Category Archives: Fiction

April 24, 2026 · 6:55 pm

The Guardian and the Thief

Who knew a book so heartbreaking could be so suspenseful. Maybe there are lots of examples? Well here is one: Megha Majumdar’s The Guardian and the Thief. Set in the near-future of India where the climate catastrophe has brought famine and social/political unrest we follow two families as they try – in their unique ways – to escape the conditions that keep them hungry and suffering.

A terrific book for any course wanting to consider ‘social determinants of health’ the book sets up in stark terms (somehow without being annoying about it) the way class intersects with bodies – where they can go, what they can expect, and how they will thrive or fail.

For this reader it was a sort of awe at the way Majumdar manipulates sympathy – vacillating between Ma and Boomba, but then also for Ma and Boomba amid an environment where they are set up to make – in their various ways – chillingly choices about who and what to prioritize, and at what cost. And while it is meant to be the near future, it feels urgent and present in ways that were/are unsettling and uncomfortable: what are we willing to look away from to prioritize our immediate family, ourselves? What will we hoard – if not food, then land, or transportation, or access – and how much do we need to imagine ourselves safe (and from what, or whom) and for how long?

Over the course of one week we are kept in suspense and agony for what they can each control and what is wrested from them. And beautiful writing that lets the reader slip inside the story and align, betray, align again with characters without noticing that the story is being spun.

Go, go and enjoy, while being prepared to be asked to reckon with what you might give up and what you might take so as to save who you claim as your own.

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March 16, 2026 · 1:47 pm

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: In which I try to convince myself this vampire book is something more than a vampire book

Victoria Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is the kind of book you will see on racks promising it will be an absorbing read (and it sort of is) and that is also literary (I’m less convinced) and also important or thematically rich (not really). But if you want a bit of a romp through lesbian vampires who are also complex because they Hunger (and at what point does hunger erase the vestiges of humanity?) and because they extract and exact Power – then sure, go for it.

I guess the parts most interesting are the way the different women-turned-vampires experience power and control. Sabine, the oldest and most badass of the vampires abuses her lover-turned-vampire-companion, Lottie. Lottie then exercises the limited control she has as an abuse victim – reckoning with her powerlessness against Sabine and demonstrating the oft trod adage that ‘leaving is rarely an event,’ which is to say, leaving an abusive relationship takes (according to the AI overview), on average, seven attempts. This part of the book – the reasons people stay in abusive relationships that are real (money, security, even love), the cycle of remorse and honeymoon and building tension and trigger, the way in which the past can haunt (in this case literally) – was the most interesting to me.

That said, I found it – in the end – over-the-top and as satisfied with itself for being intense as if it could just be the book without being so sure of its darkness and thematic complexity. I guess a similar reaction to reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – same themes there (tortured immortality and the disintegration of self). So while a million places will recommend this book to you, take it from me and skip it – it is not nearly as interesting as it wants you to think it is.

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March 16, 2026 · 1:23 pm

Flesh: Weird and great

It’s hard to describe the narrative style of David Szalay’s Flesh, except maybe to say it’s unsettling? Other reviews describe it as ‘sparse,’ which I guess is a nod to the matter-of-fact descriptions and the abrupt changes to our protagonist, István’s, life. Like between two paragraphs he murders a man (accidentally?) and then in the gap between chapters goes to prison or war or or or.

I happened to enjoy the (somewhat jarring) jumps in time and the oddity of István as a protagonist (like he seems primarily motivated by whatever holds his attention in the moment, and achingly insecure), but I can see how another reader might find the narration hard to settle in to or missing something (though not the Booker jury who awarded it the 2025 prize).

There’s probably an undergraduate essay or thesis to be made of the representation of women in the novel – from the opening older woman (a gasp, 40 something) who first seduces István and then teaches him how to be an attentive lover until he (problematically) falls in love with her to the rich woman he chauffeurs around before (series of spoilers and events) marrying her and settling into a life of wealth and leisure (though it’s a stretch to say he settles in because isn’t he always a bit at odds with it all). Women then are tempting and distracting and absorbing – and (understandably because the book is about István) represented as in service to István’s character development.

Anyway, I liked it though I’m not sure I’d recommend it? Like maybe you have to be in the right mood for something kinda weird and different. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

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March 16, 2026 · 1:09 pm

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Necessary Edits

Dear Suzanne Collins,

What were you thinking? Maybe you were thinking that writing a prequel to the Hunger Games was a necessary extension of its literary universe. That you wanted, in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, to understand the motivations of the villain in the Hunger Games universe (Coriolanus Snow) and you thought giving us an epic 500+ page deep dive into his history would demonstrate the (repeated with a brick to the head obviousness) theme that people are complex and no one comes to bad choices without context.

While I hold the possibility that you were driven by artistic commitment to further exploration of these characters and their world, I’ll admit there were moments – tiny moments, really – where I doubted. Where I thought it might be possible you were writing this bloated and thematically obvious book to make a little more money. Cashing in, if you will.

And sure, the book started with a promising premise: Coriolanus and his family have lost everything and he needs to find a path back to fortune using his wits (and his female cousin’s body)(and his female tribute’s body). The Hunger Games are going to be that path and it’s interesting to see the games before they are ‘the games’ we know from Katniss. And maybe, just maybe, if the book had stopped at the point of the completion of the hunger games and we’d had something like a resolution there it might have avoided becoming (as it is) an exhausting slog through Who Even Cares Anymore to get to his eventual restoration.

It is a book that did not need to be written, and when it was, would have – should have – benefited from a sharp edit. That’s just my opinion though, and I am but one reader among the millions who bought the book or watched the movie. (To be clear: I borrowed my copy from the library and wouldn’t encourage anyone to spend actual dollars on it).

Respectfully,

E

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