Book Reviews

Literary fiction, like poetry, is a quixotic and lovely thing. It’s never been an easy sell because the genre is an anti-genre. It’s “This doesn’t fit into another category, so we’ll call it literary.” In some cases, perhaps many, it means it’s a tough read. In other cases, it just means it doesn’t have a typical dramatic story structure, but there’s structure and much to love.

Only the Impassioned by H.C. Turk is all these things. It’s often beautiful, it’s impassioned, and it’s tough to follow. The story revolves around twenty-two-year-old Andrew Bower, a draftee in Germany at the end […]

As a child, Michael Accordo longs for a balanced diet. As a young man, he seeks to balance mixed signals from his parents, his religion, and his culture in general.

The novel is structured as though we are reading a transcript of reflective conversations recorded in 1987 between an adult Michael and Ambrosia, a close friend. While Ambrosia is a psychiatric professional, she is not officially his therapist. This softens the story a bit so it doesn’t devolve into self-help pseudo-memoir territory.

Michael begins his reflections in the 1950s with a focus on food as it relates to his family […]

Clarity, a quaint, close-knit town, has one major problem – they’re suffering financially. So when Fluid Products comes into their town and promises them fat paychecks and local jobs in spite of the down economy, many citizens are eager to jump right into the deal.

However, there are a couple of citizens not so eager. Deborah, the town’s beloved and intelligent psychologist, speaks against Fluid. She believes that the trade-off for Fluid’s deal could be more harmful than helpful. Why let Fluid bottle and take control of Clarity’s water? Isn’t that too powerful a move? Though mayor Roger Trent wants […]