The Action of Grace

The Action of Grace

by | Jul 29, 2018

This Our Exile: Short Stories by Joshua Hren. Angelico Press, 2017. Hardcover, 131 pages, $22. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill The twelve stories in this slender but powerful volume bring the everyday and the eternal together in compressed, often dreamlike sequences,...
The Auroras of Helen Vendler

The Auroras of Helen Vendler

by | May 27, 2018

The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: essays on poets & poetry by Helen Vendler. Harvard University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 444 pages, $35. DANIEL JAMES SUNDAHL Helen Vendler’s The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar opens with a twelve-page account of her life as a...
Stories of the Lost, Wandering Soul of Modern America

Stories of the Lost, Wandering Soul of Modern America

by | May 27, 2018

Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories by Thomas McGuane. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Cloth, 354 pages, $35. JAMES E. PERSON JR. The short stories of Thomas McGuane can be summarized in the words of John Gay’s self-chosen epitaph: “Life is a jest, and all things shew it; /...

The Naked Emperors

by | Apr 15, 2018

Jews Queers Germans: A Novel/History by Martin Duberman. Seven Stories Press, 2017. Paperback, 384 pages, $20. EVE TUSHNET Martin Duberman, in his recent “novel/history” Jews Queers Germans, rarely describes clothing. He describes, instead, physical attractiveness—the...

The Bible Refreshed

by | Mar 25, 2018

The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible by Sarah Ruden. Pantheon Books, 2017. Hardcover, 232 pages, $27. ELIZABETH BITTNER “I have no formal qualifications whatsoever as a biblical scholar—not one degree, not even a single course credit.”...