Literature

Contemporary literature is one of those four-dimensional things that seem to expand whenever you take a closer look. No one really knows more than a corner of it, perhaps a very large one, but a corner nevertheless. This quality, this mercuriality, of literature makes it more endless than any ocean, more filled with uncharted islands

When people think about loss, what usually comes to mind is the death of a loved one, but there are so many other things we have to let go of, and say goodbye to, as we move through life—relationships (romantic and otherwise), youth, health, homes, innocence, life as we know it. We are always saying

Orbits, Collisions, and Ricochets by Amethyst Loscocco My father and I gazed at the comet searing the night horizon. As he sometimes did after dinner, he had pulled out a small army-green telescope bought at a yard sale and placed it on top of our blue station wagon, where it stood at an easy height

Because a love story must occur between two particular people, in a particular society that the characters need to appease or disregard or acknowledge in some way, it also becomes a rich social portrait of that particular place in time; which makes the novels on this list—from a young boyhood romance in 1970s Brazil to

The Unspeakable Cruelty of the Left Hand Visual Noise Click to enlarge Recollection Finding your scarf, I recalled [telling you twenty percentof people die of cancer. Amazed, you askedwhat percent of people die—like youcould only measure sorrow (within the widthof its loom. When I first met you I knew I must beginto practice for grief,

Have you ever come across a close friend’s love letters? In today’s world, this is more akin to accidentally reading private texts or emails open on a roommate’s laptop, but there are still the fortunate few out there who have the time and discipline and romanticism to write by hand and spell out the name

In 1947, the British ended their long and extractive colonial rule in India with a final cruel act: dividing it into two nations, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.  Despite my family’s roots in India, I had little idea of Partition’s impact on my own family. I knew my father’s family had moved from Hyderabad Deccan

In the first drafts of my debut novel Medusa, I was consumed by the idea of what it meant to be a monster in a story you didn’t control. Medusa is one of the most recognizable monsters of Greek mythology, with the writhing mass of snakes for hair and the turning people to stone with

Her Father’s Sex Life Is the Star of the Show Jo Hamya Share article An excerpt from The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya There was summer, a beach; a country they were still getting used to in the early stages of their holiday. There was a map of tourists on the sand with bared stomachs on

Helen Phillips’s new novel, Hum, takes place in a world populated by intelligent robots called “hums.” In this work of speculative fiction, Philips explores a near future stemming out of our world’s obsession with technology and artificial intelligence. At the same time, though, this is a story about family, as May, a wife and mother,

If you lose your hearing, how does the world around you change? What contours of one-on-one conversations become harder to make out, what details of a bustling room come into sharper focus? What creature comforts do you stubbornly cling to all the while? Adèle Rosenfeld’s Jellyfish Have No Ears is about a woman going deaf

Growing up in the Appalachian sliver of Virginia, I was surrounded by magic.  My great grandmother, with her fourth grade education, had an astonishing memory. My little brother could see spirits. My mother had the lithe 90’s beauty and preternatural capability of the modern witches my brother and I worshiped in movies like Practical Magic.

I am thirteen years old, fresh out of seventh grade, and it’s my greatest dream to watch, no make, two boys kiss, though I haven’t put it into those exact words just yet. In the backseat of my aunt’s SUV, on a drive to a lake in Vermont, I listen to “Closing Time” by the

The classroom has long been the site of many compelling works of literature. It is here that the nuances of power and influence are distilled; here that the kinetic energy of two minds meeting is laid bare. Needless to say, the student-teacher dynamic is one that can easily tip into the transgressive, with the impressionable

Frankenstein of Migration by Christina Cooke Something changed in my relationship to New York City during the pandemic. I don’t know how to describe it. I’m still figuring out what I mean. In the three years I lived here before March 20, 2020—the day after my thirty-first birthday, when the city of go! go! go!

It’s not easy, getting people to laugh in the presence of murder. It’s also hard to cut a list down from fifty brilliant novels, and I’ll admit my picks are completely subjective—some for their humanity, some for consistency, some for their sheer originality. Everyone owes a debt to Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, who in

My Mugger Chose the Most Interesting Knife! So Much to Know Aging is great because you learn so many things on the way. I don’t mean just that you gain perspective; I mean if you slow down a bit you see so many details. I’m at that point in life where I’m worried that I

Inspired by nightmares and the work of surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, Lena Valencia’s debut short story collection Mystery Lights seeks to explore women’s darker natures. We meet a feminist filmmaker, who obtains strength at a pivotal moment from her fictional murderesses. In an attack on the domestic goddess trope, a young girl, recently returned from