Horror 101: Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary offers a cursory overview of more than 300 years worth of scares
As a primer for the uninitiated, American Scary has a certain value.
Punk feminist Virginie Despantes delivers a philosophical epistolary novel about #MeToo, Covid, and addiction
Not pissing people off is something Despentes could rarely be accused of attempting.
What a rush: Investigative reporter Max Marshall details how a Southern U.S. fraternity became the hub for an extensive drug-running operation
The tale Marshall unfolds is a narrative of crime and hubris among the scions of the country's elite establishment members.
Irish author Kevin Barry turns his gaze Stateside for a brutal, beautiful neo-Western
The Heart in Winter is easily one of the best books of the year.
Some thoughts on the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth
Baldwin's literary aesthetic was predicated upon the notion of the complexity of individuals, regardless of race, class, or occupation.
Brief encounters: “A Scandalous Woman” by Edna O’Brien
O'Brien, who died on July 27 at the age of ninety-three, caused much uproar among conservative Irish Catholics for her frank and unsparing examinations of female sexuality.
Four jurors for the Writers’ Trust Weston International Award release statement about tensions arising out of this year’s Politics and the Pen controversy
The Writers' Trust is not the only major Canadian organization facing protests over its handling of events regarding the war in Gaza.
Three new novels apply a postmodern lens to horror cinema and its practitioners
The subtextual question in each of these stories – Where, exactly, does the true horror reside? – is a provocative and pressing one.
A recently discovered, fragmentary novel by the notorious French author Céline raises questions about how – or if – to publish such posthumous work
War is potent if only for its concentration.
The new novel from Joyce Carol Oates is a Boschian descent into the mind of a deluded surgeon who runs a New Jersey asylum for women
On balance, Butcher is a savage literary provocation.