Tag: Review

A Tale of Two Valleys

For Public Books, I wrote about Anna Wiener's memoir Uncanny Valley and the HBO tv show Silicon Valley. In grappling with the history and present of Silicon Valley, these both rely on nineteenth-century narratives and tropes to craft their own visions of contemporary capitalism. Read it here: https://www.publicbooks.org/a-tale-of-two-valleys/

All That Is Solid Melts Into Smoke

For Chicago Review, I wrote a review of HBO's show High Maintenance. My review tries to understand the conditions of labor depicted by the show and how it reveals the way we stay attached to certain modes of hope and life in contemporary capitalism. Read more here: https://www.chicagoreview.org/all-that-is-solid-melts-into-smoke/

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/#!

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/

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

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/