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Book Review :: Universality by Natasha Brown

Universality by Natasha Brown book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Natasha Brown’s second novel, Universality, begins with a news story detailing a party at a farm during Covid that goes terribly wrong. The police raid the celebration because it’s violating restrictions put in place because of the pandemic, though they don’t notice that a young man has bludgeoned somebody with a solid gold bar, then run away with it. The writer of the story traces the important people to see their involvement and their motivations. The rest of the novel follows several of those characters — Hannah, the reporter; Richard, the owner of the farm and the gold; and Lenny, the mother of the young man and a writer who specializes in shocking readers with right-wing ideology — from their points of view.

Given the multiple points of view, it quickly becomes clear that each character has a quite different view of the events of that day, as well as their lives and themselves. They each present themselves in a much better light, not surprisingly, but they also present different facts and motivations. By beginning with a news story, a seemingly objective account, Brown upends the readers’ expectations of objectivity, especially in terms of narrative. It’s not only that the characters tell the readers different stories, they’re telling themselves different stories about their lives and the world itself.

Given Brown’s historical context — she references the 2008 financial crisis, as Richard is in that industry, as well as Covid — she’s also exploring the larger narratives countries and cultures tell. The connection of that background with the personal stories ties into her title, as each character seems motivated not only by justifying their view of the world, which serves only to further separate people, moving them away from unity, but also by greed. That desire manifests itself differently for each character — with Richard, it’s more obvious, but Hannah wants to move up in social class, while Lenny has a disdain for everybody, it seems, so she seeks power above all else — but that seems to be the universal trait they share. Brown encourages readers to question her characters’ narratives, but also their own, as they tell themselves — we tell ourselves — that we’re different.

Universality by Natasha Brown. Random House, 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

In Laila Lalami’s latest novel, The Dream Hotel, Sara Hussein is living in a near-future version of the United States that seems both entirely predictable and terrifying. The novel opens as authorities detain Sara, a Moroccan-American, at the airport because her risk score has risen too high. The company that produces the risk scores draws on a wealth of information to determine people’s potential risk, including their dreams, thanks to Dreamsaver Inc.’s implant that helps people have enough rest to function the next day, even on only a few hours’ sleep. Of course, the user agreement that people sign enables DI to sell their data to companies, such as the one producing the risk scores. The algorithm behind the risk scores is intellectual property, so Sara and her lawyer are unable to use it in trying to free her from the retention center the government sends her to because of the interaction at the airport.

While much of the novel centers around this dystopic premise, Lalami goes beyond exploring the ways tech corporations have monetized users’ data, as she explores issues of race and gender, as well. Though the other female residents’ races aren’t clear in most of the descriptions, the ones that are usually match the races that dominate the U.S.’s current prison system. Similarly, Sara realizes that the observation at the retention center is little more than an amplification of the observations women encounter every day of their lives.

There are also wildfires raging, as the retention center is in California, though it is far from the only place in the U.S. experiencing the severe effects of climate change. In one scene, the residents (nobody refers to them as prisoners, though they are not free to leave) joke about having their release hearings rescheduled due to another wildfire or hurricane or earthquake. Any of those seems as likely as the other.

What holds the entire novel together is Lalami’s critique of the role of money in each of these areas. The companies that run the retention centers use those who are there for cheap labor through their contracts with various outside companies. The technology companies benefit from the data they gather through the wide array of devices each character used when they were free, but they also collect data on the residents, even sending one of their employees in under cover to perform an experiment around product placement in dreams. In fact, Sara ultimately realizes that it’s in corporations’ best interests to keep extending their stay, fabricating infractions to prevent their release, which helps her begin to rebel against such systems. She also realizes that she needs help to fight back against corporations with much more power and money than she has, a message that becomes more and more relevant every day.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. Pantheon Books, March 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson

Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Ginseng Roots, Craig Thompson’s latest work, has come out in the midst of a bit of controversy. Some readers have criticized Thompson for telling a story they don’t believe was his to tell. Part of that stems from ginseng’s history with and connection to China, but much of it also comes from Thompson’s telling the story of Chua, a Hmong boy he met when he worked in ginseng fields, whom he interviews as an adult. In both cases, though, Thompson relies on others to tell those stories, using experts, many of whom are Chinese, to talk about ginseng’s history and importance. He also allows Chua to tell his story himself, as Thompson is merely the interviewer in that part of the book.

In fact, this book feels like at least two, if not three, rather separate books put together. One part is devoted to the history of ginseng in Wisconsin, where Thompson grew up, and the world (he travels to Korea, as well as China, for example). Not only does Thompson allow others to provide that background, those sections of the book have a tendency to feel like more of an information dump than anything else. The book hits its stride when Thompson explores his childhood, as well as his current relationship with his family. That part connects to Thompson’s struggles as an artist, though not as completely as it could.

Thompson is best known for Blankets — which received a number of awards — a memoir exploring his departure from the conservative Christianity of his childhood. Since then, though, his work hasn’t received the same response, either critically or in terms of sales. Thus, he questions his vocation, an artistic crisis that’s exacerbated by a pain in his drawing hand that nobody seems to be able to help heal. As with his interactions with his family, those struggles help push the book into more interesting territory. Similarly, when he brings in class and race in talking about his childhood, the book becomes more interesting.

I’m glad that Thompson worked through the paralysis he felt stuck in as he came to write this book; I just wish he would have written more about his roots as a person and an artist and less about the historical background of ginseng.

Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson. Pantheon, April 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Editor’s Choice :: Remember Us to Life

Remember Us to Life: A Graphic Memoir by Joanna Rubin Dranger book cover image

Remember Us to Life: A Graphic Memoir by Joanna Rubin Dranger
Ten Speed Graphic, April 2025

Told through a genre-defying blend of illustrations, photography, and found objects, Remember Us to Life chronicles Joanna Rubin Dranger’s investigation into her Jewish family’s history, spanning time, space, and three continents in search of her lost relatives. As discolored photos are retrieved from half-forgotten moth-eaten boxes, Joanna discovers the startling modernity and vibrancy of the lives her family never spoke about — and the devastating violence that led to their senseless murders.

Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize, Remember Us to Life recounts Joanna’s family’s immigration from Poland and Russia to Sweden and Israel, where her relatives found work, marriage, and community, blissfully unaware of the horrors to come. Interweaving these anecdotes and stories are historical accounts of the persecution of Jewish people in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia prior to and during World War II, as well as the antisemitic policies and actions of the supposedly neutral government of Sweden, Joanna’s home country. Joanna’s unflinchingly brave and intimate portrayal of one of history’s greatest tragedies will capture and break readers’ hearts.

[Editor’s Choice posts are not paid promotions. These are selected by NewPages to spotlight titles we want to share with our readers.]

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie

The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Sarah Ogilvie once worked for the Oxford English Dictionary, so she brings first-hand knowledge to her book. However, the strongest part of this work is her in-depth research — eight years in the making — to find the stories of so many people who contributed to the greatest dictionary in the English language. While some readers will be familiar with Simon Winchester’s book The Professor and the Madman (The Surgeon of Crawthorne in the UK), Ogilvie goes well beyond that to include hundreds of contributors, though there is a chapter on other contributors who spent time in mental institutions.

Ogilvie orders the book alphabetically, with subjects including H for Hopeless Contributors, K for Kleptomaniac; P for Pornographer; and V for Vicars (and Vegetarians). Through this approach, she reveals the breadth of people who shared their time and energy and (sometimes) expertise by collecting words for the OED. The only drawback to the book, in fact, is that these categories are arbitrary, at best, and constraining, at worst. However, that drawback is minor, as Ogilvie clearly needed an organizing principle to contain the multitudes who sent words to the OED, and this structure is as good as any to do so.

The book’s main strength, then, is the breadth of stories that Ogilvie was able to uncover. Using James Murray’s address book as a main source, Ogilvie tracks down the lost stories of people from all classes and all backgrounds, especially those on the margins of society, who helped create this mammoth work. She reminds readers that it was a true work of democracy, though Murray and the other editors were ultimately in charge; the dictionary simply wouldn’t exist without all of the contributors. Also, for word lovers, Ogilvie includes an array of words included in the dictionary that are there only because of the work of one person.

Because of her focus on the everyday people, Ogilvie reminds readers of what a society can accomplish when people come together. That’s a message that goes beyond the OED and one that goes beyond words themselves, especially in a world that’s so deeply divided.

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie. Vintage, October 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones

Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones book cover image

Review by Aiden Hunt

Medieval English historian Dan Jones dramatically delivers with Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King. After broader books covering the Knights Templar, the three-century Plantagenet dynasty, and the thirty-year Wars of the Roses which led to that dynasty’s end, Jones’s first biography impresses with its depth and research. The narrative draws readers into the life and times of one of the most celebrated Medieval kings.

Though Henry doesn’t become king until around the halfway mark, Jones maintains tension by foreshadowing dramatic events like Henry’s near-death at sixteen from an arrow fired at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Writing in present tense throughout, readers get young Henry’s view of his relative, and godfather, Richard II’s famous tyranny and subsequent deposition by Henry’s father. While carefully undermining certain famous characterizations, Jones recounts Henry’s maturation from the son of a Duke not in line for the throne, to warrior prince and heir, and finally to glorious king and conqueror.

The violence common in medieval histories plays a prominent role in Henry’s military accomplishments. Exploitation of civil war in France allowed Henry’s invasion and subsequent great victories at Agincourt and Harfleur, but also led to civilian horrors. Jones is clear-eyed about the “greatness” of medieval kingship impressing us less today and includes Henry’s many faults according to modern standards. Still, though sensitive readers should pass, lovers of the genre will find it a satisfying addition. Henry V lived a dramatic thirty-five years, dying at the height of his power, and Jones tells the tale with style.

Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones. Viking, October 2024.

Aiden Hunt is a writer, editor, and literary critic based in the Philadelphia, PA suburbs. He is the creator, editor, and publisher of the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review, and his reviews have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Fugue, The Rumpus, Jacket2, and The Adroit Journal, among other venues.

Book Review :: You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take by Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back

You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty by Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back book cover image

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

In You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty, longtime anti-poverty activist and Presbyterian pastor, Liz Theoharis, a veteran of the welfare rights movement and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, and writer-organizer Noam Sandweiss-Back, have written a powerful denunciation of the established truism that tells us that “the poor will always be with us.” Instead, the pair offer a detailed and often-poignant look at the ways poor people have, for many decades, mobilized on their own behalf to win respect and demand access to high-quality public education, healthcare, affordable housing, and other family supports. The book, part memoir, part polemic, part theological discussion, and part policy guide, zeroes in on wide-ranging organizing efforts and charts strategies, tactics, and goals used in grassroots campaigns. While not every effort they present was successful, the lessons learned make the book an essential primer for anyone working for progressive political change.

That said, while there are no formulas for movement building, Theoharis and Sandweiss-Back believe that anti-poverty efforts should mobilize around human rights and demand political, civil, and economic equity. Moreover, the book argues that all three are necessary components of human dignity – or should be. They also favor multi-issue campaigns, writing that it is imperative to integrate the “fight for food, water, clothing, housing, health care, and good jobs…Our power rests not in any one issue but in the multiplicity of our demands and communities coming together.” Finally, the authors remind readers of the necessity of hope. As they conclude, “successful movements never just curse the darkness; they offer new ways of illuminating the future.”

They are wise words. And despite the fact that the Right is currently ascendant, neither Theoharis nor Sandweiss-Back seems discouraged. “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress,” they conclude. Time will tell how this will play out.

You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty by Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back. Beacon Press, April 2025.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Book Review :: The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight book cover image

Review by Catherine Hayes

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Emma Knight’s debut novel, is a powerful and compelling observation of womanhood in the early 21st century. Knight explores, a time when the cultural definition of the term womanhood and women’s roles in society largely came into question after the rejection of archaic boundaries and restrictions in the face of second wave feminism in the latter half of the 20th century.

The story follows Penelope “Pen” Winters, a first year international student at the University of Edinburgh who serves as the central protagonist of the novel; Christina Lennox, a family matriarch; and Alice, Pen’s friend and fellow classmate at university. Through each character, Knight explores the silent pressures, demands, and expectations that society places on women through her examination of the institution of marriage and romantic relationships alongside the power dynamics between men and women in these scenarios. Each of the three women undergoes an individual journey of self-discovery and empowerment as they begin to recognize the restrictions and prejudices that have been placed on them simply because of their gender. Yet Knight skillfully brings these three storylines into conversation with one another as each woman plays an active role in the others’ journeys, making for a moving portrayal of female friendship and support.

A truly memorable debut novel that is intelligent and character-driven, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is an important story that sheds light on the suffocating nature of society’s archaic gender prejudices. In the end, Knight emphasizes how each woman has the power and capability to define herself and her life outside the boundaries of these definitions.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight. Pamela Dorman Books, January 2025.

Reviewer bio: Catherine Hayes graduated from Bridgewater State University with her master’s in English and currently lives in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Blood & Thunder: Musings of the Art of Medicine, MER Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, NewPages. She can be contacted on Twitter at @Catheri91642131.

Book Review :: The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst

The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The Boyhood of Cain, Michael Amherst’s debut novel, tells the story of Daniel, a middle-school-aged boy who is trying to understand his place in school, his family, and the world. Like his biblical namesake, Daniel feels like he is in a lion’s den, but it’s one he doesn’t understand, as he is not popular at school, and he has no respect for either of his parents. His father is the former head of the school he attended, but he mismanaged the finances and so left the school in disgrace. Daniel’s mother struggles with depression, eventually leading to a period of hospitalization.

Like the biblical Cain Amherst alludes to in the title, Daniel is an outcast at school, as his metaphorical offerings don’t live up to the quality of the other students, especially Philip, his friend and rival. Mr. Miller, an art teacher, initially takes Daniel into individual lessons, possibly because he sees potential in his art, but then he includes Philip, as well. Daniel goes from feeling like one of the chosen to being on the periphery again, where he has spent most of his school days. It’s clear to the reader that Mr. Miller is not a good person, but Daniel seeks his approval, as he doesn’t have any other part of life to provide him with that support.

The distance between Daniel and the reader is the strength of the book. Daniel’s narration is simple, given his age, but the reader often sees the reality of Daniel’s life in ways that he cannot. When Daniel talks about wanting to be special — even comparing himself to Jesus, at one point — the reader sees him as a typical child, solipsistic and narrow-minded. However, the reader also feels sympathy for Daniel, as most of us have had similar experiences as children, times when we didn’t understand ourselves or the world, but thought we knew more than anybody around us. Thus, while the narration is child-like, the emotions are as human as any most readers have experienced.

The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst. Riverhead Books, February 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Blood Test by Charles Baxter

Blood Test by Charles Baxter book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Charles Baxter has subtitled, Blood Test, his latest novel, “A Comedy,” and it lives up to that name, both in the sense that it is a humorous book, and the reader is never really concerned about an unhappy ending. The title refers to a test that Brock Hobson — the main character whose name everybody mispronounces — takes while at the doctor. It comes from a shadowy organization that promises to predict one’s future behavior, a joke in and of itself, as Hobson is an insurance salesman who takes no risks and lives a predictable life.

His two children suggest that he could begin breaking the law at will, even murdering somebody, given that the test results say that he will, at some point, break a law. Thus, they tell him he could argue that he had no choice in the matter. The shadowy organization even has him buy an insurance policy that retains legal counsel for when he does break the law.

The person Hobson wants to kill is Burt, the man who is now in a relationship with Cheryl, Hobson’s ex-wife. Burt seemingly has nothing redeeming about him, save for being handsome and in great shape, and he’s taken to calling Hobson and Cheryl’s son slurs because of his sexual orientation. Hobson ultimately does confront Burt about that and other issues, leading to a physical altercation and, ultimately, a type of duel.

On one hand, Baxter is raising questions about freedom and whether it can lead us to perform actions we wouldn’t otherwise undertake, and he might even be criticizing America’s reliance on guns, among other issues. However, the novel doesn’t seem to take itself seriously enough for that. Instead, Baxter invites the reader to follow along with Brock Hobson as he tries to figure out how to navigate his life as it has become more interesting after the blood test, and nobody knows where he’s going, even if a test tells him.

Blood Test by Charles Baxter. Pantheon Books, October 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Uché Blackstock’s memoir begins by talking about her mother, who was also a doctor and who served as the inspiration for Blackstock and her sister’s both pursuing degrees in medicine from Harvard. Her mother died in her early forties, but Blackstock continues looking back for what she can learn from how her mother lived.

The middle part of the memoir focuses on Blackstock’s medical education, where she not only encounters overt racism, but the much more subtle racism laced throughout the healthcare industry, including some beliefs about African Americans that remain from the 1800s. She eventually finds what should be her dream job at NYU only for her to continue to struggle against the racism built into such institutions.

She transitions into work that we would now call DEI, but she receives no meaningful support. In fact, she learns that people want the cover of such offices, but don’t want any meaningful change. COVID-19 impacts her work life rather dramatically, as she spends much more time working in hospitals at that point, and she quickly notices how many of the patients look more like her than she is used to seeing.

Ultimately, she leaves academic medicine, shifting her focus to health equity to try to counter the racism within healthcare systems. She questions both the legacy of racism/slavery in such systems, as well as her legacy from her mother, wondering about the choices her mother made in a system that was even more overtly racist than the one Blackstock finds herself in. She ends the book with direct suggestions to a wide variety of audiences of how they can begin the work of making healthcare more equitable, leaving the reader with a sense that there are solutions, as opposed to leaving them with feelings of despair.

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock. Penguin Books, 2024

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Gliff by Ali Smith

Gliff by Ali Smith book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The word gliff has a variety of definitions, one of which — now long since out of use — is “to make a slip in reading.” In that line, Ali Smith’s most recent novel seems a simple story, a dystopian tale about two children, Briar and Rose, who are unverifiables, people who are living off the grid, after their mother and (maybe) step-father go missing.

Along the way, they meet Colon (that seems to really be his name) who has a horse that Rose tries to buy, a horse she names Gliff. They also live with other unverifiables for a brief period of time. Smith never explains what has happened in the broader society to lead to whatever dystopian world now exists, but the monitoring certainly feels like something that could happen in any society today (there are also references throughout to Brave New World, though Smith isn’t concerned with the same questions Huxley was, as she’s writing about a different world than he could imagine).

It’s also never clear what Briar and Rose’s mother did that would lead to her being removed from the society or fleeing the society to avoid that removal, but Briar clearly doesn’t fit into the gender binary of this world. Smith doesn’t mention how they present their gender for much of the novel, but they ultimately encounter the world outside of their community of unverifiables, a situation that pushes Briar to choose one side of the binary.

The reader gets to see a bit of that world, as Briar has a good job a few years after having to make that choice. Ultimately, though, they encounter somebody else, somebody with news about Rose that reminds Briar who they once were and who they might still be. Though this novel seems to cover “a short space of time; a moment,” possibly only offering “a passing view; a glance, glimpse” of this world (other definitions for gliff), Smith clearly conveys the oppressive views of those who seek to impose their ideas — especially about gender and heteronormativity — on others, but she also reminds readers that there are ways to resist.

Gliff by Ali Smith. Pantheon Books, February 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson

The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson book cover image

Review by Aiden Hunt

In The Infernal Machine, Steven Johnson tells a story of explosive political violence, boosted in the late 19th century by Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite (later dubbed “infernal machines” by the press), and culminating in the U.S. Red Scare arrests and deportations of 1919-20. While some of the actors are well-known to history, such as anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, along with their eventual persecutor, J. Edgar Hoover, Johnson also follows lesser-known creators and early adopters of modern policing techniques, like fingerprint analysis and bomb disposal, to combat the threat.

Following the destruction trail of dynamite, Johnson shows how Nobel’s invention was soon adapted by radicals opposed to oppression and the capitalist order. It featured increasingly in political violence from the high-profile assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, to the U.S. organized labor campaigns around the century’s turn, the intimidating blasts of the extortionist Black Hand in the aughts, and the prominent Italian anarchist bombing wave that swept the U.S. in 1919. Johnson weaves accounts of anarchist events from the writings of Goldman and Berkman with the creation of modern police surveillance techniques to provide an even-handed and satisfying account from both sides.

While some readers may bristle at the foundation of a surveillance state that continues to flourish, Johnson tactfully acknowledges these perils while providing the compelling reasons for its creation. Beginning his story in the Russian “old country,” Johnson returns there after Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and 247 other leading “alien anarchists” are deported in December 1919 to revolutionary Russia and its nascent civil war. However, the U.S. revolutions in both political violence and state control would continue to shape our future.

The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson. Crown, May 2024.

Reviewer bio: Aiden Hunt is a writer, editor, and literary critic based in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. He is the editor and creator of the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review, an online journal of poetry and poetics, focusing on chapbooks. Aiden’s critical work has been published, or is forthcoming, in The Adroit Journal, Jacket2, The Rumpus and Fugue, among others venues.

Book Review :: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses his most recent book, The Message, to a group of students enrolled in his writing class in 2022, calling them “comrades,” as he believes they all have an obligation to tell the truth through journalism. His first, brief essay—almost an introduction—provides his background and why he became interested in journalism, drawing on a Sports Illustrated story, as well as references to Shakespeare, Rakim, Audre Lorde, and Frederick Douglass. His father also helped point him in the direction of using research to understand important questions.

The rest of the book centers around three trips Coates took: to Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine. In Senegal, he visits places important in the sale of enslaved people, coming to understand that part of that story is myth—not the inhumanity, unfortunately, but the idea that there is a particular place that encapsulates all of that inhumanity, or that the inhumanity came only through colonization. He visits South Carolina to support a teacher who had allegedly violated a state law passed against teaching “critical race theory”; during a school board meeting he learns there are allies, as well as opponents.

The trip to Palestine is the longest section of the book, as Coates spends five days in Palestine for a literary festival and five days on the Israeli side. It is this section where Coates has his most dramatic epiphany, as he once compared the plight of the Israelis to formerly enslaved African Americans when he was making the argument for reparations. He sees, though, that Israel has now become an apartheid state, that those whom Germany once oppressed have now become the oppressor of others. Coates goes even further to show readers how Germany took the idea of race-based oppression from the United States and how Israel ultimately aligned themselves with South Africa.

Behind each of his trips, though, is the idea of what stories don’t get told. Whether that’s what he didn’t know about Senegal, what lawmakers in South Carolina were trying to keep students from learning, or how the media covers the oppression in Palestine—especially telling is that almost no major news outlet publishes work by people of Palestinian descent—Coates wants readers to dig deeper and find out what they’re not hearing.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. One World, October 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Colored Television by Danzy Senna

Colored Television by Danzy Senna book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Colored Television, Danzy Senna’s latest novel, follows Jane, an English professor working on her second novel—centered around the idea of the mulatto (Jane’s term; she is mixed-race)—for a decade. She now needs to complete that novel as her sabbatical is ending, and she needs the publication to earn tenure. She and her husband Lenny—an artist who only produces art he believes in, whether that earns him any money or not, and it’s more often not—along with their two children, have moved from one living situation to another over that time.

They begin this novel having moved into a fabulous house owned by Brett, one of Jane’s friends from graduate school, though Jane believes he has sold out by becoming a screenwriter and script doctor. Jane, however, begins to follow him down that path, as her novel draft, which she finally finishes, is a dead end, according to her publisher and agent. She emails Brett’s agent, who then puts her in touch with Hampton Ford, a television producer who is interested in producing diverse content.

Without telling Lenny, Jane begins meeting with Hampton to discuss a series that explores a family of mixed-race characters, much like Jane’s, in a sitcom setting. Jane is enamored of the life Brett has, and she consistently envisions her family living that life, as she believes she just needs one break to escape the supposed poverty she lives in.

While Senna is certainly exploring race in her novel, she equally critiques class, especially the greed that can drive one to ignore all that one already has in life, as Jane seeks to live a life that Lenny and the children have no interest in. While the ending of the novel is a bit pat, the questions that Senna raises are anything but.

Colored Television by Danzy Senna. Riverhead Books, September 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The New York Times Book Review used to have a question in their weekly interview with authors where they would ask that author what book the President should read. The answers were often rather enlightening, but they became more political when Donald Trump was in the White House, which is when, I believe, the newspaper stopped asking the question. Matthew Desmond’s book would be a good answer, no matter who the President is, so I’m sorry that question isn’t there any longer.

Desmond lays out a solid argument that the poverty in America isn’t accidental, and it isn’t a result of laziness on the part of those who are poor. Instead, poverty is due to a concerted effort by politicians and corporations. The policies in the U.S. create poverty and keep people in that situation under the guise of a scarcity of resources. Similarly, corporations claim they cannot afford to pay workers more or they will have to charge consumers more for their products, all while recording record profits and bonuses for CEOs.

Desmond doesn’t let the average reader—white and at least middle class—off the hook, either. He points out that many government benefits actually make life better for people who are not poor—whether that be the ability to write off mortgage interest or zoning laws that drive up housing prices—not those who need the most help.

Thus, he calls on readers to vote and act in such a way to help alleviate poverty, especially by supporting companies that actually pay their employees a living wage (he doesn’t name particularly egregious businesses, such as Amazon, but they readily come to mind). However, real change has to come at the policy level, as poverty is, in fact, by design, so the solutions will need to be, as well.

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond. Crown, March 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Throughout Mengestu’s writing career, he has created characters who have trouble connecting with others, who have some sort of distance from others and themselves. Usually, that breakdown in relationships comes from their lack of recognition of the trauma they’ve suffered, frequently from their experience as refugees or immigrants.

Someone Like Us, his latest novel is no different, as he tells the story of Mamush, a journalist living in Paris with his wife Hannah, with whom he has a young son. However, Mamush spends almost the entire novel traveling to Washington, DC, where he grew up, reflecting on his life with his mother and Samuel, a father figure who might also be his father.

Mamush and Hannah’s marriage is on the verge of collapsing. Their son suffers from some ailment that has sapped his energy and seems to be taking his life from him. Whenever Mamush leaves home, Hannah wonders if he will come back. Similarly, Mamush’s career as a journalist has effectively ended. He became known for writing stories about immigrants from Africa, but those stories were always about tragedies that happened to them, not successes they had.

Samuel and Mamush’s mother have a complicated past that involves living in Europe, as well as Chicago, where they both were arrested, before moving to Washington, DC. However, neither of them will talk about it, and Mamush is unable to discover what happened. Like Mamush, Samuel seems incapable of building true relationships.

Near the end of the novel, Mengestu merges the past and present, questioning even the reliability of the story Mamush and Samuel have been telling. When one has been through trauma, stories become unreliable, but they also become the only thing one has to hold onto. Mengestu gives the reader one more such story, leaving it open to the reader to find hope in the midst of loss.

Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu. Alfred A. Knopf, July 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The Alternatives—Caoilinn Hughes’s third novel—begins with four chapters that follow four sisters going about their daily lives. Those lives are disrupted when Olwin, the eldest, leaves her family in the middle of the night and goes missing. The rest of the novel focuses on the three sisters finding Olwin and having conversations—or avoiding conversations—about who they are and what they value, often through accusations as much as confessions.

Their parents died when they were teenagers, a death that shaped them all in quite different ways, offering readers at least one meaning of Hughes’s title. Olwin raises them after their parents’ deaths, which is partly why her disappearance bothers the other sisters even more than one might expect. Rather than simply finding out that she is still alive and doing well, for example, they all converge on her to have a sort of intervention. It’s during those moments in the novel when the reader finds out more about their childhood and their parents’ deaths, as they each view that time in their life differently, yet another meaning of the title.

Hughes’s structure mirrors the dramatic stakes of the novel by literally shifting into dramatic form. When the sisters have found Olwin, Hughes twice shifts to writing the novel as if it were a play, as they discover more about each other as they are now and how they view their pasts. Such an approach doesn’t lose the characters’ interior thoughts, though, as Hughes allows those thoughts to appear in what one would typically see as stage directions. As with life, Hughes doesn’t leave her characters with closure; instead, they try to forge some semblance of a life out of the struggles they all face. As we all do, they will do the best they can.

The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes. Riverhead Books, April 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Bear by Julia Phillips

Bear by Julia Phillips book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The epigraph of Bear comes from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about Snow-white and Rose-red, setting up Phillips’ modern-day fairy tale about two sisters, so readers should expect a bit of the fantastic. Given the echoes of fairy tales that run throughout the novel, the reader might expect the bear of the title to serve as a symbol or metaphor, perhaps even turning the story into an allegory. However, Phillips avoids that trap, focusing instead on the relationship between Sam and Elena, two sisters roughly a year and a half apart in age. Or, at least, she focuses on Sam’s view of that relationship, as readers get her thoughts on life, but not Elena’s.

They live on an island off the coast of Washington that relies on tourism, and they are struggling to survive. Their mother is sick after years of working in a nail salon, so they have accumulated serious debt. They both have service industry jobs—Elena at the country club and Sam selling concessions on the ferry—leaving them with only the house as an asset, the house where their grandmother lived, then their mother, and now them. Sam is waiting until their mother dies, so they can sell the house and leave the island forever.

In the midst of their day-to-day lives, a bear arrives—an oddity on their island—and they react in opposite ways to its appearance. Their reactions drive the plot, revealing more about them than the reader and they, perhaps, know. Some fairy tales end with a “happily ever after,” leading readers to wonder whether the sisters’ relationship will ever be the same again.

Bear by Julia Phillips. Hogarth, June 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Brotherless Night, V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Women’s-Prize-winning novel, clearly portrays the horrors of the Sri Lankan civil war of the 1980s and following. Sashi is a teenager when the book opens, and the book follows her over the next decade or so as the civil war affects every aspect of her life. She has four brothers, all of whom have some relationship to the war; the title of the novel, in fact, refers to the first night she spent without at least one of her brothers present, and it represents the beginning of the war.

Sashi works in a field hospital for the Tamil rebels, mainly due to the request of K., a childhood friend she would have married, if not for the war. Ganeshananthan portrays the horrific actions of the Sri Lankan and Indian government armies, but she also clearly conveys what the Tamil rebels do, not only to those government soldiers, but also to the civilian population and other rebel groups.

No entity is innocent here, and Sashi reflects that complexity. Though she disagrees with the Tamil Tigers’ actions, she works in the field hospital to try to make sure nobody dies for lack of medical care. She also works to expose the immoral actions they have taken. Ganeshananthan draws heavily on research, even basing one of Sashi’s professors on a real professor and activist, but it is the humanizing portrayal of the wide range of characters that gives this novel its power. Her care for her characters reflects the suffering so many endured throughout the years of the war, showing the reader just how much so many have lost, while their care for each other reveals how much humanity remains.

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan. Random House, January 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

There’s not much plot to Headshot, Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel—eight girls engage in a boxing tournament in a run-down gym in Reno, Nevada—but that’s not the point. The novel is largely structured around each fight with chapters getting progressively shorter and each focusing more on the lives and psychology of the two girls involved in the fight than on what actually happens in the fight itself.

There is a line from The Matrix: Reloaded, where Seraph, the character whose job it is to guard the oracle, fights Neo. When he explains to Neo that he had to know that Neo wasn’t an enemy, Neo responds, “You could’ve just asked.” Seraph replies, “No. You do not truly know someone until you fight them.” These eight girls seem to understand each other better than anybody in their lives, and they come to an understanding of themselves, because they fight.

None of them go on to box in the remainder of their lives, some of them even forgetting about this time in their lives, but their understanding of themselves remains. Boxing serves as a metaphor for the lineage of women understanding one another in this world, as they move in concert with one another, responding to one another, partners in a dance that will carry them through their lives.

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel. Viking, March 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review of Memory Piece by Lisa Ko

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Lisa Ko’s second novel follows three Asian-American women—Giselle, Ellen, and Jackie—who meet as teenagers, then remain close for the rest of their lives, though they see each other infrequently. Giselle becomes a performance artist, Ellen transforms a house she and others squatted into a type of communal living space, and Jackie revolutionizes the tech industry, careers and passions that seem far removed from one another.

However, they are all creators of some sort, even artists, though the world seems bent on preventing them from becoming so. They encounter sexism and misogyny, racism, and capitalist expectations, working together and separately to overcome (or simply thwart) those barriers and demands, to find success in their own ways. Ko moves the novel from the 1980s of their teenage years all the way to a future beyond their deaths to explore the ways in which they impact their world and how they become the women they need to be to survive and thrive in that world.

Underneath their different pursuits, they are all trying to answer the same questions that all artists are trying to answer, the questions Giselle knows an interviewer is really asking her: “HOW DO YOU LIVE (HOW DARE YOU LIVE) WHAT DO YOU DO (WHAT SHOULD WE DO) HOW DO WE LIVE HOW DO WE DIE WHAT DO WE NEED TO HEAR.”

Ko’s novel provides three different answers to those questions, but, more importantly, it asks the readers to find the answers in their lives.

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko. Riverhead Books, March 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Outlive by Peter Attia

Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

In Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity, unlike many books about longevity, Peter Attia’s goal isn’t to provide the reader with life hacks or technology that will help readers live until they’re one hundred and fifty. Instead, he lays out what he calls the Four Horsemen—“cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions, and type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunction”—with a clear-eyed approach of just how awful they are, as well as what causes them, as far as we know.

He then explores tactics that can help readers try to stave off those Horsemen, though he argues that we should start decades, not just years, earlier to do so (Medicine 3.0, as opposed to the current healthcare system, which he calls Medicine 2.0). He delves into the research on exercise, nutrition, stability, and emotional health to show how they can all work to help prevent suffering and decline.

In fact, the most important part of his book is that he wants people to have a longer healthspan (the amount of time we’re healthy and functional), not just lifespan. He wants people to be able to live full lives in their seventies and eighties, not just live longer
Readers looking for a how-to manual might be disappointed, but Attia clearly explains the realities facing people as they age and gives them strategies and tactics for how to live a long and functional life.

Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford. Harmony Books, 2023.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Fatimah Asghar’s novel, When We Were Sisters, tells the story of three sisters who are orphaned, as was Asghar. Their uncle, who remains unnamed throughout the work, takes them in, not to actually care for them, but to use the money from their father’s death to fund his get-rich schemes that never work. The girls fend for themselves, often going hungry for days or weeks, living in squalorous conditions. They also have to work through their emotional struggles on their own, leading to trauma and suffering, especially for Kausar, the youngest sister and primary narrator of the novel. She portrays the sisters as watching out for one another, referring to them as sister-brothers or sister-mothers periodically in an attempt to show their toughness and their ability to nurture one another; however, Kausar realizes late in the novel that her perception has not been accurate. Asghar is a poet—this is her first novel—and her short sections feel almost like prose poems, at times; she even intersperses more poetic sections from the point of view of “him” and “her,” the sisters’ dead parents. Given their childhood, readers should be amazed at how well the sisters are able to manage largely on their own, but readers will also spend the novel wondering about the misogyny and greed that leads to their having to.

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar. One World, October 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.