There’s a lot going on in Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves, but at its heart the novel explores culpability and guilt. The first page of the novel explains that our protagonist, Linda, held and hugged a boy, Paul, who died. What follows is how Paul died, and more significantly, why he died (as his death, we learn, was far from inevitable). Continue reading
Category Archives: Prize Winner
History of Wolves: Booker Prize shortlist meet Minnesota winter; or, what to read on your holiday break
Filed under American literature, Book Club, Booker Prize, Fiction, Prize Winner
Autumn: It’s okay to have feelings. I hope.
Ali Smith writes very, very good novels, and very good ones and then this one. Autumn is, in my fanciful hierarchy of good, very, very, very good. Mark that as three ‘very’s’. It has gorgeous writing and a lyrical tone and pacing that wraps you up and whisks you away without you realizing it. Eventually you look up and realize you’ve been reading for an hour and it’s time to X whatever chore your life demands you do instead of reading. Continue reading
Filed under British literature, Fiction, Prize Winner
His Bloody Project: Blerg.
I couldn’t remember the title of this book when I sat down to write, so I popped into google the things I could remember: novel, nineteenth century, crofter, bloody, murder, Scotland. And pop! Google knew exactly the title because there aren’t many novels set in the 1880s Scotland about a murderous crofter. (Probably there’s just this one.) Google also wanted me to know that Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author. You probably wanted to know, too. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Booker Prize, Fiction, Prize Winner
Literary Vice 