Greg November opens the Fall 2019 issue of Boulevard with “The Business of Killing Tony.” After initially skimming the first sentences as I paged through the issue, I found it nearly physically impossible to stop reading: “Tony’s death—the first one, I’m talking—last a week. We had nothing to do with that one, Gwen and I, at least not directly.”

The story follows three siblings, the narrator Don, Gwen, and Tony, in the days and weeks following Tony’s death and subsequent resurrection and even more subsequent deaths. Prior to the death, their relationships are strained: Don is detached from the other two siblings as he separates from his wife and moves into a new condo; Tony, addicted to drugs and alcohol, orbits as the family black sheep; and Gwen halfheartedly takes on a motherly role as she attempts to organize an intervention for Tony (which is where he dies the first time) and get Don to participate. Tony comes back with a newfound clarity, death becoming the push he needed to finally sort himself out. But he has one problem: he wants to stay dead and can’t.

November’s characters are wry and detached, and the universe he’s created is lightened with dark humor. The siblings react to the news of Tony’s resurrection relatively level-headedly and are brought together by this new task of killing Tony again and again. There are moments November works in feeling, though he never careens into sappy sentimentality. The plot is inventive and interesting, readers not knowing quite what to expect out of a universe where a man can come back to life and make ties between the lands of the living and dead.

“The Business of Killing Tony” is a great opener for this issue of Boulevard and I look forward to checking out more work by November.

Review by Katy Haas

The Busy Bee Bookstore is a children's bargain bookstore in Lockport, New York! Our mission is to provide affordable children's literature to families and educators to help foster a love of reading in our community.

The Nov/Dec issue of the Kenyon Review is devoted to Literary Activism and guest edited by Rita Dove and John Kinsella. It features work by Caio Fernando Abreu, Jorgenrique Adoum, David Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, Bruna Dantas Lobato, Kwame Dawes, Carolyn Forché, Aminatta Forna, Adam Giannelli, Diane Glancy, Duriel E. Harris, Katherine M. Hedeen, Bob Hicok, Brenda Hillman, Nick Lantz, Nathaniel Mackey, So Mayer, David McCooey, Jennifer Militello, Laura Read, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Kim Scott, Melissa Studdard, Maria Takolander, and Eunice Tiptree.

Stories set in a haunted museum and on a rooftop in wartorn Iraq, essays on recreating the past, Ama Codjoe’s DISQUIET Prize-winning poem “Burying Seeds,” and more poems by Gail Mazur, Colin Channer, Chloe Martinez, and R. Zamora Linmark.

In this issue, find fiction by BA Brown, Doug Hoekstra, James Kincaid, Scott Nadelson, and Tim Bascom; poetry by Cathryn Cofell, Brenton Booth, Stephen Gibson, Sam Burt, Cathryn Essinger, E. J. Evans, Cleo Griffith, Jay Jacoby, Linda Lamenza, Susanna Lang, Michael Lyle, Renea McKenzie, John Moessner, Steve Nickman, Jeff Newberry, Patrick T. Reardon , Ron Riekki, Sheila Ronsen, Jacalyn Shelley, Kayla Sargeson, Elizabeth Sylvia, D. R. James, Joanna White, B.J. Wilson, Chante Wolf, and more; and reviews by Luanne Castle, Terresa Haskew, Jeanne Julian, Carole Mertz, and Eric Weil. Plus, M. Scott Douglas interviews Cathryn Cofell, winner of the 2019 MSR Poetry Book Award.

Featured on Fictive Dream last month: work by Reshma Ruia, Louis Gallo, Cath Holland, Rita Ciresi, Annalisa Crawford, Andrea Witzke Slot, Trasie Sands, and Bruce Meyer.