The Brooklyn Rail

The Political Eisenberg

Deborah Eisenberg’s stories spin taut, glistening webs between people and places that resonate at mesmerizing frequencies; they come as close to what can only be called reality as literature, at its best, can do.

In Conversation

RICHARD HINE with Sarah Gerard

Blustery fall winds whip the scarves of sidewalkers outside Think Coffee, in Union Square South. I’m prepared with my digital recorder and strategic questions, waiting for the funnyman, Richard Hine, to arrive

Blank Like Me

South African novelist Lauren Beukes bleeds her characters of color as effectively as the smear masks they wear for anonymity, not for simple provocation, but to warn of the self-replicating nature of segregation.

Lost and Congealed

You don’t exactly read Grace Krilanovich’s debut novel The Orange Eats Creeps; you trip and fall into it.

A Fate More Than Death

Hannah Pittard’s debut novel reverberates with the delicate soul of dwindling Americana, forming a beautiful mosaic of a town’s shared grief.

Empire Wilderness

In his eagerly awaited second book, The Cloud Corporation, Timothy Donnelly's poetic evolution and mastery are even more distinct—that is, the poems in this new book, no less enwrapped and intoxicated with rhetoric, fully emerge.

The Other Paris

Crafted during a two-month sabbatical in Paris in the spring of 2008, this docufiction posits Jaffe as self-styled flâneur mining the seams of Paris as post-imperial, multi-ethnic metropolis.

Forget It, Santiago, It's Chinatown

Not quite a detective story, Adam Dunn’s tech-noir novel lives up to its front-cover claim that it’s “a mile a minute” page-turner.

From the Woods, A Peach

Poetic, insightful, and delightfully honest, Mike Young tells stories of mundane days with a vulnerable, esoteric filter reminiscent of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son.

History for the Taking

Tabloid culture has become so prevalent that we hardly notice it, which may be because it’s easier to ignore.  With access to the internet and on-demand television, we only saturate ourselves with celebrity gossip when we want to.