Category: Essays and Reviews
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Horror in Revision: On the Contemporary Gothic
For LARB, I wrote about three contemporary books that are revising and rewriting gothic novels: Chase Berggrun’s R E D (Birds LLC, 2018), Sarah Perry’s Melmoth (Custom House, 2018), and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (Penguin, 2018). You can read the essay here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/horror-in-revision-on-the-contemporary-gothic/#!
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Odds and Ends: Fictive Probability in Helen DeWitt’s “Some Trick”
For LARB, I reviewed Helen DeWitt’s short story collection Some Trick (New Directions, 2018). My review contextualizes the collection in DeWitt’s larger career and thinks through her simultaneous representation and engagement with her characterization as a “brilliant” writer. Read it here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/odds-and-ends-fictive-probability-in-helen-dewitts-some-trick/
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Review of madison moore’s Fabulous
For Full Stop, I reviewed madison moore’s Fabulous (Yale University Press, 2018). Read it here: https://www.full-stop.net/2018/04/17/reviews/adam-fales/fabulous-madison-moore/
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See? On Jenny Xie’s Eye Level
For Debutantes (now Debbie), I reviewed Jenny Xie’s poetry collection Eye Level (Graywolf Press, 2018). Read it here: https://debutantes.squarespace.com/lessai/2018/4/4/see-on-jenny-xies-eye-level
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Here Comes the Sun
For Real Life, I wrote an essay about the history of morning shows and one recent attempt to revamp the morning show for Twitter. I use this history to think about the regulation of time and the way that we sync our schedules together. Read it here: https://reallifemag.com/here-comes-the-sun/
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If Walt Whitman’s language provided the basis of a book called Better Nature that reworked his journals and poetry to show their colonizing implications; if that book were to be reviewed in Debutantes
For Debutantes (now Debbie), I reviewed Fenn Stewart’s poetry collection Better Nature (BookThug, 2017). Read my review here: https://debutantes.squarespace.com/lessai/2018/1/3/if-walt-whitmans-language-provided-the-basis-of-a-book-called-better-nature-that-reworked-his-journals-and-poetry-to-show-their-colonizing-implications-if-that-book-were-to-be-reviewed-in-debutantes
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Review of Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban
For Full Stop, I reviewed the reissue of Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban (New Directions, 2017). This essay was collected in The Full Stop Reviews Supplement #3. Read it here: https://www.full-stop.net/2017/12/06/reviews/adam-fales/mrs-caliban-rachel-ingalls/
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What a Punderful Word: On Joanna Walsh’s “Worlds from the Word’s End”
For LARB, I reviewed Joanna Walsh’s short story collection Worlds from the Word’s End (And Other Stories, 2017). This review follows up on some literary theoretical research I had done on puns, as they are taken up by poets like Harryette Mullen. This review particularly attends to the way that Walsh uses the pun as a form of thought to create inventive and surprising connections that would not be knowable otherwise. Read it here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/what-a-punderful-word-on-joanna-walshs-worlds-from-the-words-end/
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Foreign Companion: Jean Giono’s “Melville: A Novel”
For LARB, I reviewed Jean Giono’s Melville: A Novel (NYRB Classics, 2017). This review thinks through the fictionalization of Herman Melville’s biography and its resonances with the French context of Giono’s own writing. Read more here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/foreign-companion-jean-gionos-melville-a-novel/
Adam Fales 