“For a book that is in many ways a ghost story,” reviewer Jesi Buell writes, “Brandeis removes the magical, fabled elements and makes the reader focus on the real-life consequences of violence committed against girls’ bodies.”
(review)
Maybe if I’m busy thinking about COVID-19, I won’t have room to think about the living, screaming person that will soon detach itself from my own person.
(nonfiction)
After all, as Camus reminds us, plague never really dies.
(nonfiction)
All night long I replayed the five minutes we had spent at this tourist attraction, trying to remember if I had gotten close to any strangers.
(nonfiction)
The men frequently give aliases; as simple as John Smith or as attention-seeking as Carlos Danger. She guesses that they believe her name to be an alias too.
(fiction)
My wife, who is usually in charge of buying groceries, seemed perplexed by some of my purchases for outlasting the apocalypse.
(nonfiction)
He wore a pair of faded bib overalls over a black NASCAR tee shirt, a red “Make America Great Again” hat, and held in one hand the electrician-taped handle of a bulging duffel bag and in the other, a leash attached to the pale pink, rhinestone studded collar of a doleful looking Harlequin Great Dane.
(fiction)
“Wisel writes about domestic violence, drug abuse, poverty, and the inability to connect to others in ways that maintain healthy boundaries,” writes Sarah Sorensen.
(review)
“”History of an Executioner’ brings us to the verge of existentialism, the point where the protagonist must decide for himself at last,” reviewer Andrew Farkas writes.
(review)
How does one “shelter in place” when one has limited shelter?
(nonfiction)
In the city that some used to call the Seattle of Italy, nowadays you can only overdose on poetry.
(nonfiction)
The coronavirus has made me feel more connected to the world than I have felt in a long time.
(nonfiction)
“What have they been feeding you in here?” I ask.
“A bunch of bullshit!”
(nonfiction)
“At a time when the world’s focus is drawn to the humanitarian crisis of children wrenched from their parents at America’s southern border, the damage that is being done to these young psyches is immense and unknowable… Abraham’s gripping tale of innocence lost in contemporary Lagos could just as easily be set in these migrant prisons,” writes Carol Haggas.
(review)
What if, having escaped Hitler, Gidon is killed by a microscopic bug?
“If I had been chewing gum, I would’ve swallowed it right there,” Jefferson Navicky writes upon reading Maureen Seaton.
(review)
Each panel felt a little like The Decameron, where we listened and told stories while the weight of the plague swung over us like a poorly-anchored chandelier.
(nonfiction)
“Whether V’s and June’s story is your or my family story,” writes Chelsea Biondodillo, “it is still our story and it should rattle and anger even as it hollows out a soft spot in the heart for these fierce and sorrowful unsung stories.”
(review)
“Love As The World Ends”
“If This Next Apocalypse Gets Canceled Or Postponed”
(nonfiction)
Michael McColly writes: “Farber states what is obvious for anyone who’s spent any time or been affected by America’s massive prison industrial complex: ‘Sometimes, we need to stare at the drear reaches of our national soul to understand who we are and who we wish to be.’”
(review)
“Would you like to go for a dinner, let’s say in one or two months, if restaurant will be reopened by that time?” I imagine he would ask.
(nonfiction)
And I was looking for barbarians. I still am. I always am. I’ve seen so many. Haven’t you?
(The Loop)
“With composed brevity and a hip, off-brand optimism, Polek mines a bottomless crevasse of depressive inclinations and self-imposed disembodiment,” writes Loie Rawding.
(review)
I turn around and gain elevation so I won’t be tempted. It’s her turn to hunt.
(fiction)
Mary Ann seemed more at ease, and eventually turned to Greta to ask, “Does your son obey you?”
Greta smiled, “No. Does anyone’s?”
(fiction)
Professional Skills: Steel-driving, of course
(fiction)
ACM is pleased as punch that we get to publish Leanne Grabel’s work every month.
(The Loop)
Another Chicago Magazine 