[{"id":104433,"date":"2026-08-25T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104433"},"modified":"2026-08-25T17:24:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:24:00","slug":"interview-victor-ladis-schultz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/25\/interview-victor-ladis-schultz\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting “The Book of the Jaguar:” A Conversation with Victor Ladis Schultz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Ladis Schultz\u2019s first novel, The Book of the Jaguar<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, follows sole survivor and anti-hero, \u00c1lbaro Ceynos, as he and his nag, Rozi, trundle their way across a decaying, post-colonial empire, carrying with them the remains of his slain battalion. With each comrade\u2019s return, Schultz steadily reveals the details of the tragedy that preceded \u00c1lbaro\u2019s journey, and in doing so authors a fascinating epic about grief, loss, and survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine that this is a debut novel. The prose is sparkling: confident, lush, and tight as a fist. The book is written in a format that breaks the story into short, two-to-five-page chapters, each of them introducing a new character, a new story, and yet this feels not like flipping through a manifest but rather like transport to New Serra\u00f1a itself. Reading Jaguar<\/em> feels archaeological, a whole dusty, dirty, corrupting empire to look at, where we are shown the gamut, from the small, sacred funerary objects offered by each family to the entrenched prejudices that appear when city and country folk mix. This novel is also extremely funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schultz and I have been close friends since high school. He was my first and always most encouraging reader when I started writing fiction. I met up with him at a bar in Chicago\u2019s Rogers Park neighborhood last month to discuss the book. We did our best to avoid distraction from the baseball on the television and the loudening graduate students that eventually boxed us into a very small corner of the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This novel is composed of short chapters or vignettes, each of which ostensibly focus on a single character but ultimately reveal the much larger story of \u00c1lbaro’s life, the attack itself, and, in general, the decaying empire in which he lives. How did you approach or plan the plotting of the book? Did the plot completely precede the chapter structure?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a lot of notes on the through-line plot, which is the attack on the Presidio and its resolution. I did have that planned out first\u2014and some key chapters related to that\u2014but really the construction of the novel was a massive throwing-shit-against-the-wall, note-taking process. In some ways\u2014it\u2019s not a story cycle, it\u2019s very much a novel\u2014but in some ways it resembled putting together a short story collection, because my initial concept was that there would be a little narrative associated with each soldier whose body was brought home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just had pages and pages of potential chapter ideas, which could also be considered story ideas. That turned out to be impractical. Eventually I had to cut so many of them, and also, look, life\u2019s not that exciting, there\u2019s not going to be some dramatic story that happens every time \u00c1lbaro brings a body home. So I realized I needed more ruminative chapters and essayistic pieces in there. It was basically constructing a main skeleton of the plot, and then a bunch of little narratives, and seeing the ways I could make each little chapter add onto the skeleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you ever get to the point where you thought, \u201cOkay, in this chapter I need to push the plot forward, I need to reveal X?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, there was a lot of planning out of the facing of the main through-line plot. I need to remind readers of that main conflict, so I always made sure to return to that before too many chapters had passed. There was, in general, a lot of balancing of those more narratively propulsive chapters with the more ruminative and essayistic ones. I did a lot of work trying to balance the pace and tone around that so people don\u2019t get too bored or feel like things are getting too sensational. So yeah, that was something I spent a lot of time thinking about and planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizing the book the way you did had an effect I really loved: it elevated the minutiae of \u00c1lbaro\u2019s and his fellow soldiers\u2019 worlds into something perhaps more meaningful than if they were included in a more traditional narrative. Things that might get buried in a traditional long-chapter novel really popped in this one. There are capital-B big themes in the book, but I thought so many of the fragments and minor moments were poignant and memorable. With all the chapter stops, there are opportunities for words to hang in the air. Did you feel that as you were writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a practical standpoint, there are a lot of drawbacks and a lot of positives with this scheme of a lot of small chapters, and so many of them being so self-contained. So, yeah, it was very much a thing where, as I was writing, it helped me feel more of the texture of the world, to be able to concentrate on those little things. I don\u2019t want to say \u201cOh, this chapter is going to be about the trim on the house\u201d or \u201cIn this chapter we\u2019re going to make sure to include this little detail,\u201d but \u00c1lbaro is such an itinerant narrator and he goes to so many different strata of society and locations over the course of the book, it really gave me a chance to touch on many granular things. And yeah, I did like that about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, there was one chapter where \u00c1lbaro thinks he might die. He ends up not dying, but he ends the chapter by saying, \u201cMost of all [my tears] were for tragedy averted: never would I have wanted my last word to be<\/strong> mami<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d I thought that was awesome. Obviously it builds the character, but also something that maybe gets lost in a more traditional story.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I appreciate that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scope of the book is quite large: bureaucracy and the state, tradition, ritual, decay, entropy, masculinity and manliness, mortality, theology, I can keep going. Obviously you can\u2019t control how people read your work. But if you could somehow force it, are there any themes or concepts that you wish readers would consider?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do I want readers to take from it, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer can be \u201cno.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(pause)<\/em> Generally, no, but I\u2019ll say that I myself, as just a reader now\u2014the book is out there, so I\u2019ve relinquished it to other readers, and now I\u2019m just another reader like them\u2014maybe I have a little more insight into the process, but some themes that I think of as being a little more salient: obviously colonialism is a big one. But it\u2019s not really a critique of colonialism. I mean what\u2019s a critique of colonialism? Colonialism is bad? (laughs)<\/em> So it\u2019s not even a critique of it, it\u2019s an attempt to portray life as we live it. I was attracted to the idea of telling stories in that setting, and whatever the ramifications of that are, I don\u2019t know, but I think it\u2019s an important part of the story to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grief, survivor\u2019s guilt, faith, camaraderie, those are other themes that were front of mind when I was writing it. But I would never tell anyone how to read it, and people don\u2019t need to concentrate on those things, and they should take what they want from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a lot of incompleteness in this novel. \u00c1lbaro doesn\u2019t know a soldier\u2019s last words. A priest doesn\u2019t remember the man for whom he\u2019s delivering a homily. A beloved comrade is revealed to be a domestic abuser. And there are lies throughout\u2014\u00c1lbaro is constantly lying, mostly in service of his own personal ethical code, but still he\u2019s lying. We as readers see the whole story, but the characters inside the novel get a very incomplete or inaccurate view of things\u2014a lot of truth, yes, but also a lot is hidden from them. Was that something you were conscious of, or was it just the nature of \u00c1lbaro\u2019s job, what he was doing, the world he lived in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incompleteness and lies\/falsehoods weren\u2019t overarching themes I was addressing directly. It probably comes, in small part, from the way I see the world: incomplete understandings, necessary small lies sometimes becoming big unnecessary ones. But also, when you\u2019re talking about something as complex as a story covering so many people, each suffering a terrible tragedy, the pieces are not going to all connect. It\u2019s impossible. I don\u2019t see how it could. The world to me isn\u2019t balanced that way\u2014it certainly isn\u2019t to \u00c1lbaro\u2014and I guess that came out on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you ever get to the point where you were like, \u201cHow do I describe somebody\u2019s grief again?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(laughs)<\/em> Yeah, that might be the reason that occasionally I had somebody happy that the person had died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This novel is set in a world that strongly recalls colonial Mexico. The blurb on the advanced reader copy calls the story \u201cLatinx weird fiction,\u201d and you, of course, are half Mexican. Do you think labels like \u201cLatinx weird fiction\u201d work better as marketing terms to help potential readers understand what kind of book they\u2019re holding, or do you think it\u2019s an important way to describe this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That particular quote was about my earlier short fiction, talking about my work more generally. I would not categorize most of this novel as weird fiction. (pauses)<\/em> I am a Latino, so that label applies. But is it just a marketing term?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me interrupt real quick: I don\u2019t mean to ask \u201cIs it a marketing term?\u201d I mean to ask is its value in helping to describe<\/strong> what<\/em><\/strong> the book is to someone reading the jacket, or is there a deeper meaning to a phrase like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s some of my work that it certainly describes. I think there are parts of this novel it can apply to as well. I do think it has some value, whether as a marketing term or just a general descriptor, because in speculative fiction there\u2019s been, for a number of years, what\u2019s called the OwnVoices movement, which is the idea that if you write fiction from a certain perspective (usually marginalized), it\u2019s better for that fiction to come from somebody who has that background. So it is useful for readers to know, if that\u2019s important to them, that this is an \u201cOwnVoices\u201d novel or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I would say that maybe its value is somewhat limited, but I think it does have value for some readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sticking to the label theme, like it or not, we do need some shorthand to categorize books, if for no other reason than to sell them. I\u2019m not sure how this one will be categorized, but it\u2019ll probably be \u201cliterary fantasy\u201d or something similar. As you know, I don\u2019t really read fantasy. But I loved this book. I did find it \u201cfantastical,\u201d and enjoyed that element, but I never really felt like I was reading a fantasy novel<\/strong> per se<\/em><\/strong>. So my question is: do I just not understand the fantasy genre, or have you written something other than that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all due respect, I think you don\u2019t fully understand the fantasy genre. But also a lot of people don\u2019t understand the fantasy genre. There\u2019s a rich tradition of, for lack of a better term, \u201cliterary fantasy,\u201d or really well-done, full-throated, full-blooded fantasy that really engages with its own fantasticalness and genre tropes, and is also written in a register that\u2019s equal to much of the best \u201cliterary fiction\u201d or classics. There are great writers and poets who have worked in fantasy, and science fiction too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(interrupting)<\/em><\/strong> I don\u2019t mean to demean or degrade fantasy, as if it can\u2019t be literary. I know that it is. I\u2019m sure the fantasy community deals with condescension from the literary world all the time. But for me\u2014and again I don\u2019t know if I totally understand fantasy\u2014it\u2019s not magic realism or something like that, but there are similar elements. To me it just felt like a very realistic, relatable story that happened to be set in a world that\u2019s partly invented. Like when I read Richard Ford\u2019s Frank Bascombe novels, it\u2019s New Jersey, but he\u2019s inventing city names too. It doesn\u2019t seem to hew too far from that.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was joking a little saying you don\u2019t understand fantasy. What we\u2019re really talking about is a minority tradition within fantasy. Most of fantasy, like all genres (including to some extent literary fiction if we think of it just as a market category), is dominated by the popcorn stuff that soaks up most of the attention, while the more artistically ambitious work (I\u2019m not saying mine is there but I try to write at a high level, and whether or not I succeed isn\u2019t up to me) lives on the margins. It\u2019s the exception to get to become Cormac McCarthy doing Westerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I am reading a fantasy novel when I read<\/strong> The Book of The Jaguar<\/em><\/strong>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really enjoyed the cadence of your sentences, the syntax, the rhythms. They were maybe my favorite element of the whole book. How much did you think about your sentences and how they read and sound as you were writing and editing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think of myself as a sentence fetishist, but I guess I probably am. I\u2019m a copy editor by trade, I\u2019ve been an editor my whole adult life, and as a writer, yeah, I want to write stuff that I, as an editor, wouldn\u2019t be embarrassed to read. So I do think about that stuff a lot, though I tend to think of the paragraph as the primary unit in my writing. But I do love sentences, I love language play, so yes, I put a lot of thought into them. Did I answer your question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, you did. I wanted to know if you think about how your sentences read and sound.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I do a lot. I read quite a bit of my work out loud. Not always, but probably most of this novel I’ve read aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do you read it aloud?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever I\u2019m writing, my bedroom, my study. Only me and my dog hear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the many virtues of this book, I think it\u2019s super funny. Was it important to you that this book could be funny?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are eighty-some chapters in the book, and every one of them could easily be funereal. A dead body is returned every chapter. It\u2019s a potentially very dreary, gloomy setup. So I think it was probably a conscious choice to bring in some levity, otherwise, even if people give the book a chance, they\u2019ll want to check out by around chapter thirty. But also, you and I have known each other a long time: I\u2019m an easy laugh, I like to make people laugh, and probably some of that personality just soaks onto the page a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting because, yeah, I know you and your sense of humor, so there are times when I know the jokes are Victor jokes, and they\u2019re mostly funny. But there are also times where the joke comes from the contrast between really stately, beautiful language and a fart or something crude.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that is that it\u2019s a story about soldiers, and soldiers are complicated people with many aspects, but one thing they often are is crude. So there\u2019s a lot of language and low humor, but I like both high and low humor, so I guess mixing them appeals to me aesthetically, whether in humor or elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was it hard to write this novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, it was hard as fuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One assumes.<\/strong> (laughs)<\/em><\/strong>  But you do hear stories where authors are like \u201cThis one just came to me so easily.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of all the elements in this book, and having to, in some ways, write a new story for each chapter\u2014the reason short story collections are unpopular is that even though a novel might be three or four hundred pages, once a reader has gotten themselves into that world-speed and are in that world, they have momentum\u2014but with all these little narratives in each chapter, in some ways I\u2019m asking people to restart again with each one. That\u2019s really hard to sustain, to hold a reader\u2019s attention. I worked hard and hopefully succeeded well enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My work in progress is much more the sort of thing that might just flow out of you. Nothing ever comes easy for me, but comparatively there\u2019s much less scheming and planning, fewer angles, less to balance. There were just so many elements in this novel that it was very difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do know that if I ask Victor Schultz if the work was hard, the answer, of course, is going to be \u201cyes.\u201d I can\u2019t imagine you ever having an easy time writing a novel, just because of the way you approach it, but you never know.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, I find writing to be hard. I think I\u2019m pretty good at it, but it would feel very strange for me if even just a short story came easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But has it gotten harder as you\u2019ve gotten older?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, I don\u2019t think so. I\u2019m still learning novels in a way I feel I\u2019ve already internalized with short fiction. But in general, it\u2019s not that it gets harder. You learn lessons and strategies to deal with some of the problems when you spend as many hours as I have doing this. But it\u2019ll never be easy. The greatest writer in the world isn\u2019t perfect, and any good writer is striving for perfection, so it always feels hard. I\u2019m a slow writer because I\u2019m a perfectionist and I\u2019m not a naturally good writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it\u2019s easier than other times, but it\u2019s always hard.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were younger, we used to drink a lot of beer and smoke cigarettes and talk about writing and go through hypotheticals about what it would mean to find \u201csuccess\u201d in this world. It\u2019s a little hazy now, but I remember even in our twenties we were aware that we were working in a form where you could find first success at a much older age than most industries. Whatever happens with this novel, I feel like you\u2019ve arrived at the place we always talked about getting to. How does that feel? Have the goalposts moved at all as you\u2019ve aged? Are you able to accept and enjoy what you\u2019ve achieved?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having the book be a thing feels great. I\u2019m really excited to share it with readers. That\u2019s the main thing. As far as career stuff, honestly, the goalposts have probably moved, and I think they\u2019ll continue to move. I\u2019m ambitious as a writer and I don\u2019t just mean career success with publishing, I mean artistically. So yeah, if the goalposts aren\u2019t moving, how do you write another good book? You have to be hungry for a new project that excites you, and hopefully get within spitting distance of succeeding at that project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you allowing yourself to recognize you\u2019re at a place we talked about for years? Especially with you, it always felt inevitable, but I couldn\u2019t quite see how it would happen. But it always felt like this was going to happen, and now it is happening in some way. Who knows where you end up, but I feel like you should allow yourself to enjoy that.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know, maybe toward the end of the year I\u2019ll take a breath and do something like that. Honestly, when we were younger we talked about that stuff, and we still do in other ways, but we\u2019re middle-aged now, and we know a lot of people who are just relieved to be alive. So things like publishing success matter but I haven\u2019t enjoyed the public-facing part of putting out a book nearly as much as I enjoy writing, so I\u2019ll say I\u2019m focused on the creative goals more than the career goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Honkala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think if you wrote this novel and never got published, no one asked you any questions about it, no one read it\u2014maybe a few friends read it\u2014and then you moved on to the next one, would that be as satisfying as this arc?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ladis Schultz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. I\u2019ve always understood that it\u2019s great to be a good writer and write just for yourself, and by and large I do. But a writer of a certain caliber does themselves and the world a disservice by not doing the annoying publishing part of it. The publishing stuff feels good initially, but writers are private people. That\u2019s why it turns out I don\u2019t really love the public-facing part of putting out a book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoy that people get to read the book, that\u2019s the way I like to share it with the world. This is fun, and you\u2019re my friend, but a lot of the promotional part of publishing is not. It\u2019s something I look at as serving the work, but I don\u2019t enjoy it as much as the primary work, not even close. I\u2019m pleased that some people have seen my creative work as worth sharing with the world that way, but publishing the book has given me perspective on just how much I treasure the writing part of it versus the publishing part. But yes, I\u2019m glad I published it. It\u2019s a duty, I think, for a certain kind of writer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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FICTION<\/strong>
The Book of the Jaguar<\/a><\/em><\/strong>
By Victor Ladis Schultz<\/strong>
Fairwood Press<\/strong>
Published August 25, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Victor Ladis Schultz\u2019s first novel, The Book of the Jaguar, follows sole survivor and anti-hero, \u00c1lbaro Ceynos, as he and his nag, Rozi, trundle their way across a decaying, post-colonial empire, carrying with them the remains of his slain battalion. With each comrade\u2019s return, Schultz steadily reveals the details of the tragedy that preceded \u00c1lbaro\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145731,"featured_media":104564,"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":[711768862,1747,11788,711768951,711768952],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-fairwood-press","tag-fiction","tag-interview","tag-the-book-of-the-jaguar","tag-victor-ladis-schultz"],"yoast_head":"\nCrafting "The Book of the Jaguar:" A Conversation with Victor Ladis Schultz - 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A prolific writer, Danticat published her adult fiction debut at 25 and has since published  six more novels, as well as short story collections, several works of nonfiction, young adult novels, and children\u2019s books. Her writing is evocative and centers Haitians and Haitian Americans. She is constantly probing readers to think about universal themes of displacement, history, the meaning of home, immigration, inherited trauma, mother daughter relationships, and so much more. She is an expert at weaving history into her novels and demonstrating the ways politics (and politicians) affects the daily life of her memorable characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her latest novel, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780593803523\">D\u00e8y<\/a>,<\/em> continues many of these themes, but it is also a bit different. Set in 2018 and primarily in Miami it follows Magnolia, who is struggling with many kinds of grief. She survives a mass shooting at a shopping mall and she has separated from her long time partner. She is also balancing concern over her aging parents who returned to Haiti and live under the constant threat of a different kind of gun violence as gangs increasingly take over cities and villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I embarked upon a Year of Danticat during the early Covid years with several other Instagram pals and now aspire to be a Danticat completionist. It was an absolute pleasure to chat with her over the phone about <em>D\u00e8y.<\/em> The conversation ranged from the similarities she sees within her novels to the many kinds of mourning,\u00a0 gentrification in Miami and her love of Chicago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/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=\"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=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Your debut, <em>Breath, Eyes, Memory<\/em>, centered on a complex mother-daughter relationship and that\u2019s remained a theme throughout most of your adult novels. What is it that draws you to exploring this kind of complicated relationship and what drew you to complicating it further in this novel by making Magnolia both a mother and someone whose mother has a chronic illness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two of my first memories of my mother was her taking me to a kind of kindergarten when I was three. And then her leaving Haiti when I was four. For eight years, from four to twelve, I was not with my mother. My parents were undocumented in the U.S. so they couldn\u2019t travel back and forth between Haiti and the U.S. They came back to Haiti when I was seven to fix their status. Then I didn\u2019t see them again until I was twelve because it took a while for us to be approved to join them. All this to say that as a young woman growing up without my mother, I became obsessed with mothers and  motherhood and the complicated choices mothers must sometimes make and how these choices might affect them and their children. I\u2019m very interested in fallible mothers, mothers who are doing the best they can, mothers who have to do so much besides mothering and working while also taking care of their parents and other family members, mothers who are in the gap, if you will, the \u201csandwich generation\u201d mothers who are raising small children and doing elder care at the same time, some within the complicating factors of  immigration and separation. In <em>D\u00e8y<\/em>, Magnolia and her mother are dealing with all  these issues and much more, like so many mothers out there, but they also benefit, thankfully, from community and surrogate mothers, those aunties and godmothers who fill in the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I really appreciate that you named surrogate mothers as well. In some ways<\/strong> <strong><em>D\u00e8y<\/em><\/strong> <strong>reminded me of Tayari Jones\u2019s recent novel,<\/strong> <strong><em>Kin.<\/em><\/strong> <strong>I think you both write about surrogate motherhood beautifully. I really love that you have this village approach to how you write about motherhood.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the things that I loved so much about <em>Kin<\/em> and also about Toni Morrison\u2019s <em>The Bluest Eye<\/em>\u2013and so much of Morrison\u2019s work really\u2013is how the idea of  \u201cbeing outside\u201d is rejected by the community. No matter what\u2019s happened to you or what you might have done, there\u2019s a community that\u2019s there for you, a community that won\u2019t allow you to be  left outside. The people who take you in may not be perfect but you know you have some place to go. I remember when I was a girl and one of my older cousins who was a widow died.  Right after the funeral there was a family meeting about where her children would go.  People were more open to taking in her daughters and I remember some elder in the family saying multiple times, “Who’s going to take the boys?\u201d Eventually the boys ended up with a family member. I think most kin-minded people don\u2019t see it as a choice. They know they have to step up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>This novel felt modern, in a good way, with songs (Rihanna\u2019s SOS a few times) and clothing brand references. Similarly you name drop real places in Little Haiti. It definitely gave an idea of who Magnolia was, or at least the armor she\u2019s putting on with her clothes but it felt like a departure a bit. What made you want to include those elements this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I agree that it is a departure, something a bit more contemporary than I\u2019ve done in the past, even though some of the stories in <em>Everything Inside<\/em> were also more recent. I wanted this book to be part of a journey that began since <em>Breath, Eyes, Memory<\/em>, actually even further back with one of my children\u2019s books called <em>Anacaona: Golden Flower<\/em>, which was written long after <em>Breath, Eyes, Memory<\/em> but takes us back before 1492 to the Tainos and Arawaks and one of their fierce leaders, Anacoana, to writing about Magnolia who\u2019s named after a rare plant, a magnolia emerginata that has not been seen in Haiti for 100 years. That\u2019s kind of the journey I feel I\u2019m on, if that makes sense, with all of the other women I\u2019ve written about in between. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If I\u2019m telling a very long story about my lineage, my ancestors, the country of my birth to my daughters for example, this is the story I might tell them with the different books I\u2019ve written so far as individual chapters. I feel like this story would start with Anacaona and go through the women leaders and resisters in the Haitian revolution and beyond, go through the migration stories starting with <em>Breath, Eyes, Memor<\/em>y and Magnolia\u2019s. And who knows what might come after? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I was writing Magnolia, I kept thinking what Martine and Sophie from <em>Breath, Eyes, Memory<\/em> and the women in Krik? Krak! would think of her. There\u2019s a whole new generation emerging in my family\u2013my daughters, my nieces and nephews, whose lives are so different from how I grew up with my parents in Brooklyn and how my parents grew up, yet they share blood and lineage and come together for weddings and funerals and share common family stories. I really wanted to write about them as an older person might see them. Magnolia in a way represents that generation and you see them in the family gatherings organized by her partner\u2019s mother, Madame. I wanted to acknowledge how this family has changed, how they’ve gained a lot but have lost plenty. I\u2019ve always wanted to capture that, focus on it closely in a novel and thankfully this story has allowed me to do that. As for the real places in Miami,  I lived in Miami for over 20 years. It\u2019s an incredible city that\u2019s given my family and I so much. My daughters were born and grew up there. As we were moving back to New York, I wanted to honor all these places and people that we had seen change so much over the years and that were so very important to me and my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Our main character Magnolia is referred to in different ways, her mother tells her she was named after the magnolia tree. But she is also called \u201cMa\u201d as in mother and then later on we learn Ma has a double meaning, in Krey\u00f2l it means \u201cthe rest\u201d or \u201cwhat\u2019s left\u201d (101 in<\/strong> <strong><em>We\u2019re Alone)<\/em><\/strong> <strong>which really struck me since she is a mother and one of many survivors of a mass shooting. Was that intentional, did you start or with her name? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until you said that I hadn\u2019t thought about the Ma as what\u2019s left or the rest for Magnolia. I knew I wanted the character to be named Magnolia because I wanted to bring in the 2022 discovery, after 100 years, of the magnolia emarginata by the Haiti National Trust in the mountains of northern Haiti. For people who want to keep following up on that I recommend following, on Instagram,  Anne-Isabelle Bonifassi (@nisaexplorer) who is now the Executive Director of the trust. This past summer she was in search of another magnolia. I became obsessed with this very unique magnolia, the <em>emarginata<\/em>. I went down every rabbit hole about magnolias and I knew I wanted my character to be named that. In a lot of Haitian families, you\u2019re going to have a nickname and so her nickname is Ma. Nicknames often indicate a certain level of intimacy and how people know you. You know you\u2019re in trouble when your parents start saying your government name, right? So I really wanted her name to be tied with the different ways in which she\u2019s seen and loved by the people in her family. It so happens that there are so many mother-linked names in the book, including the armed group that eventually drives her parents out of their homes in Haiti who in the book we call the  \u201cSan Maman\u201d or Motherless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I loved seeing<\/strong> <strong><em>wozo<\/em><\/strong> <strong>pop up on the page again. I remember it as an essay topic in<\/strong> <strong><em>We\u2019re Alone<\/em><\/strong><strong>. Was that intentional or did the character of Victor pull that out of you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indeed, wozo pops up a lot\u2013and maybe I\u2019ll give it a rest soon\u2013 but it does because it\u2019s such a legendary plant in Haitian folklore in nature but also in songs and stories, a plant that can grow against all odds. Magnolia in addition to being named after a plant is a kind of reluctant gardener and her father is an agronomist so there are a lot of people in this book who, like me, are intrigued by plants. Magnolia\u2019s family, both in Haiti and Miami try to recreate a kind of Eden for themselves by gardening. In the essay in <em>We\u2019re Alone<\/em> that addresses mass shootings\u2013<em>D\u00e8y<\/em> opens with a mass shooting\u2013I announce the novel a little bit. I really wanted to, as math teachers used to say \u201cshow my work\u201d, show how this novel came to me and everything that’s built up to it, not just with this actual incident but also with different things that I\u2019d been thinking about that I  now I have a place to put this in this novel, including the caves. In 2020 I wrote a short story whose central image was caves. I used some of that story. The professor\u2019s reflections on home in the novel is something I wrote some years ago after traveling to the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic at a time when Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were denaturalized in large numbers. I really wanted all these threads to find a home in this novel including things I have tried to work through in nonfiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <strong>Going to the caves\u2026this was very new to me, I\u2019ve never been in one. This was a motif that came up repeatedly. I want to avoid spoilers but I really loved learning about what caves symbolized and that many were named. What drew you to caves initially and have you visited any in Haiti or elsewhere? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have visited some tourist caves in Curacao and Barbados. There’s also a cave, we call them grottes, near my mother-in-law\u2019s house in the south of Haiti. One of the things that always fascinated me about them, in Haiti, is that there are often candles and other religious items left at the openings. And also food and beer cans because young people might hang out in the upper layers for example. I was often told that maroons used those caves to escape from plantations, to plan revolts or travel to different parts of a province or that even Cacos who were resisting the US occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934 used them as well. The cave mentioned in the book, the grotte Marie Jeanne, is the largest one in Haiti and has so many layers, one of which looks like a cathedral. I also fell in love with caves, these natural structures that have existed for millions of years and that in their own way tell the story of not just people but of the entire earth. There are some spectacular caves in Haiti that are deeply embedded in the stories told in one of the character\u2019s, Harrison’s, family and that is the primary way that he remembers his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>That\u2019s so beautiful and I will never look at caves the same! I thought of them as scary entities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They\u2019re pretty amazing. I will never be among those who go deep inside a cave. I have enough fears, but I\u2019m endlessly fascinated by them. One of the beauties of researching characters’ interests is that in trying to understand their passions you might acquire some of them as your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>This is my own bias but I didn\u2019t think I would enjoy reading a novel about a realtor but of course you completely changed my mind. And specifically it was very creative how you used this profession as a way to talk about climate change and gentrification in Miami. Could you talk a little bit more about this, were you writing from what you saw or talking to those still there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the two decades plus that  I lived in Miami, from 2002 to 2023, it changed a lot. We were living in Little Haiti which has seen a lot of gentrification in part because neighborhoods like Little Haiti, Overtown, and Liberty City have a higher elevation and with extreme weather and with climate change those places started to attract folks with more money. Historically Black and Brown communities were gentrifying very quickly. A trailer park not far from us was brought by a developer pushing out a lot of people. Some of our neighbors who\u2019d been living there for decades had their children convince them to sell their homes to move into condos. Magnolia being a realtor allowed me to not just talk about some of what I had seen in Miami but to also travel a bit across different neighborhoods through her eyes. I also realized that maybe I long to write about a place more after I’ve either left or about to leave it. I finished the first draft of this book right before I moved back to New York from Miami.This is a very Miami book. Magnolia is able to move all over the city and show it to us both as a resident and  a realtor, someone who really knows the city very well. Also I really loved her approach to being a realtor. She thinks of homes as stories. At the same time she\u2019s a business person and lives with that tension of doing her job while also realizing that she\u2019s contributing to a specific kind of turnover in her community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I used to work for a gun violence nonprofit so as someone who used to work in gun safety advocacy I really appreciated that you covered what it\u2019s like for someone to survive this kind of situation and that you named true solutions to ending gun violence in the U.S. How did you find the right balance between naturally including that information and not being didactic? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That must have been painful and difficult work. I was living in Miami during the Parkland school shootings, which is also discussed in the novel. I went with my children to those March for your Lives rallies. I thought that  realistically there was no way that Magnolia could be going to vigils and watching discussions about gun violence on television and not have people talking about all aspects of it. I didn\u2019t want to be didactic but I wanted to include that part of the conversation in the same way \u2018Run hide fight\u2019 and those active shooter drills and  protocols are part of the story and in some ways  part of daily life. At the same time Haitians living in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas are now daily affected by gun violence. Armed groups are  taking over these neighborhoods and massacring people and destroying  institutions. It’s a constant conversation for us Haitians in Haiti and Haitians in the diaspora about the source of these guns. How did they get to Haiti? How does the ammunition get there?  Who\u2019s supplying these weapons? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I can\u2019t imagine the fear or trauma that lives in your body knowing that your family faces this constant threat of violence. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a lot of Haitian families it\u2019s a daily occurrence. That\u2019s the duality that so many of us live with us, including this character Magnolia. And when you talk about that sense of the book being modern I think that\u2019s also part of that. The book is not set in the present. It\u2019s set in 2018 rather than 2026 but close enough to the present of us experiencing those issues simultaneously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I was really struck by the care you took to describe the funerals of each person killed in the mass shooting. It was a beautiful way to show communal and individual grief. That\u2019s not really a question but! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think because you\u2019ve done this work you may understand it at a different level than other people because like Magnolia these folks have become members of communities that they\u2019re extremely reluctant to join. Whether it\u2019s motherless daughters, sudden orphans, adult orphans or survivors of this kind of event as Magnolia is. At the same time Magnolia doesn\u2019t want to fully claim the experience but  she also feels that she owes the folks she\u2019s been through this experience with her witness. Like the Robinsons, the couple whose restaurant she was in during  the shooting, she feels like she was at the end of these people\u2019s lives and it\u2019s important  to be part of their communal mourning. Even the larger community joins in with the bereavement murals, for example. I saw these types of murals during covid. It’s a very vivid way of a community\u2019s mourning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Most of your work takes place in Haiti, Brooklyn, or Miami, but you\u2019ve visited Chicago several times. I recently read that Chicago has around forty-thousand Haitians. Do you ever see yourself exploring the Haitian diaspora in other places? Or do you prefer to stick to the places you know intimately or as you said earlier places that you\u2019ve left?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love Chicago! You know if you had a dime for every time a Haitian brought up Jean Baptiste du Sable, a man of Haitian descent, being one of the first non indigenous folks who settled there\u2013we love to cite that. There\u2019s a Haitian American Museum in Chicago that I have visited a lot. A couple of years ago I was in residence at DePaul University and got to meet so many members of the community. However, I don\u2019t think I would be able to do Chicago justice on the page yet. I\u2019d have to spend much more time there. The wonderful thing is that we now have a growing group of Haitian American writers and artists. Not just Haitian Americans, but a growing diaspora of  writers of Haitian descent who will end up in these cities and who will be writing their stories, who are writing them now.. There\u2019s a big group coming after, la rel\u00e8ve as we like to say, that will do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Overall when you decided to name the novel<\/strong> <strong><em>D\u00e8y<\/em><\/strong> <strong>(mourning) what was the guiding question behind it? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t know if I necessarily had a guiding question but in addition to telling a really good story, I was trying to explore the precarity of life, particularly the precarity of Black life, Haitian life. And once again the idea of home, what home is when you\u2019re not wanted in so many places. How do you make a home for yourself? And within yourself? How do you find your community? It\u2019s a powerful moment of maturity in one\u2019s life when you realize that you don\u2019t have to survive alone. And Magnolia thankfully comes to that conclusion. I have all these people with me, living and dead. I\u2019m part of a lineage, a flow. I have this community around me, they\u2019re not all going to love me but they\u2019re still there. I think that\u2019s part of a journey that\u2019s still happening for me in my 50s but maybe those were some of the questions that you\u2019re making me realize I might have been trying to explore through Magnolia. How do you live with uncertainty, precarity? How do you still find joy? How do you still accept and acknowledge that there\u2019s love in your life even when you feel you don\u2019t deserve it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ariana Valderrama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>August is Women in Translation month so I have to ask as we close do you have any favorites you recommend?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edwidge Danticat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everything translated  by <a href=\"https:\/\/blackstudies.yale.edu\/people\/kaiama-l-glover\">Kaiama Glover<\/a>, who is a Black Studies scholar at Yale and has translated many Haitian novels. I wrote an introduction to one by the great Rene Depestre who is turning 100 this year, a novel called <em>Hadriana and All My Dreams<\/em> that was translated by Kaiama. She also translated an iconic Haitian novelist, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, her novel set in the late eighteenth century before the Haitian revolution  <em>Dancing on the Volcano.<\/em>. Vieux-Chauvet\u2019s most famous triptych of novels,<em> Love, Anger, Madness<\/em> has been translated by Rose-Myriam Rejouis. Nathan Dize, a professor at Washington University has also translated Haitian women novelists, including a great novel, <em>I Am Alive<\/em> by the Haitian novelist  Kettly Mars.<\/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=\"104577\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/25\/how-to-make-a-home-a-conversation-with-edwidge-danticat\/dey\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?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=\"dey\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?fit=500%2C756&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey-500x756.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104577 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?resize=500%2C756&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?resize=198%2C300&ssl=1 198w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dey.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><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781668049310\"><em><\/em><\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780593803523\">D\u00e8y<\/a><\/em><\/em><br>By Edwidge Danticat<br>Knopf<br>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=\"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>\n\n\n<script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"book_button\" data-affiliate-id=\"318\" data-sku=\"9780593803523\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edwidge Danticat is legendary for many readers, including myself. A prolific writer, Danticat published her adult fiction debut at 25 and has since published  six more novels, as well as short story collections, several works of nonfiction, young adult novels, and children\u2019s books. Her writing is evocative and centers Haitians and Haitian Americans. She is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145598,"featured_media":104580,"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":[1723632,1747,711765986,892858],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-edwidge-danticat","tag-fiction","tag-interviews","tag-knopf"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Make a Home: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat - 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\/08\/25\/how-to-make-a-home-a-conversation-with-edwidge-danticat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Make a Home: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Edwidge Danticat is legendary for many readers, including myself. A prolific writer, Danticat published her adult fiction debut at 25 and has since published  six more novels, as well as short story collections, several works of nonfiction, young adult novels, and children\u2019s books. Her writing is evocative and centers Haitians and Haitian Americans. 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A prolific writer, Danticat published her adult fiction debut at 25 and has since published  six more novels, as well as short story collections, several works of nonfiction, young adult novels, and children\u2019s books. Her writing is evocative and centers Haitians and Haitian Americans. 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She reads most genres but gravitates towards essays, cultural criticism, fiction (including short stories), history, and sociology (feminism, Black history and leftist politics). Her favorite book set in Chicago is Maud Martha.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/AriValde"],"url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/author\/avalderrama0812\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75tvT-r9X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/EdwidgeDanticat_1920x675.jpg?fit=1920%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104405","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\/199145598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104405"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104632,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104405\/revisions\/104632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104405"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=104405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":104501,"date":"2026-08-24T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104501"},"modified":"2026-08-22T09:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T14:44:12","slug":"americans-are-afraid-of-americans-too-a-review-of-dawn-turners-majestic-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/24\/americans-are-afraid-of-americans-too-a-review-of-dawn-turners-majestic-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Are Afraid of Americans Too:\u00a0a review of Dawn Turner’s \u201cMajestic Hills\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like a modern soap opera informed by race, class, patriotism, and privilege, Dawn Turner\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781668049310\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781668049310\"><strong>Majestic Hills<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>effortlessly skirts the boundary between gripping fiction and historical reckoning. Set in Chicago and outer Chicagoland, a place I know and love, and am always happy to see as deftly depicted as it is here, this modern fable follows a Midwestern couple seeking greener pastures and a victory garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Blaques need an escape: a respite from the tragedies of a busy Chicago hospital, relief from thirty-inch gangways, neighborhood noise, and the random violence of the vibrant city they love and know. Langdon Blaque, an attending physician in a busy inner-city hospital, is haunted by what he\u2019s seen and needs out. His wife, Josephine, a successful attorney, is still deliberating. His eyes, at least, are set on a slice of paradise just past the lone farmhouses surrounded by cornfield islands\u2014the promise of something new, different, better. The Blaques\u2019 dream home sits in the shadow of displaced Indigenous settlers and the residents of the Grand Vistas trailer park, left behind by industry and time. Their poverty is as real as the Majestic Hills residents\u2019 wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Blaques are plagued with questions after they make the move.\u00a0They aren\u2019t sure if their fear is justified, or is it a bouquet of anxiety, apprehension, and intuition in bloom?\u00a0 Are their senses clouded or cleared by the fresh air filled with ragweed, moisture, and native grasses of the open land? Is their new neighbor, one of \u201cthem,\u201d or is he simply cut from the oblivious cloth of white people who mean no harm but offer no comfort either? Can the woman who runs the town store be trusted?\u00a0The Klan may be around the corner, or the neighbors may just keep bees. Everyone is making assumptions, and blatant racism gets excused as white privilege and indifference. But the farmers market is booming and the pollinators prevail.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nuanced and likable, Josephine propels the novel through her inner world, glimpsed early on in a line from William Blake kept on her nightstand: \u201cSooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.\u201d It is Josephine who carries us through the deep fabric of what\u2019s ahead and what underpins the novel\u2019s anxiety about the unknown\u2014and its several awful accidents. Her life is portrayed through the parts that matter: love, passion, fear, anxiety, knowing. She and her husband are center stage in the life they have chosen and desire rules the roost, as Mr. Blake said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The novel is peppered with soulful music spanning generations of American history, snippets of heroes like Frederick Douglass, and forgotten history.\u00a0The shifting ground beneath the new development\u2014which, we\u2019re told, was \u201cbuilt on a lie,\u201d threatens to erode it all into oblivion.\u00a0An imaginary pipeline connects the residents of the new development to the trailer park down the river, and an actual proposed pipeline strains neighborhood relations and threatens to send the flood water through easements and PVC.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Will it all wash away, or will the development prosper in its newness, the racist, gun-happy neighbors coming around\u2014evolving over time, or is the worst of them and what is feared the only truth to be had? The questions continue as crushes develop, and trespassing, vandalism, criminal charges, and gunshots bring everything the Blaques fled right back into their backyard, now a peaceful pond view. You can taste the Costco appetizers\u2014and the tension\u2014on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the story unfolds, the rich fabric of shared history collides with the dividing lens of individual opinion, and everyone grows afraid of what is to come. <em>Majestic Hills <\/em>is full of assumptions and misinterpretations as The Blaques make friends, find foes, and grapple with distance from their roots.\u00a0The power of assumption\u2014the reader\u2019s as much as the characters\u2019\u2014runs through the neighborhood gatherings\u2014this power judges and classifies and simplifies the residents.\u00a0Pervasive gun culture, property law, the joys of homeownership, and racially charged suspicion circulate through this neighborhood tale in modern America and provide a backdrop for profound questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we see and assume at first is not always what is, but fear of the other, of the unknown, may propel us into action in line with our worst selves and divides people who would otherwise live in harmony.  Turner articulates this universal human anxiety\u2014this fear\u2014using a cast of characters who represent voices too often silenced in dominant culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We live in a country divided by fear of the unknown, and this novel rests squarely in that public atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several nuanced and diverse viewpoints serve up this story\u2014we flip between each member of the couple, the storekeeper, the son, and those they interact with. It\u2019s a quick, dialogue-heavy story, and the reader has to keep up with who\u2019s speaking and what emotions and observations are left unsaid to understand the action. There are twists, but this is a mild thriller\u2014a perfect read for a leisurely afternoon when you want to think about what divides our nation while getting carried away by the town\u2019s story and its players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I found myself wanting the hidden parts of Turner\u2019s characters developed even further\u2014I wanted more of the unspoken dreams of ancestors, the buried prosperity, the desperate grief, and the creative idealism of youth. I wanted the action to slow down so I could sit with the people in the scene.  I floated as I read, and my mind kept working after I laid the book to rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When every place turns up the same, and the joys and ruins of life keep happening, how do we keep dancing, keep loving, when the pain runs so deep and the divide is so clear? Is it noble and just to shoulder blame for someone less equipped to solve the problem they created, even at the cost of one\u2019s own future? Does it matter what color we are if one has the privilege and one has the curse? Class and race divisions soften a bit when the focus is on our universal human concerns; and generosity, friendship, kinship, love, and forgiveness close the chasm a bit in <em>Majestic Hills.<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turner invigorated me as a reader\u2014through artfully composed vignettes of dancing, loving, wondering, and grieving. Through the loss of the known and the familiar, we journey with the people of <em>Majestic<\/em> <em>Hills<\/em>, into territory we think we already know. The stain of ancestral pain, human cruelty, and the unspoken violence of oppression envelop the novel and deepen the joy found in warm moments of music, rain, and laughter. We can\u2019t escape other humans, unfortunately\u2014as no matter where we go, the poor decisions and choices of ourselves and others collide. But it\u2019s also joyful to be human at times, and Dawn Turner delivers the full human experience with this captivating and thoughtful novel.<\/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=\"104506\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/24\/americans-are-afraid-of-americans-too-a-review-of-dawn-turners-majestic-hills\/attachment\/9781668049310\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.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=\"9781668049310\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.webp?fit=500%2C755&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310-500x755.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104506 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.webp?resize=500%2C755&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781668049310.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><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781668049310\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781668049310\">Majestic Hills<\/a><\/em><br>By Dawn Turner<br>Scribner<br>Published August 4, 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>Our review of Dawn Turner’s new novel, “Majestic Hills.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145733,"featured_media":104560,"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":[711764813,1747,711769337,711765984,3268695],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dawn-turner","tag-fiction","tag-majestic-hills","tag-reviews","tag-scribner"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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Fame” and the Privileged Performance of Artistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">They say to never meet your heroes, but what if you were given the chance to meet a glorified version of your younger self? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This question is explored in <em>Late Fame<\/em>, documentarian Kent Jones\u2019s new feature starring Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, postal worker and former poet. Saxberger is approached on the street by an eager, earnest young man named Meyers (Edmund Donovan) who exudes awe and respect for Saxberger\u2019s published poems from the 70s. Meyers convinces Saxberger to meet his writers group, a crew of aspiring writers in New York City\u2026which really means they\u2019re just a group of privileged kids who haven\u2019t really experienced the world yet. All of them claim to be big fans of Saxberger and his works. The group, which later dubs themselves The Enthusiasm Society, are essentially Civil War reenactors for the golden days of art in New York. The club is\u2014of course\u2014all men, except for wannabe ing\u00e9nue Gloria, who is expertly played by Greta Lee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saxberger is pulled back into the world of his glory days, reinvigorating his dreams of being a published capital-W \u201cWriter.\u201d He feels seen and heard and respected again, and he starts reminiscing about and reliving the old days, while also shedding his long-standing relationships like a snake skin to instead focus on his new, young friends. Over the course of the film, he slowly starts to realize, however, just how different these kids are from the folks he was writing with in his youth. He goes from his apartment, surrounded by well-loved books, notepads filled with his handwritten musings, and William Carlos Williams cassettes that stay within reach, to Meyers\u2019s apartment: a sterile environment with no books, instead featuring framed photographs of William Carlos William covers and a decorative typewriter. Like his life experience and his work, Saxberger\u2019s apartment was worked for, and Meyers\u2019s was provided by his parents (you see, it was actually cheaper than paying for the dorms at NYU). His illusion of this group of intellectuals slowly unravels as the film interrogates what makes an artist an artist\u2014is it enough to call yourself a writer if you\u2019re not writing? Does it matter if you\u2019re writing if no one is reading the work? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All of this is explored and held together by the writing of Samy Burch (<em>May December<\/em>), adapting the novella of the same name by Arthur Schnitzler (which was published posthumously, a fitting circumstance for the themes explored), the cinematography by Wyatt Garfield, who previously collaborated with Jones on <em>Beasts of the Southern Wild<\/em>, and the editing by Mike Selemon. The playful camerawork and sharp editing weave together the textures of a life and unravel when those textures aren\u2019t present. The camera peeks around corners, catching glimpses, lurking, and witnessing these aspiring artists (and the paradox surrounding them). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film itself is also an incredible critique of the \u201cradical\u201d rejection of modernity by those with the privilege to do so, examining the past as decorative artifact versus the past as an intrinsic part of who you are and your lived experience. While watching, I was also struck by the parallel between the idea that there are three sides to every story (yours, mine, and the truth), and that there are three people inside each of us\u2014who we think we were, who we are, and who we have the potential to be. Each character grapples with all three throughout the course of the movie. As the writing group meets, they often do more talking about writing than actual writing. Each character is putting up a front, grappling with who they actually are and who they present to the world as. Characters say one thing while doing the complete opposite. A glass of absinthe goes untouched, a book of poems goes unread, a life passes by. An Alexa speaker plays classical music in a luxury loft, a JBL speaker stands in for a piano player during a cabaret performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have seen so many variations of Dafoe, but rarely ever this stripped down, reflective version. While not a career best (and it would be impossible to rank his great volume of work), it\u2019s certainly a late-career peak for Dafoe. The seasons of his career all collide in <em>Late Fame<\/em>. He so beautifully walks the line between courage and cowardice, growth and stagnation, and pride and shame. He\u2019s likable and easy to root for, but he\u2019s also egotistical and selfish, avoiding his dying brother and the friends who are too \u201clow brow\u201d for him in favor of these young intellectuals who are feeding his ego. There\u2019s a moment late in the film where one of the members of The Enthusiasm Society approaches him for advice on his poems, citing Saxberger\u2019s genius. It\u2019s revealed that this younger poet hasn\u2019t even read Saxberger\u2019s poetry, he\u2019s just been told it\u2019s genius. Dafoe so perfectly wears the emotions of a man who realizes it was all a farce and he was playing pretend as much as these young wannabe artists were. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This performance and this film will age like the poems of Ed Saxberger\u2014it will not end until it finds you. I was lucky enough to see this film early twice, once in May at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, and once for a members\u2019 screening for Cinema\/Chicago, and my appreciation for the film grew significantly even in those few short months. I can only imagine how much this film will mature and age and grow in estimation over the coming years.<\/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=\"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>They say to never meet your heroes, but what if you were given the chance to meet a glorified version of your younger self?  This question is explored in Late Fame, documentarian Kent Jones\u2019s new feature starring Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, postal worker and former poet. Saxberger is approached on the street by an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145682,"featured_media":104532,"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":[711768656,309],"tags":[524,711765984],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-reviews","tag-film","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>"Late Fame" and the Privileged Performance of Artistry - 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\/08\/21\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Late Fame" and the Privileged Performance of Artistry - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"They say to never meet your heroes, but what if you were given the chance to meet a glorified version of your younger self?  This question is explored in Late Fame, documentarian Kent Jones\u2019s new feature starring Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, postal worker and former poet. Saxberger is approached on the street by an…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/21\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-21T10:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Film-CHIRB-Reviews-Template-500x176.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"176\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ashley Hatzenbihler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ChicagoRevBooks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ChicagoRevBooks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ashley Hatzenbihler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ashley Hatzenbihler\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/89e1c971bed0b29f2e7c124b48a5eb18\"},\"headline\":\"“Late Fame” and the Privileged Performance of Artistry\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-21T10:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":952,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/Film-CHIRB-Reviews-Template.png?fit=2000%2C703&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"Film\",\"Reviews\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Film\",\"Reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chireviewofbooks.com\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/21\\\/late-fame-and-the-privileged-performance-of-artistry\\\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"Late Fame\\\" and the Privileged Performance of Artistry - 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Mysteries, and the Legacy of History in \u201cSunrise\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781984855534\">Sunrise<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, the new novel from T\u00e9a Obreht, is a neo-Western story set in a remote region of Wyoming, with three interconnected stories spanning a period of over one hundred years. In 2024, twenty-six-year-old Nina survives a plane crash into the isolated Horsebone Lake. Her boyfriend Ben, the single-engine plane\u2019s pilot, is missing. With bears, ravens, and other wildlife as her only company, Nina comes across the abandoned town of Sunrise. In 2003, college dropout Coll lives in the nearby town of Sand Draw. While Coll puts the finishing touches on a historical reenactment, a mysterious incident involving a dismembered wolf as well as the appearance of an investigative writer begins upending his life. And in 1902, Sunrise\u2019s founder, the gunslinger Anton Vargas, returns after many years away to search for both a missing child and an old friend who may be out to kill him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These interconnected narratives are presented in an enfolding onion-like fashion, with Nina\u2019s story opening and closing the novel with the first and fifth sections, Vargas\u2019s story taking the second and fourth sections, and Coll\u2019s story placed in the center as third. This structure does not indicate narrative weight\u2014in this writer\u2019s opinion, all three stories feel like they could be their own novels, and none of them exist as the \u201canswer\u201d for the others. One story may provide context for the mystery of another story from earlier or later in the timeline. Sometimes that context is guesswork: it is no secret that the Vargas chapters are excerpts from a novelized interpretation of the \u201creal\u201d historical figure, a novelization written by a living character that appears elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One can argue that Nina\u2019s story, as the opening and closing to <em>Sunrise<\/em>, is the heart of the novel. As it stands, however, Coll\u2019s and Vargas\u2019s stories are too interesting to dismiss as explicatory appendages. Nina\u2019s story, we can say, is arguably the most realistic: we follow a comfortably middle-class individual as, initially, they worry their way through the wilderness. It is remarkable how much of Nina\u2019s narrative is spent detailing her anxieties, stressing about matters related to her personal life pre\u2013plane crash, and worrying about unhelpful, detailed hypotheticals that do not actually happen. As we come to learn, Nina is a traumatized individual for more reasons than just the crash, and her inability to stop her hydra-like thinking makes sense. It still comes as a relief when we reach Vargas\u2019s and Coll\u2019s sections, and find the storm of thoughts as narrative style brought to a relative standstill: Vargas\u2019s narrative is presented as a focused Western adventure novel\u2014if historically plausible\u2014while Coll\u2019s tale reads as a straightforward literary novel with an increasing air of eeriness. By the time we reach Nina\u2019s final section, her situation has become desperate enough that the waves of anxious and pedestrian thoughts from the beginning have given way to a focused anguish and the determination to survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is partly to say, in the context of recommending this well-done novel, to give Nina some early leeway. To reach the air of hauntedness and mystery that pervade most of the narratives, we need to sink through regions of ordinary consciousness first. When <em>Sunrise<\/em> gets cooking it works on tackling the deepest themes of human existence: love, death, and the way the past\u2014even a hundred years before\u2014haunts the present. Of love and death, death has the stronger presence. In <em>Sunrise<\/em>, love, when it appears, is usually defeated or decayed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All three stories in <em>Sunrise<\/em> wrestle with death, sometimes even in a personified, hallucinatory form. Personal doom, too, is allied with monstrous, incomprehensible nature. This is not Henry David Thoreau\u2019s pleasant transcendentalist nature, but rather that obscure force emerging from the woods, ever producing and ever consuming itself. <em>Sunrise<\/em>, rightfully, is not here to provide answers. It is here, in part, to meditate on the forest and the mysterious, mentally obscure residents of the natural world, the speechless animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sunrise<\/em> is excellent and recommended. It explores some of the deepest questions of our lives, meditates on some of the great mysteries, and tells three gripping stories along the way. What more can we ask for? \u201cThe whole world is coming into color, and with it another heartbeat.\u201d That\u2019s it\u2014an affirmation to live, to keep going, whatever the mysteries that surround us, whatever the trials we must overcome.<\/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=\"750\" data-attachment-id=\"104521\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/21\/nature-mysteries-and-the-legacy-of-history-in-sunrise\/9781984855534-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?fit=600%2C900&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,900\" 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=\"9781984855534\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?fit=500%2C750&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534-500x750.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104521 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?resize=500%2C750&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?resize=100%2C150&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?resize=370%2C555&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781984855534.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><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781984855534\">Sunrise<\/a><\/em><br>By T\u00e9a Obreht<br>Random House<br>Published August 11, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"book_button\" data-affiliate-id=\"318\" data-sku=\"9781984855534\"><\/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=\"62170\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2021\/03\/30\/libertie-kaitlyn-greenidge\/chirblogoend-1-1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.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-1-1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?fit=200%2C200&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62170 lazyload\" style=\"width:100px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?w=200&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1 180w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=90%2C90&ssl=1 90w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=20%2C20&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=185%2C185&ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chirblogoend-1-1.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 T\u00e9a Obreht’s new novel, “Sunrise”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145617,"featured_media":104524,"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":[1747,75514,711765984,711769336,711769310],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-103942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-fiction","tag-random-house","tag-reviews","tag-sunrise","tag-tea-obreht"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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Originally published at the dawn of the first Trump presidency, now celebrating its tenth anniversary at a violent boiling point in the Middle East, the gay lives at its center now feel even more tentative\u2014already composed of precious stolen moments, now threatened with oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Guapa<\/em> follows the politically and personally tormented Rasa over a single twenty four hours in an unspecified Arab country in a state of upheaval. Rasa\u2019s nation is finding its footing under a new president installed by the American powers that be: a figure of hope to the upper class who\u2019d prefer to move on in relative comfort as soon as possible, and the face of humiliation to the local socialist and Islamic revolutionaries whose victories have been few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rasa, a gay man who spent his college days studying abroad in the States, finds work as a translator for the Western journalists covering the conflict in his nation between protests against the president\u2014quite literally stuck between worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On either side of the geopolitical divide lies a catch-22: his country is his blood and his pride, but there\u2019s no place for open queerness. The West welcomes his sexuality with open arms, but can\u2019t accept his Arabness. Cruelly and naturally, there are problems baked into this problem: the deepening class divide, growing distrust between Arabs and Arab-Americans, the fall of left-wing ideology, the fragmented Middle Eastern gay underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Rasa\u2019s traditional grandmother\u2014the woman who raised him\u2014catches him with his lover in the book\u2019s opening pages, we get <em>Guapa<\/em>\u2019s go-to gut punch. No matter how any of these conflicts resolve, nobody involved is creating a future where someone like Rasa has somewhere to call home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Guapa<\/em> is a success for its lush and aching portrayal of gay love in the Arab world\u2014how love both grows and crumbles when it can bear no witness\u2014but most urgent for 2026\u2019s new readers is its dissection of class and identity, especially as freedom to queerness is used as a defense of Zionist violence in the Middle East. <em>They\u2019d kill you for being gay, so why would you stick up for them?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Haddad provides rich, personal insight: the Western treatment of Middle Easterners as alien religious fascists isn\u2019t to stick up for anyone\u2019s human rights, much less that of queers, but to dehumanize <em>everyone,<\/em> including the queers waiting to have a life even half as free. The joy and privilege of open identity is exactly why people from all walks of life deserve the chance to shape it in their own way. The imposition of American, Judeo-Christian-approved queerness in the Arab world is its own breed of tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although the politics of <em>Guapa<\/em> can occasionally get in the way of storytelling\u2014Haddad\u2019s characters are sometimes too transparently designed as vehicles for certain social messages\u2014the conflict at the heart of the novel taps into the emotional truth of our present moment, and forces an uncomfortable look at our assumptions of strangers on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s tempting to balk at the hidden lifestyle Haddad\u2019s characters proudly live\u2014to think that they don\u2019t even know how good things could be, what more they deserve. But true care for <em>Guapa\u2019<\/em>s queers is accepting them, allowing them to find their own freedom in their own time; to have faith that if they can face themselves, they can face their world. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"750\" data-attachment-id=\"104467\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/20\/guapa\/9781635425956_medium-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?fit=500%2C750&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"500,750\" 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=\"9781635425956_medium\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?fit=500%2C750&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104467 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?w=500&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?resize=100%2C150&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?resize=370%2C555&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9781635425956_medium-1.jpg?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\/9781635425956\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781635425956\">Guapa<\/a><\/em><\/strong><br><strong>By Saleem Haddad<\/strong><br><strong>Other Press<\/strong><br><strong>Published on August 11, 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=\"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, 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He co-hosts the cultural commentary and comedy podcast Thot Topics.","sameAs":["https:\/\/nickmalone.xyz\/"],"url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/author\/thottopics\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s75tvT-guapa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Guapa_1920x675.jpg?fit=1920%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104209","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\/199145684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104515,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104209\/revisions\/104515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104209"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=104209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":104007,"date":"2026-08-19T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104007"},"modified":"2026-08-18T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T03:15:07","slug":"a-gothic-puzzle-across-time-in-anjet-daanjes-the-song-of-the-stork-and-dromedary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/19\/a-gothic-puzzle-across-time-in-anjet-daanjes-the-song-of-the-stork-and-dromedary\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gothic Puzzle Across Time in Anjet Daanje\u2019s \u201cThe Song of the Stork and Dromedary\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Following the acclaimed arrival of her English translation debut, <em>The Remembered Soldier<\/em>, a National Book Award finalist, Anjet Daanje\u2019s latest novel, <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780374620615\"><em>The Song of the Stork and Dromedary<\/em><\/a>, is yet another psychological puzzle, enveloping readers in a mystifying literary haze that persists until the novel\u2019s final pages. Drawing on the lives of the Bront\u00eb sisters, Daanje weaves macabre imagery, dubious diaries, scattered letters, and a series of vignettes into a story spanning nearly 300 years. The result is a sprawling meditation on death, sisterhood, and the mysteries that refuse to be buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Opening the novel in late 18th-century England, Daanje wastes no time linking the novel to the esteemed Bront\u00eb sisters, primarily Emily, whose life is mirrored by the cryptic Eliza May Drayden. The Drayden sisters not only write Victorian Gothic novels but also echo the Bront\u00ebs in their sisterly bonds, childhood-born imaginary worlds, and encounters with illness, all of which lie at the heart of the narrative. Blankly gazing at the corpse of yet another sister, six-year-old Eliza asks, <em>\u201cIs God hungry?\u201d<\/em>, initiating the novel\u2019s lengthy exploration of death. Along this ghastly thread, readers follow eleven primary profiles\u2014including biographer Agnes Chambers, Emery Niles, and several pairs of fated sisters\u2014whose lives are all influenced in some manner by Eliza Drayden and her novel <em>Haeger Mass<\/em>, a heavily criticized Gothic tale in the vein of <em>Wuthering Heights<\/em>. These episodes are interspersed with diary entries, notes, and poems that gradually fill in the gaps of the enigma that surrounds Eliza far beyond the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Carefully rendered by translator David McKay, Daanje\u2019s silky prose balances delicacy and lyricism with a sense of dread. As characters wrestle with deathly curses, disturbed graves, and unexplained phenomena, the novel sends chills with the turn of a page. However, beyond the overtly Gothic motifs throughout, sisterhood persists as a central theme of the work. Whether it\u2019s the Draydens, the Balthasars, or twins Lena and Penny, the novel is undoubtedly rooted in the unshakable bond of sisterhood. Without explicitly demonizing marriage, Daanje presents this capitulation to social convention or seduction not only as a devastating loss for the unsuspecting sister, but also as a form of abandonment. In each case, sisters are torn from their tender love and intimacy, only to fall victim to suffocating relationships. In an effort to seek refuge, characters frequently turn to fictional worlds or music, each possessing an immortal quality that allows them to transcend their creators and reach future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ascending in scale with each chapter, the novel\u2019s eponymous symbols of the stork and dromedary become increasingly apparent\u2014though the stork remains the more essential of the two. Drawing from a seventh-century Chinese proverb, the stork serves as an analogy for adopting an elevated, broader perspective on the seemingly ceaseless chaos that wreaks havoc in our lives. When grappling with the distressing uncertainty of his wife\u2019s coma, one of the novel\u2019s later characters explains,<em>\u201cAt the quantum level, we live in unimaginable chaos, we’re made of that chaos ourselves, our bodies, our minds, and in that chaos there is no Time, because one chaotic state leads to the next chaotic state, so nothing seems to change. Not until we look from the threshold at our simple, orderly world of big things do we experience change, and therefore Time. Time is the result of our inability to see the world as it truly is.\u201c<\/em> This perspective perfectly complements the novel\u2019s grand scale and its meditation on grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet in her intricate web of interconnected stories, Daanje opens the door for intrigue, but largely fails to furnish the room. Much like her debut novel, this work often presents characters with a verbosity that spills over the page rather than adding depth. From time to time, she dabbles in concepts, such as quantum mechanics, that are too underdeveloped to be effectively integrated into the greater narrative she\u2019s constructing. Despite this limitation, her graceful style and ability to sustain suspense ultimately reward patient readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Serving as both its strength and weakness, Daanje\u2019s multilayered composition creates a palpable atmosphere that takes on the quality of recovered history rather than fiction. For all its inconsistent focus, the novel boldly grapples with unsettling questions, challenging our conception of time and the ways it governs our experience of death and grief. Ultimately, <em>The Song of the Stork and Dromedary<\/em> stands as another example of Daanje\u2019s brilliant storytelling, cementing her status as a writer to watch for years to come.<\/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=\"768\" data-attachment-id=\"104425\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/19\/a-gothic-puzzle-across-time-in-anjet-daanjes-the-song-of-the-stork-and-dromedary\/attachment\/9780374620615\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?fit=600%2C921&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,921\" 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=\"9780374620615\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?fit=500%2C768&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615-500x768.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104425 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?resize=500%2C768&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?resize=195%2C300&ssl=1 195w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?resize=98%2C150&ssl=1 98w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?resize=370%2C568&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?resize=20%2C31&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374620615.webp?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>FICTION<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9780374620615\"><strong>The Song of the Stork and Dromedary<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/a><strong>By Anjet Daanje<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><strong>FSG Originals<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><strong>Published August 18, 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>Following the acclaimed arrival of her English translation debut, The Remembered Soldier, a National Book Award finalist, Anjet Daanje\u2019s latest novel, The Song of the Stork and Dromedary, is yet another psychological puzzle, enveloping readers in a mystifying literary haze that persists until the novel\u2019s final pages. Drawing on the lives of the Bront\u00eb sisters,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145724,"featured_media":104424,"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":[711769333,1747,106244140,1745],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-anjet-daanje","tag-fiction","tag-fsg-originals","tag-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Gothic Puzzle Across Time in Anjet Daanje\u2019s \u201cThe Song of the Stork and Dromedary\u201d - 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\/08\/19\/a-gothic-puzzle-across-time-in-anjet-daanjes-the-song-of-the-stork-and-dromedary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Gothic Puzzle Across Time in Anjet Daanje\u2019s \u201cThe Song of the Stork and Dromedary\u201d - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following the acclaimed arrival of her English translation debut, The Remembered Soldier, a National Book Award finalist, Anjet Daanje\u2019s latest novel, The Song of the Stork and Dromedary, is yet another psychological puzzle, enveloping readers in a mystifying literary haze that persists until the novel\u2019s final pages. 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Russell Price’s “Bisquick: An American Seance”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On a cool June evening at the Haymarket House in Buena Park, I attended a local <a href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/05\/06\/the-chicago-writers-showcase-returns-on-june-2-2026\/\">writers showcase<\/a> event hosted by the Chicago Review of Books. A handful of Chicago-based authors read from their soon to be published manuscripts to a quiet and respectful crowd of Chicago-based readers, artists, and friends. I did not know at the time that I would be reviewing C. Russell Price\u2019s newest poem collection, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480560\"><em>Bisquick: An American Seance<\/em>.<\/a><\/strong> From a quiet post by the back door, Price strolled to the center of the room wearing a black leather jacket and holding an open tall-boy of Pabst Blue Ribbon. With effortless gravitas and an aura that instantly earned my devotion, they read us a handful of poems about a dreamy ghost cowboy, a blue ghost horse named Bisquick, and a grieving speaker grappling with the feat that it is to continue on. I was enraptured immediately, giggling, blue tears in my eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Price\u2019s collection of forty poems veraciously and humorously explores loss, loneliness, love, sex, yearning, friendship, aesthetics, what it means to be a cowboy, what it means to be an American, and all the situations and scenarios your grief can still find you in. Since receiving a copy, I have read <em>Bisquick: An American Seance<\/em> at least four times and each time I discover a new line, a new turn of phrase, to add to my library of favorites. The cover art is gorgeous, and the storyline which unfolds throughout varying poetic styles owns a call and response narrative that has a sensibly haunting effect. It is nothing short of exciting to hold a collection about ghosts in my hands that is so candidly alive while also existing so precisely in the now\u2014America, the Midwest, Chicago in 2026 (whatever the hell that means).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I\u2019ve gotta be careful with men like you, <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Saddle greasers with ambiguous intentions, <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Good hair, a fat ass, solid library <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few of my personal favorites include \u201cGhost Cowboy Asks for My Love Language\u201d, \u201cGhost Cowboy: Origin Poem\u201d, \u201cThings I Shouldn\u2019t Say, but Say Anyway Post-Coital to Ghost Cowboy\u201d\u00a0 \u2014but it is terribly difficult to choose. Between laugh out loud devastation and the dissociated semantics of casual sex, there is a brilliant tongue-in-cheek tone throughout the collection that drags you back to every unrelenting crush and every forgettable hook-up you have ever had. Through Ghost Cowboy, we are in love, we are sad, we are horny, and we hate and want better for ourselves and our country all at the same time. Price is able to show the consistency and continuity of these feelings within a single line, a single stanza.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A sound, structural poem, perfectly sprinkled with artistic observations and unboundless creativity is one thing, but having the authorial presence that Price does is another. They write with a voice that cannot be taught, completely captivating my attention and all seven of my chakras. The writing is not just good, but makes me feel they would mollycoddle my worst secrets. Their prose are not just magnetic, but so unique they evoke the desire of really wanting that one coworker, that stranger at a party, to think you are cool too. These lines remind me of that slick but quiet kid from grade school who was wise beyond their years, calmly dealing with grown-up problems, and naturally good at swearing. Conscious but restrained, it perfectly summons the familiar feeling of wanting more when you know damn well there is nothing left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I\u2019m complicit to murder every day <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>as an American even if all I did today <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>was smoke weed, eat hot chips, and talk to God about the dead <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grief is talking to someone who is no one in your empty passenger\u2019s seat. Grief is the best and worst day of your life. Greif is a ghost and that ghost is your boyfriend. Grief is everywhere and everything is grief and an expiration date on this period of time is both up for debate and open for interpretation. Price understands this miraculously well, and <em>Bisquick: An American Seance<\/em> is a silly, naughty, and comforting place to hangout as a result. There are lines I want to pin to the top of the Tumblr blog I have been locked out of for a decade. I want to gift it to everyone I know that needs it, and I want to gatekeep it for when I need it the most (just kidding). I am thrilled for this collection to reach Chicago and the world. Me and my ghosts have already been applauding, earnestly, for months. <\/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=\"744\" data-attachment-id=\"104448\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/18\/grief-is-a-ghost-and-that-ghost-is-your-boyfriend-on-c-russell-prices-bisquick-an-american-seance\/attachment\/9798899480560\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?fit=600%2C893&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,893\" 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=\"9798899480560\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?fit=500%2C744&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560-500x744.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104448 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?resize=500%2C744&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?resize=200%2C298&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?resize=101%2C150&ssl=1 101w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?resize=370%2C551&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9798899480560.jpg?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>Poetry<br><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480560\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9798899480560\"><em>Bisquick: An American Seance<\/em><\/a><br>By C. Russell Price<br>Triquarterly Books<\/strong><br><strong>Published August 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>On a cool June evening at the Haymarket House in Buena Park, I attended a local writers showcase event hosted by the Chicago Review of Books. A handful of Chicago-based authors read from their soon to be published manuscripts to a quiet and respectful crowd of Chicago-based readers, artists, and friends. I did not know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145648,"featured_media":104449,"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":[711769056,422,1745,46141633],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-c-russell-price","tag-poetry","tag-review","tag-triquarterly-books"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Grief is a Ghost and That Ghost is Your Boyfriend: On C. Russell Price's "Bisquick: An American Seance" - 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\/08\/18\/grief-is-a-ghost-and-that-ghost-is-your-boyfriend-on-c-russell-prices-bisquick-an-american-seance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grief is a Ghost and That Ghost is Your Boyfriend: On C. Russell Price's "Bisquick: An American Seance" - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On a cool June evening at the Haymarket House in Buena Park, I attended a local writers showcase event hosted by the Chicago Review of Books. 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The book bears many earmarks of a thriller, with its rapidly mounting aura of menace, its deadly car crash, the slowly unraveling mystery of the crash\u2019s cause, and the reasons the local police chief may be covering it up. But in true Russo fashion, it\u2019s not just crime and corruption that stalk this story; it\u2019s the trademark, unerring, deep sense of place Russo evokes like few other writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Under the Falls<\/em> brings Russo back to familiar territory: the left-behind, working-class, post-industrial towns of upstate New York\u2019s Adirondacks region. Russo has spent much of his career revisiting this area in his novels, reimagining his hometown under various aliases, and creating indelible characters strongly tethered to their environment. All the while, Russo has  maintained his personal ties to his native Mohawk Valley though he\u2019s lived elsewhere for nearly 60 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His new novel\u2019s opening chapter kicks in with the homecoming of an artist who has made a much cleaner break with his hometown and his past than Russo did. Tyler Sinclair, a hugely successful Nashville-based singer-songwriter, returns full of dread for a one-off gig in Stone Mountain, the town he fled 18 years earlier without a word to anyone, and has cut off completely ever since. Yet he\u2019s made it with a band named after the town, and Stone Mountain has featured prominently in his biggest hits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though his manager and others expect Stone Mountain to welcome Tyler back as a favorite son, the town he left behind greets him with anger and resentment, and violence cuts short his show. Gripped by guilt and fear and a yearning to get out almost as soon as he arrives, Tyler tells his girlfriend and songwriting partner Beth, \u201cStone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you\u2019re lucky, but not twice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this interview, Russo and I discuss the origins of this novel, what it\u2019s been like to return to New York\u2019s Rust Belt in fiction and memoir and life over the last 40 years, how difficult it is to make clean breaks, the fragility of favorite-son relationships, and how <em>Under the Falls<\/em> became not quite a thriller. We also explore the selfishness required to build and maintain a career in the arts, and the forbearance it takes to sustain relationships in a writer\u2019s life.<\/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=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Under the Falls<\/em><\/strong> <strong>is a novel about a rock star who returns to his depressed, post-industrial upstate New York hometown for the first time 18 years after leaving it behind, to play a show and sing the songs he wrote about it, and he doesn\u2019t get the warm reception you might expect. This is also the area you came from and it\u2019s the setting for several of your books, but I\u2019ve never thought of you as someone who abandoned your hometown or exploited its ill fortune. Have you ever encountered this sort of stored-up resentment when you\u2019ve returned to the Mohawk Valley, or suspected that it existed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Absolutely. And that’s really probably the source of this novel. When I wrote those earlier books\u2014<em>Mohawk<\/em> and <em>The Risk Pool<\/em> and then <em>Nobody’s Fool<\/em>\u2014I was treated very much like a favorite son. When I was growing up, Gloversville, the town where I’m from, was very much a left-behind place. And it seemed even more so the last time I was in Gloversville visiting relatives there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the time that I was writing those early books, people seemed to be delighted that I had not forgotten the place that I was from. But that all changed when I wrote my memoir, <em>Elsewhere<\/em>. Because in that book, for the first time, I didn’t call Gloversville \u201cMohawk,\u201d or \u201cThomaston\u201d like I did in <em>Bridge of Sighs<\/em>, or \u201cNorth Bath\u201d as I did in <em>Nobody’s Fool<\/em>. I called it Gloversville. And because of the subject of the memoir, I really had to tell the truth about my experience growing up there and my mother’s experience. She was the one who wanted so desperately for us to get out of Gloversville because she grew up there too. In my memoir, I wrote a warts-and-all description of the town and had to deal with things that were unflattering, but absolutely true, like the carcinogenic dyes that they dumped into that stream that wound right through the town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>You put that stream in<\/strong> <strong><em>Empire Falls<\/em><\/strong><strong>, but you moved it all the way to Maine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Right. If you lived in Gloversville, you probably had a pretty good chance of coming down with some exotic form of cancer. The closer you live to that stream, the more likely that was, which is why Gloversville was being studied back then for its very high rate of cancer. My beloved maternal grandfather died of emphysema, part of which was the result of breathing leather dust up where he was cutting gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, I wrote very honestly and truthfully about how dangerous some of that work was in the tanneries, having done it myself one summer. And boy, was the blowback abrupt. It was pretty much what happened to Tyler Sinclair. Really, what people were saying to me was, \u201cRusso, you have made a pretty nice living with your books based on our town, and you\u2019re writing screenplays now and you\u2019re doing really well for yourself. But guess what? Here in Gloversville, we\u2019re still poor and we\u2019re still struggling, probably even more than when you lived here. And so where\u2019s our cut of this lovely living you\u2019ve made for yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s exactly what they’re asking Tyler when he returns to Stone Mountain. That was the beginning of this novel because I came to the same conclusion. My mother was so determined that we were going to get out of Gloversville that after the memoir came out, I began to channel my mother, at least in my mind, thinking to myself what Tyler was thinking as he\u2019s returning to Stone Mountain: that it\u2019s the kind of place you might escape once if you\u2019re really lucky. But would you want to press your luck and try to escape twice from this place that seems to have your number?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tyler\u2019s determination to jettison his hometown reminded me a bit of early Bruce Springsteen songs, which were all about getting out: \u201cIt\u2019s a town full of losers and I\u2019m pulling out of here to win.\u201d He\u2019s shown a lot more empathy since then, but<\/strong> <strong><em>Under the Falls<\/em><\/strong> <strong>made me wonder what it felt like to hear a line like that if you were from that town. How much empathy is enough if you\u2019re one of those losers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tyler left Stone Mountain in a really bad way. He didn’t even say goodbye to any of his best friends. When he got to Nashville, he started immediately returning unread any mail that came to him postmarked \u201cStone Mountain.\u201d He vowed never to go back there again. And boy, does he have his reasons. I didn\u2019t have anything like that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all of these upstate New York towns, I still have a deep empathy and appreciation because they were part of my progress. They were an invaluable part of what has made me a writer. My mother and I fled Gloversville all the way to Tucson, Arizona, where I entered the university, and what she intended, of course, was a clean getaway. She thought of education as very much like the Witness Protection Program. She wanted me to be a scholar and learn this new language. When people heard me talk, they would have no idea where I came from because I wouldn\u2019t sound like Gloversville, New York. I would sound like I came from some finer place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But out there in Arizona, I ran across a couple of really good writers in the writing program there, one of whom kind of took me on almost as a mentor. Pretty close to the time that I was going to be graduating from the MFA program, I gave him this doorstop of a novel, and when he gave it back to me, he said it was his unfortunate duty to tell me that the book never came to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At that time I worshiped thriller writers like James M. Cain, Ross Macdonald, and Raymond Chandler, and I wanted to be like those guys. I had set the book either in Arizona or in California because I had the idea in my mind that in order to succeed, I was going to have to pretend not to be from a place like Gloversville. He told me, \u201cThe problem with this is that you\u2019re writing about this place like a tourist would. You don\u2019t really know it.\u201d And then he said, \u201cThere are about 40 or 50 pages about this small upstate New York milltown. You really know those people.\u201d And I wanted to kill him because he\u2019d found me out. That\u2019s who I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I threw that book away and I began the book that became <em>Mohawk<\/em>. In some ways my mother could not have been prouder of me, when I finally did become a writer. But I think it broke her heart that I didn\u2019t make the clean getaway that she had hoped. When I found out who I was, it was largely a question of finding out who and what I loved, and it was back there in the place that she wanted so desperately for both of us to escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019s interesting that early on, you envisioned writing thrillers like Cain, Macdonald, or Chandler.<\/strong> <strong><em>Under the Falls<\/em><\/strong> <strong>is probably the closest thing to a thriller you\u2019ve ever written.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have a wonderful editor, Jordan Pavlin, at Knopf, and she did me an incredible favor with this book. It made <em>Under the Falls<\/em> a different book than it would have been if I hadn\u2019t shown it to her and asked for her honest opinion. The first draft of the book began with Tyler and the other members of the band getting into the limo and starting the drive to Stone Mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I gave Jordan the book, she said, \u201cWhat you’re doing, Rick, is genuflecting before the thriller form because that\u2019s where thrillers begin. You put the plot in motion, get people moving, and see what happens.\u201d And she said, \u201cWhat I would love for you to do is to go back and read the opening for all three <em>Fool<\/em> novels, where you have the better part of a chapter about the place, North Bath. And then maybe eight or ten pages in, you get a character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What Jordan asked me to do was to begin this book not with the characters heading up the mountain, but rather with telling us where we are, just like I did with the <em>Fool<\/em> books [<em>Nobody\u2019s Fool<\/em> (1993), <em>Everybody\u2019s Fool<\/em> (2016), and <em>Somebody\u2019s Fool<\/em> (2023)]. And that’s the intro of this book now, where it talks about the Adirondacks in general, and what happens when you go up the Northway towards Lake Placid and Saratoga Springs, and what if you took Route 29 and you went up towards Speculator and you go through a place called Stone Mountain? It begins with that ominous statement that sooner or later, you would stop looking for the good in this place and realize just maybe how dangerous this place was. And you would turn around, and you would find your way back because you would have concluded by now that there are almost no good outcomes that can come from a place like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then it says, \u201cAnd none have, with one exception.\u201d And that\u2019s Tyler, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That suggestion from Jordan not only gave us the prologue; it changed my entire sense of the book. If I hadn\u2019t made place important first, before the characters started romping around in it, it probably would\u2019ve been more like your standard thriller. Her advice to me was not to bend the knee to the thriller, but make the thriller bend its knee to me. The result of that was not just the prologue, but the ending of the book where Tyler and Curt have that rapprochement back in the same place where it all began. That\u2019s one of the things you probably don\u2019t expect at the end of a thriller. You expect a gasp, a plot twist of some sort where you think, \u201cOh my God, I never saw that coming.\u201d What you don\u2019t expect from a thriller in most cases is heartbreak. And that was the great gift that Jordan gave me by making that suggestion: that I could write a thriller, but do it on my own terms and end it the way a Richard Russo novel ends, not the way most thrillers end. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I love plot-driven thrillers. I just doubt my ability to write one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Under the Falls<\/em><\/strong> <strong>is the first time you\u2019ve returned to that region in a while with a completely new imagined town and a new set of characters. Are there things that are different about the place or about you now that make you fictionalize it in a different way?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stone Mountain is my first entirely new fictional creation in a long time for that part of the world. But it\u2019s just six or seven miles up the road from where I was living in Gloversville. It\u2019s based on a place called Caroga Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ll tell a story on myself here that relates to something in the novel. When I was 18, in New York, the drinking age was 18. I would go up to Caroga Lake with my friends. They had a couple of wonderful bars there with live music, which I loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019d go up and hear some live music and close the bars up there and then go roaring down the mountain, which is exactly what Tyler does with his band after their show. We would do that sometimes all summer long. Honestly, it\u2019s amazing to me that we didn\u2019t go flying off. And if we had, I know exactly the turn on that mountain where we would\u2019ve gone through the guardrails and down into the ravine. It\u2019s exactly the one that I described Tyler going into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019re a writer like me, having written about this place now for more than four decades and always returning like a haunting to this place, it\u2019s because I still love it. But it\u2019s also with incredible gratitude and wonder of the fact that I\u2019m still alive and still around to talk to you about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Steve Nathans-Kelly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>One central relationship in the book involves Tyler and Curt, who were best friends before Tyler\u2019s abrupt departure from Stone Mountain, though they have had no contact since. Curt still clings to the bond they forged in their youth, and he still wants to believe there\u2019s an unselfish reason why Tyler abandoned him, and for all the times Tyler betrayed their friendship. The book almost seems to suggest that what made it possible for Tyler to escape Stone Mountain while Curt stayed put wasn\u2019t just talent or ambition, but character: the cold-blooded ability to betray and forget everyone he left behind.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Richard Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tyler represents the selfishness of art played through a megaphone. Clearly, he has been true to his art. He wouldn\u2019t be making the kind of music that he is making when he returns to Stone Mountain if he weren\u2019t a true artist. I kind of based him and his partner Beth on Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, who had the same kind of relationship in terms of their songwriting that Tyler and Beth have. Tyler is very much an artist and a poet in the same way that Jason is just such a brilliant lyricist, among other things. Tyler may have been faithful to his art, and he\u2019s certainly been a wonderful collaborator for Beth, but his selfishness is staggering. And it only seems to get worse the more he justifies it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If my wife, Barbara, were here, she would validate what I\u2019m about to say. There have been many times in our very, very long marriage where she and I have been talking, and despite the fact that I\u2019m keeping up my end of the conversation, she can tell that I\u2019m working out something from an earlier writing session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ll usually write first in the morning and then again in the afternoon. All of our married lives, she has known that I\u2019m very selfish about my work time. And she\u2019s been very gracious in allowing that to me. But it doesn\u2019t make me less selfish just because she\u2019s willing to accommodate me. Unfortunately, both of my daughters, when they were growing up, learned the same thing about their father: that there were certain times that it\u2019s just best to leave him alone. If there was something that they wanted or needed when they had come home from school and I was still at work, they probably knew not to come down and bother me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s an artist\u2019s selfishness. I don\u2019t think you can be much of an artist without that. It\u2019s more like a calling than a job. But it doesn\u2019t always make you the best possible person, and it doesn\u2019t always make you the best father or the best husband. And whatever that is, Tyler Sinclair has got it in spades.<\/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=\"104461\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/18\/speed-trap-town-a-conversation-with-richard-russo-about-under-the-falls\/under-the-falls\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.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=\"under the falls\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.webp?fit=500%2C755&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls-500x755.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104461 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.webp?resize=500%2C755&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.webp?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.webp?resize=370%2C559&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.webp?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/under-the-falls.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\/9780593805107\">Under the Falls<\/a><\/em><\/strong><br><strong>By Richard Russo<\/strong><br><strong>Knopf<\/strong><br><strong>Published August 11, 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=\"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>\n\n\n<script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"book_button\" data-affiliate-id=\"318\" data-sku=\"9780593805107\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Russo\u2019s new novel, Under the Falls, should strike his longtime readers as both a departure and a return. The book bears many earmarks of a thriller, with its rapidly mounting aura of menace, its deadly car crash, the slowly unraveling mystery of the crash\u2019s cause, and the reasons the local police chief may be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199145444,"featured_media":104458,"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":[711765986,722269,711769334],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-interviews","tag-richard-russo","tag-under-the-falls"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Speed Trap Town: A Conversation with Richard Russo about \u201cUnder the Falls\u201d - 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\/08\/18\/speed-trap-town-a-conversation-with-richard-russo-about-under-the-falls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Speed Trap Town: A Conversation with Richard Russo about \u201cUnder the Falls\u201d - Chicago Review of Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Richard Russo\u2019s new novel, Under the Falls, should strike his longtime readers as both a departure and a return. 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His work has appeared in New York Journal of Books, Paste Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, First of the Month, Virtual Ireland, and First Look Books.","url":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/author\/onwisconsintv421\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75tvT-r5a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/RichardRusso_1920x675.jpg?fit=1920%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104108","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\/199145444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104108"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104472,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104108\/revisions\/104472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104108"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=104108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":104098,"date":"2026-08-17T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/?p=104098"},"modified":"2026-08-15T17:04:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T22:04:44","slug":"claire-carusillo-the-responsible-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/17\/claire-carusillo-the-responsible-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Owning the Truth in Claire Carusillo’s “The Responsible Party”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Blurring the line between fact and fiction has become ever more relevant in an era of artificially hallucinated images and alternative facts. But there is a long tradition of tapping real events for fictional retellings. Claire Carusillo borrows from her real life family history for the plot behind <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781250408631\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Responsible Party<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, her debut novel. The novel follows multiple generations of Mounsey women in the years after two of them survive sinking ships. Carusillo creates a story by blending fact and fiction where she explores the definition of truth, who defines it, and whether it even matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Claire, a fictional version of the author, retells the story of her mother’s childhood, and how the sinking ships defined her family history. The tragic boat incidents were real. <em>The Empress of Ireland<\/em> sank in the St. Lawrence Seaway, and famously, the <em>Lusitania<\/em> was sunk by German U-boats at the onset of World War I. Fanny miraculously survived the sinking of the <em>Empress<\/em>. When word reached her family, Sarah set out to retrieve her, boarding the ill-fated <em>Luistania<\/em>. On their return to the Midwest, the mother and daughter team launched a career telling the stories on the vaudeville circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the present, Claire, the narrator, has been cancelled publicly for her bad skincare advice. After using an over-the-counter DNA test with seemingly meaningless results, her DNA ends up submitted to a database Claire suggests is controlled by Mormons. This DNA triggers the novel’s plot. Police have linked her DNA sample through the database to a past murder. The DNA suggests either she or her mother,  Kath, was connected to the crime scene. When the police want fresh samples, Kath refuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Suddenly, Carusillo thrusts us into a murder mystery story. What happened, who was involved, and why all surface as motivations for the character of Claire to revisit her mother’s personal history. Unraveling what the police are investigating remains a persistent question lingering in the background of the novel as the story meanders through Kath’s trials and triumphs. There are a lot of side quests along the way, and every so often Carusillo reminds us the reason everyone is sharing their stories is to get to the bottom of the crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are offbeat tangents Kath travels down. Two men show up at the McDonald’s teenage Kath works at and demand hamburgers. The store has closed, and they bully her, but she ends up befriending them. The quirkier part is they also live in a lighthouse and host bacchanalian parties. These unexpected plot points and misfit characters are reminiscent of the oddities that show up in Nell Zink’s novels, in the good ways that are exciting and weird and fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are other twists across the generations that keep this journey fresh and unexpected as the story progresses. The family stories begin to unravel as Kath filters her story to Claire, who filters the story to us. At times, the narrative point of view wobbles, even as Claire narrates. Should we question Clare’s credibility? Or Kath’s? Or anyone else\u2019s? None of these characters are so honest or good that they aren’t all suspects in the various misdeeds, or have motivation to mislead. Their flaws not only make them more human, but also keeps them in play when it comes to solving the mystery. Who is telling us the truth? Claire even tells us, “I’m still the only person who should get to repeat this story.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adding to the heightened tension is the high energy of the prose. The words come fast, and with high impact, with the urgency of breaking news on the internet. There’s a lot of information contained in every line, and Carusillo links together ideas and facts that are often just tangents on themselves. For instance, Claire tells us: “In 1971, a Big Mac retailed for sixty-five cents. McDonald’s restaurants didn’t have drive-thrus until 1975, when a franchisee next to a military base in southern Arizona cut a hole in his exterior wall because personnel could not be seen off-duty in their uniforms and those growing boys were hungry. My phone dies.” This staccato voice works so well on the internet in short bursts, but the continuous high voltage prose becomes numbing. It feels too one-note. It’s all high intensity, without a refractory period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Carusillo balances this intensity with humor. There are funny observations and witty descriptions buried in this text, lines to giggle at, or to be quietly amused. But it is heavy reading. There is so much of this kind of stylized lecturing, consuming the text is fatiguing. The book lends itself to repeated readings where many of these wry observations materialize on the second go round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One concern that did arise was how easy it was to feel detached from the characters in the novel. Partly this sense comes from how the prose is presented through layers of narrators. Despite serving as narrator, Claire has little to do with the events of the novel. The majority of the novel is happening to Kath, or to Kath’s mother, aunt, and grandmother before Kath was even born. This filtering through the varying voices creates distance between the reader and the characters. Layers of narration can be justified, but Carusillo’s narrative struggles in this regard. Claire’s presence, and the interjection of Claire’s experiences provide entertaining asides, like her social media obsessions. But it never feels like there is a meaningful critique or examination of Claire’s foibles. These exist mainly as plot devices wrapped up in wry humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What Carusillo does succeed at is in blurring the line between truth and fiction. The promotional materials insist the novel draws on a true story. But also, the novel is a fictional account. The presence of Claire in the narrative creates this sense of verisimilitude. Real events can be bent or twisted. Since the story is passed through so many points of view, the blending of fact and fiction becomes less definitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Responsible Party<\/em> is a highly stylized narrative filled with observatory humor, witty phrases, and entertaining eccentricities. The question of authenticity becomes an important plot point, and Carusillo’s inclusion of an eponymous character further blurs these distinctions. There are plenty of pieces here to find something to enjoy, but maybe not all of them all at once.<\/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=\"760\" data-attachment-id=\"104418\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/08\/17\/claire-carusillo-the-responsible-party\/image-96\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?fit=600%2C912&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,912\" 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\/08\/image-1.png?fit=500%2C760&ssl=1\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1-500x760.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104418 lazyload\" style=\"width:350px;height:auto\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?resize=500%2C760&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?resize=197%2C300&ssl=1 197w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?resize=99%2C150&ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?resize=370%2C562&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.png?resize=20%2C30&ssl=1 20w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chireviewofbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-1.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><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/318\/9781250408631\">The Responsible Party<\/a><\/em><\/strong><br><strong>By Claire Carusillo<\/strong><br><strong>Henry Holt and Co.<\/strong><br><strong>Published August 11, 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>Blurring the line between fact and fiction has become ever more relevant in an era of artificially hallucinated images and alternative facts. But there is a long tradition of tapping real events for fictional retellings. Claire Carusillo borrows from her real life family history for the plot behind The Responsible Party, her debut novel. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6069203,"featured_media":104437,"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":[711769309,1747,711765305,711765984,711769332],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-104098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-claire-carusillo","tag-fiction","tag-henry-holt-and-co","tag-reviews","tag-the-responsible-party"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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