Revisiting Gordon Parks’s “Segregation Story” 60 Years Later
To see Gordon Parks's images from "Segregation Story" today is to be left emotionally bereft, to gasp at the facts of an all-too-recent history, to shudder at how far we have not come.
All Reviews
The Coldest Cases
Sarah Ward reviews the new prequel by Arnaldur Indridason
Progress of Stories
The storied career of one of The New Yorker’s most prized journalists “cannot be evaluated in any ordinary way.”
Bad Dad
Tomlinson hasn't overcome the pain of yearning for a father who was unavailable. But she has taken that pain and used it to make herself a writer.
Murder, They Wrote
How can you get your head around 297 homicides in Los Angeles in 2011, with pitifully low clearance rates for black-on-black murders?
A Wishful Fear and a Fearful Wish
Alex Norcia discusses Stephen Marche's new novel in the context of the second gilded age.
Our Diaries, Ourselves
Moving fluidly between the trivial and profound, Julavits shows what a diary can do. It’s a vivid counterpoint to Manguso’s serious disavowal of the form.
Prayers to the Gods of Preservation, Cataloging, and Cross-referencing
Monson's essays tucked into library books allow the author and his readers to toss off the rules and just play.
Three Contemporary Spinozas
A Spinozist politics? Mathematics? Posthumanism? Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza is, as Hasana Sharp points out, a "philosopher of many posthumous births."
The Liar: The Four Personas of Adolf Eichmann
"A man who wears so many masks is always tempted to reveal who he is."
A Dissident Writer in Modern America
Has Renata Adler's genuine radicalism resulted in her being silenced?
The Long View
What is good about McGuane's stories is their indirection, and the sense that just under the surface is a swelling about to turn into a terror.
Jonathan Lethem, the Elephant Man
What "Lucky Alan" underscores about Jonathan Lethem, and what sets him apart from the rest of the herd, is his ability to speak to multiple interpretive communities at the same time.
Diving into the Wreck
The explosion of cash-for-gold shops is part of a bigger neoliberal crisis.
Ordinary Lives and Other Accidents
How catastrophe, medical errors, natural disasters, and unchecked exuberance push people to the solitary edges of social life.
Only the Dead Do Not Dream
Elise Moser on the Minnesota Trilogy by Vidar Sundstøl