Winter 2017-2018

INTERVIEWS:

Interviewed by Ben Shields
Beneath the Radar: An Interview with Janet Capron
This proud Park Avenue schoolgirl-turned-floozy has chronicled her bourgeois class suicide in an outrageous debut novel-one that never lets the burden of actual facts get in the way of what things were really like in 1970s New York.

Habit of Mind: An Interview with Jennifer Egan
Interviewed by Allan Vorda
The Pulitzer Prize winner discusses her latest novel, which is set during the World War II era—a time when women were newly permitted to take on industrial jobs that once belonged only to men.

A Path Through the Wilderness: An Interview with Charles Potts
Interviewed by Paul E Nelson
Poet, editor, publisher, curator, and horse breeder Charles Potts pauses to discuss it all.

Many Lives Passed Through Place: An Interview with Roz Morris
Interviewed by Garry Craig Powell
Novelist, book doctor, writing teacher, and ghost writer Roz Morris discusses her first collection of essays intersecting travel writing and memoir with explorations of off-the-beaten-track rural England.

POETRY REVIEWS:

The Art of Topiary
Jan Wagner
If topiary is the art of trimming into shape, then much of Wagner's poetry in The Art of Topiary can be described as the art of examining the edges. Reviewed by Allison Campbell

Attributed to the Harrow Painter
Nick Twemlow
Nick Twemlow's disarming new book reflects on privilege, parenthood, past, and the worth of poetry. Reviewed by Stephanie Burt

from unincorporated territory [lukao]
Craig Santos Perez
Perez's ongoing epic explores the tensions between colonization/decolonization, militarization/demilitarization, and even birth/death. Reviewed by Robyn Maree Pickens

To Each Unfolding Leaf: Selected Poems (1976-2015)
Pierre Voélin
Translated by John Taylor
The voices of Voélin’s poems, via the impressive translation of John Taylor, observantly command a landscape of promise and distillation, of past and present. Reviewed by Greg Bem

Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now
Edited by Amit Majmudar
Despite Majmudar's claims to dislike protest poetry, his latest anthology joins others inspired by the Trump presidency. Reviewed by John Bradley

FICTION REVIEWS

The Disconnected
Oğuz Atay
In a first translation into English of this Turkish classic, The Disconnected explores world literature, shifting view points, and a medley of modes throughout its 715 pages. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey

The Clouds
Juan José Saer
For the English-speaking adventurous reader, a new translation of this 1997 novel about madness in a millennial wasteland may float your boat. Reviewed by Erik Noonan

The World to Come
Jim Shepard
All manner of transport is explored in this new story collection by prize-winning author Jim Shepard. Reviewed by Ray Barker

The Tragedy of Brady Sims
Ernest J. Gaines
Gaines's new novella opens with a gunshot, and wends the tale back to that very gunshot through the life of the man who fired it. Reviewed by Micah Winters

COMICS & ART REVIEWS

Philip Guston & The Poets
Edited by Kosme de Barañano
Published on the occasion of the exhibition in Italy, this gorgeous volume presents Guston's strange and challenging paintings alongside commentaries about his poetic influences. Reviewed by Mark Gustafson

Foolish Questions & Other Odd Observations: Early Comics 1909-1919
Rube Goldberg
In this collection of single panel comics, the iconic Rube Goldberg manages to capture the early 1900s in a vaudevillian shimmer. Reviewed by Jeff Alford

NONFICTION REVIEWS

Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music
Michael Robbins
What for Baudelaire were the frissons of modern art, Robbins finds in pop music, to which he responds with bracing enthusiasm. Reviewed by Henry Gould

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
Ta-Nehisi Coates
These essays issue forth a thunderclap reminder that white supremacy in America is a thing of the present, not the past. Reviewed by Chris Barsanti

Silence: In the Age of Noise
Erling Kagge
A Norwegian adventurer writes of his experiences of extreme silence in strange and far-flung parts of the world. Reviewed by Adrian Glass-Moore

Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change
Ashley Dawson
This book sets out not just to prove how cities from New York to Jakarta are gravely threatened by climate change, but also to illuminate the ways that capitalism and class feed into and even exacerbate that threat. Reviewed by Chris Barsanti

The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
Joanna Moorhead
After discovering she is cousin to the great surrealist, Moorhead researched and wrote this biography, inflected with personal and artistic details. Reviewed by Laura Winton

MIXED GENRE REVIEWS

Irradiated Cities
Mariko Nagai
In a work that feels all too timely, prize-winning author Mariko Nagai reflects on the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima through haunting prose and photographs. Reviewed by John Bradley

The Science of Things Familiar
Johnny Damm
The startling juxtapositions of this hybrid book will shock readers into awareness of the various subtexts-emotional, sexual, racial, environmental-of twentieth-century American popular culture. Reviewed by John Pistelli

MULTI-BOOK REVIEWS

Of Mongrelitude by Julian Talamantez Brolaski
The Absolute Letter by Andrew Joron
In Memory of an Angel by David Shapiro

Three recent poetry publications offer fine examples of small press experimental-leaning poetry, though each poet dazzles with an approach to language uniquely their own. Reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan

Twelve Flags, Books 1 3
Klaus Kolb
In this 800-page memoir spanning four volumes, Kolb recounts his life growing up under the Nazi and East Germany regimes. Reviewed by Jim Kozubek

Rain Taxi Online Edition Winter 2017-2018 | © Rain Taxi, Inc. 2018