Author Archives: mkevane

I loved the narrator voice here. It’s a picaresque farce of a novel, drawing a lot on Shakespeare’s comedies. Very enjoyable read, although in the end maybe more like a delicious trifle. Possibly there is a deeper literary subtext going … Continue reading →

I really wanted to like this, but in the end it seemed more trifling that substantive. A foreword tries hard to make the case for the novelette as a showcase for writing craft mastery, in the device of the narrator … Continue reading →

Our book club read this odd young person book. As one member said in our discussion, “It’s an allegory, but an allegory for what?!” Definitely worth sharing with a 12 year old avid reader, and discussing with them, is my … Continue reading →

Tremendous! I loved reading this. Such amazing writing as Saramogo elides the story of the present-day publishing house with the story of the reconquest of Portugal from the Moors, with the same narrator commenting on what he is doing.

Another in what is apparently an enormous fan-fiction of Greek and Roman myths. That I think I was sort of unaware of. And maybe that is because most of them are bad? This one is a throwaway- Atwood seemingly makes … Continue reading →

I thought they would be better. More clever, more interesting details. Instead they seemed perfunctory. I think I’ll take Patricia Highsmith or Muriel Spark.

I don’t need to write much, since Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s novel, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes, is probably the best novel I’ve read in a decade (since I read Alan Garner, Beppe Fenoglio, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, I guess?). Definitely … Continue reading →

Wow, reading this was a pleasure, after having read Jean Rhys. You can see almost a direct line from Kafka to Rhys to Kavan to more contemporary novels like Annihilation. The subject matter is banal; everything relevant in the novel … Continue reading →

A friend was reading this “creature feature” and so I borrowed The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree from the library. Competent tale in the setting of Galveston in the “mighty flood” of 1900. It is definitely genre fiction, … Continue reading →

Apparently this short experimental novel, Good Morning, Midnight, by Jean Rhys, published in 1938, temporarily ended Rhys’ writing career, the novel was so depressing. I’m here to validate that. Think Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell but … Continue reading →

My neighborhood book club just finished a easy-read detective story from 1960s Australia, The Lake Frome Monster, by Arthur Upfield…. All about the Outback and ranching and First Nations People/aboriginal people… the detective is interesting… not the best detective mystery … Continue reading →

The only reason I checked out Galatea, by Madeline Miller, was because it looked really short. It’s like a 30 minute read, or less. A trifling story, where booksellers and publishers are happy to take your $12 for the hardcover … Continue reading →

Sometimes it only takes a few pages for you to realize there is a gap between the promise of the cover and the reality of the words on the page. In this case, the promise was a kind of time-travel … Continue reading →

Vagabonds, by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu, published back in 2020, is a long, shaggy dog story of Mars colonists gradual rapprochement with Earth, after a war of independence 100 years earlier. Jingfang imagines Mars as very much like … Continue reading →

Was bored and wanted something light, so I re-read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. I last read it in May 2022. It is a very quick read: two … Continue reading →

Beautifully written, Admiring Silence, by Abdulrazak Gurnah follows the return of the protagonist, who has been living in England since the independence regime of Zanzibar lashed out against the Arab families of the island, and the island descended into poverty. … Continue reading →

Historical non-fiction, immersing the reader in the world of lower Manhattan in the post-revolution period around 1790. New York just has about 25,000 residents. Sweet reconstructs the social world on a young woman Lanah Sawyer who is raped by a … Continue reading →

Enjoyed this sprawling family saga, A History of Burning by Janika Oza. A boy from Gujarat is tricked into become an indentured servant building the Mombasa-Kampala railroad around 1900. After the end of his work, he remains and hardscrabbles a … Continue reading →