Fiction chronicle November 2023
Closely examined lives
On My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket, One Woman Show by Christine Coulson, The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati & The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli.
On My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket, One Woman Show by Christine Coulson, The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati & The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli.
A review of On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jünger, translated by Tess Lewis, Fulgentius by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews, Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore & The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis.
On Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov, Baron Bagge by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan & Trust by Hernan Diaz.
On Pollak’s Arm by Hans von Trotha, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, Civilizations by Laurent Binet & It’s Getting Dark by Peter Stamm.
On The Passenger, by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, Hard Like Water, by Yan Lianke, Awake, by Harald Voetmann & A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray, by Dominique Barbéris.
On “The Invisible Land,” by Hubert Mingarelli, “Ferdinand, The Man with the Kind Heart: A Novel,” by Irmgard Keun, “Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing,” by Guido Morselli & “Mr Cadmus,” by Peter Ackroyd.
A review of The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis, The Dominant Animal and Aug 9—Fog by Kathryn Scanlan & The Caretaker by Doon Arbus.
On Interior, by Thomas Clerc; The Sweet Indifference of the World, by Peter Stamm; the short-story collection Machines in the Head, by Anna Kavan; and Beyond the Sea, by Paul Lynch.
On The Ditch by Herman Koch, translated by Sam Garrett; Family Record by Patrick Modiano, translated by Mark Polizzotti; Metropolitan Stories: A Novel by Christine Coulson; and Girl: A Novel by Edna O’Brien.
On Metamorphica, by Zachary Mason; The Thirty-Five Timely & Untimely Deaths of Cumberland County, by Mason Ball; 77, by Guillermo Saccomanno; Article 35: A Novel, by Tanguy Viel; and Rock and Roll Is Life, by D. J. Taylor.