Reviewed by Tanya Marquardt Larissa Lai, The Tiger Flu (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018), 334 pp., $19.95. Winner of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, Larissa Lai’s novel The Tiger Flu invites us into a lyrical world that melds seamlessly with her rendering of place, telling a...
Reviewed by Asam Ahmad Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Mariner, 2018), 280 pp., $16. Near the end of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee writes: “The story of your life, described, will not describe how you came to think about your life or yourself, nor...
Reviewed by Matthew Walsh Hasan Namir, War/Torn (Book*hug Press, 2019), 114 pp., $18. Hasan Namir, celebrated author of the novel, God in Pink (winner of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction), is back on the literary scene with his essential debut book of poetry, War/Torn, published by...
Reviewed by Marie-Hélène Westgate Zahra Patterson, Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), 96 pp., $14. Not by accident, Zahra Patterson grants us entry into her long-form nonfiction essay, Chronology, through failure. The action of the book centers around Patterson’s inability to translate a...
Reviewed by Lucas Crawford Emilia Nielsen, Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), 100 pp., $17.95. My skin tells non-linear tales: a series of abandoned forays into shrinkage and growth; into sun exposure and cooking burns (reader, do not cook fatty proteins sans shirt); into stretched pores and the...
Reviewed by Asam Ahmad Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Random House, 2019), 368 pp., $28.00. In his first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, the poet Ocean Vuong creates scenes of magisterial beauty through a heartfelt and earnest exploration of grief, desire, pain...
