The Brooklyn Rail

In Conversation

Dark Atrocities: DAVID WINNER with Tyler Gore

By Tyler Gore

Todd Haynes’s Carol and the current surge of interest in Patricia Highsmith and her work make it the perfect moment for the recent publication of David Winner’s new novel, Tyler’s Last, a savage, affectionate homage which takes satiric aim at both Tom Ripley of The Talented Mr. Ripley and the difficult woman who created him.

In the Interstices and the Lacunae

By Katharina Smundak

Virginia Heffernan gained some notoriety in certain media circles in 2013, when she published an article titled “Why I’m a Creationist” on Yahoo! News.

One-State Dissolution

By Joshua Alvarez

There are many hells on this earth, most of them created by war, poverty, totalitarianism, and various superstitions. But it’s among Palestinians—in the shadow of the holy cities of Bethlehem, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, and East Jerusalem—that all four horsemen gather.

Natural-Born Storytellers

By John Domini

If the expression “natural-born storyteller” hasn’t yet gone to the glue factory, then these two novels take the nag out for a fresh canter. Grace is a début for Natashia Deón, whose credentials include a PEN Fellowship, and while Allison Amend has three earlier books, and some prize recognition, she’s still young enough to have whipped up something new for Enchanted Islands.

Worry and the Mordant Wallow

By J. C. Hallman

Daniel Borzutzky’s new book of poems, The Performance of Becoming Human (the latest from indefatigable Brooklyn Arts Press, soldiering on for nearly a decade now) can be quoted so as to suggest that it is merely the latest in a recent string of literary apocalypses, all of imaginative provenance (storm, zombies, aliens, meteors, plague, etc.), but all relying on the sadly pessimistic belief that we’re basically fucked.

In Conversation

POST-LUNCH POEMS
JOE PAN with ANSELM BERRIGAN

Anselm and I first met through a mutual friend, the painter and collagist Jonathan Allen, whose artwork I’d exhibited and whose first art monograph I’d published though my press, Brooklyn Arts Press (BAP).

In Conversation

PLAYERS:
JOHN MCCAFFREY with Jill Dearman

John McCaffrey’s debut book of short stories, Two Syllable Men, has just been published by Vine Leaves Press. In each of the dozen stories, some of which have been previously published, a man has to fight the most dangerous opponent: himself.