Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding would make the perfect graduation present. That’s not to imply that one will necessarily outgrow this novel, only that it is preoccupied with the sort of questions most of us first grapple with in early adulthood. What are my ambitions? Who are my friends? What counts as success? The charm of this novel is that it approaches these concerns as earnestly as its college-aged characters do, but without the same angst. To put it another way, The Art of Fielding lacks pretension. With its short sentences, short chapters, and simple themes, The Art of Fielding is a novel unafraid to use what one character describes as, “those big little words: love, work, art.” Continue reading "Notable Debut of the Year: The Art of Fielding"…
Tottenville Blog
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A Talk with Amy Brill
18 Jun 2013
Interviewed by Amy Kandathill
Amy Brill’s debut novel The Movement of Starsis a story of uncommon depth and precision. Inspired by the life of the mid-19th century scientist Maria Mitchell, Brill weaves an astral tale of a young astronomer’s diligent search for the next comet amidst the complex hypocrisy of race relations thirty years before America celebrated its centennial.
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Tao Lin’s ‘Taipei’
13 Jun 2013
Reviewed by Pat Finn
Taipei follows Paul, a Brooklyn-based twentysomething writer resembling Lin who drifts in and out of parties, relationships, and various chemically induced states of consciousness.
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A Talk with Katherine Angel
6 Jun 2013
Interviewed by Meredith Turits
In Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell, Katherine Angel opens up. This month marks the Stateside publication of the U.K. scholar’s poetic rumination on gender, sexuality, and, of course, desire.
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Curtis White’s ‘The Science Delusion’
5 Jun 2013
Reviewed by Pat Finn
The Science Delusion is essentially an artist’s polemic, not only against the New Atheists but against the ideology they recommend as an alternative to religion.
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Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War
22 May 2013
Reviewed by Jeff Price
In the new gripping and important anthology with a foreword by Colum McCann, short stories about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars hauntingly unfold and reveal truths about our deepest fears and desires.
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Bennett Sims’ ‘A Questionable Shape’
20 May 2013
Reviewed by David Burr Gerrard
A Questionable Shape is ostensibly about zombies, but Sims is much less interested in chase scenes and infection countdowns than in using undeath to explore memory, home, family, love, and the question what makes a person a person rather than a zombie?
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Santiago Roncagliolo’s ‘Hi, This is Conchita’
16 May 2013
Reviewed by Nicole Casamento
Hi, This is Conchitaoffers an encompassing view of the ways we become detached from intimacy and the painful, misguided ways in which we attempt to retrieve it.
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Interview: Claire Messud
13 May 2013
Interviewed by David Burr Gerrard
Esteemed writer and academic, Claire Messud, discusses her new novel The Woman Upstairs,its controversial reception, and our entangled forms of media.
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A Talk with Amy Brill
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