinosaur situation (to her detriment, really). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dialogue is second to the action, but that\u2019s okay, as the film is focused on big action, big sound, and big reactions. And it delivers on those fronts. In order to succeed, the film really just needed semi-beliavable performances, good effects, and enough interesting action to keep the story moving forward. The dinosaurs look great, the action is engrossing, and the cast lives up to the story. Of course, investment in the action is partially driven by the presence of a very good dog named Starbuck who is frequently in danger, pre-dinosaurs and once the dinosaurs show up, and the tension is aided by the simmering low levels of suburban discontent that are almost as unsettling and scary as the dinosaurs themselves. My only wish is that it had stuck the landing and accepted the consequences of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The End of Oak Street<\/em> is still in theaters and will likely be available on HBO later this fall. However, it\u2019s certainly worth a trip to the theaters to see this with a crowd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"flex-video widescreen youtube\" data-plyr-embed-id=\"3oB9AxspVow\" data-plyr-provider=\"youtube\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1170\" height=\"659\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3oB9AxspVow?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Dog Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other end of the spectrum is Ridley Scott\u2019s 30th feature film, <em>The Dog Stars<\/em>, which is not worth traveling to the theater for. <em>The Dog Stars<\/em> stars Jacob Elordi (<em>Frankenstein<\/em>), Josh Brolin (<em>No Country for Old Men<\/em>, <em>Weapons<\/em>, the upcoming <em>Whalefall<\/em>), Margaret Qualley (<em>The Substance<\/em>), and Guy Pearce (<em>Memento<\/em>, <em>The Brutalist<\/em>). The film is (loosely) based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Peter Heller. The book is a slow, meditative exploration of life in a post-apocalyptic world caused by the onset of a flu-like pandemic that ravages the world\u2019s population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The movie starts in the same vein. It opens on at least twenty full minutes of acoustic songs over sweeping aerial photography of beautiful Italian landscapes (meant to be rural Colorado) mixed with shots of Elordi\u2019s Hig and his faithful dog Jasper. The first third of the movie is almost exclusively Hig and his dog flying around northern Colorado, collecting supplies, re-visiting a site of grief, and contemplating escaping this life. The rules of this desolate existence are seemingly established in these shots. Hig\u2019s silent exploration is juxtaposed by the appearance of his survival partner (unclear how they got connected) Bangley (Brolin). Bangley is a grizzled ex-marine who is focused on eliminating threats, less nostalgic for the world that was lost. As Hig points out, he almost seems to thrive in the violence of the new world. Eventually, Hig connects with Cima (Qualley) and her father Pops (Pearce), which really just leads to more shots of Elordi ripping out trees and sipping coffee in the wilderness. If your movie is already ambling along and feeling dry, adding Margaret Qualley an hour into it isn\u2019t going to solve the problem. Adding Allison Jainey in a character role, on the other hand\u2026 that\u2019s when the movie picks up a little bit of speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I went into this movie thinking about adaptations and what makes them successful. I landed on two ways an adaptation of a book can succeed, (1) by making readers of the book feel satisfied in the interpretation of the story, and (2) by making moviegoers interested in reading the book after seeing the movie. There\u2019s a moment towards the end of <em>The Dog Stars<\/em> that had me especially interested in reading the book. After the movie, I learned that that portion of the story was completely fabricated for the movie with no real reason for doing so. The movie also adds some unnecessary racial implications regarding the tribes of the survivors that the main cast has to defend against. I don\u2019t know where that leaves this as an adaptation, but ultimately it left me feeling unsatisfied and unimpressed, despite the beautiful photography and, frankly inspired, use of Hozier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"flex-video widescreen youtube\" data-plyr-embed-id=\"-xSxaE1ClEE\" data-plyr-provider=\"youtube\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1170\" height=\"659\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-xSxaE1ClEE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" data-attachment-id=\"68356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/12\/22\/crime-reading-pays-in-thrills-and-chills\/chirblogoend-1-2-4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"200,200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}\" data-image-title=\"chirblogoend-1-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68356 lazyload\" style=\"object-fit:cover;width:100px;height:100px\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/chirblogoend-1-2.png?resize=48%2C48&ssl=1 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The August calendar was stacked with movie releases that ranged from excellent to less successful to outright terrible. Among them were several literary adaptations, which also range from excellent to\u2026not great. Here\u2019s a brief recap of a few literary adaptations that came out in August.  But first, in case you missed it, my favorite adaptation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145682,"featured_media":104794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9548,711768656],"tags":[524],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-film","tag-film"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An End-of-Summer Recap of Literary Adaptations - Chicago Review of Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/09\/06\/an-end-of-summer-recap-of-literary-adaptations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An End-of-Summer Recap of Literary Adaptations - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The August calendar was stacked with movie releases that ranged from excellent to less successful to outright terrible. Among them were several literary adaptations, which also range from excellent to\u2026not great. 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