Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Essays

Holy City Adrift: On the Occasion of Thomas McGrath’s Centenary Year
Los Angeles’s Midwestern poet, Thomas McGrath.
Andrew Lyndon KnightonJun 13, 2016
- Poetry
“Hamilton” and History’s Darkened Rooms
In an election year that has broken us into antagonistic fragments, it’s marvelous to be lured into American history by a joyous Broadway musical.
Judith Lewis MernitJun 12, 2016
- History
The Ecstatic Experience: “Hamilton,” “Hair,” and “Oklahoma!”
Miranda makes Hamilton’s story the stories of the young in the audience, the ones who feel that the future of the country is in their hands.
Laurie WinerJun 12, 2016
- History
Blowing Up Rusty War Tropes and Bolstering the Female Combatant: A Conversation with Whitney Terrell
Whitney Terrell on breaking the traditional form of the war novel.
Anne KniggendorfJun 11, 2016
- Fiction
From Place to Place: Syrian Christians in Istanbul
Syrian refugees live a precarious existence in Istanbul.
Helen MackreathJun 10, 2016
- Around the World
What We Talk About When We Talk About Art
Julian Barnes represents the art world, in fiction and nonfiction.
Rebecca J. NovelliJun 10, 2016
- Fiction
St. Kevin at the Construction Site
“St. Kevin and the Blackbird” resonates with Los Angeles construction workers while they are interviewed by Kelly Candaele.
Kelly CandaeleJun 9, 2016
- Poetry
The Corpse of the Author: Literary Pilgrimage 400 Years After Cervantes
A literary pilgrimage to the Convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in Madrid, the final resting place of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
S. J. PearceJun 9, 2016
- History
Game of Thrones: Season 6, "The Broken Man"
You Know I’ll Never Hurt You, Right: Or, Chopping Wood in Westeros
Aaron Bady, Sarah MesleJun 6, 2016
- Dear Television
- Television
Projects, Poetries, Choratopes: On Anne Boyer, Bhanu Kapil, and Juliana Spahr
Poetry both is and is not a project. Maureen N. McLane looks at collections by Juliana Spahr, Bhanu Kapil, and Anne Boyer to explain why.
Maureen N. McLaneJun 5, 2016
- Poetry
You Can't Put Muhammad Ali in a Poem
A memorial poem by the Poet Laureate on the passing of Muhammed Ali
Juan Felipe HerreraJun 4, 2016
- Poetry
Russian Hardcore and the American Henry
In "Hardcore Henry", the juncture where Russian and American imaginations come together, it seems, is in gleeful misogyny.
Marijeta BozovicJun 4, 2016
- Film
The Dawn of “Just Me”: Zack Snyder’s Neoliberal Superheroes
On Zack Snyder's bookshelf, Superman comics and "The Fountainhead" sit side by side.
William BradleyJun 3, 2016
- Film
Language After the Fact: Rey Chow’s “Not Like a Native Speaker”
"Not Like a Native Speaker" ventures past the triumphant self-assertion of postcolonial language into more uncomfortable territory, the place of confession.
Nan Z. DaJun 2, 2016
- Around the World
[Insert Penis Pun Here]: Anthony Weiner and the Great American Spectacle
As "Weiner" shows, American politics today — and our relationship to it — is entirely mediated by images (dick pics and all).
Ross BarkanJun 1, 2016
- Film
The Hands of a Leader: Donald Trump and Niccolò Machiavelli
What Machiavelli can tell us about Trump.
Robert ZaretskyMay 31, 2016
- Politics