Michelle Alexander changed conversations about race-based discrimination in 2010 when she published The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander explained that four in five Black […]
Books & Poetry
BOOK REVIEW
The Talented but Deplorable Patricia Highsmith
A new biography depicts a deeply flawed human being
In most biographies, the subject begins as a larger-than-life figure. Then, after we learn about imperfect relationships and personal quirks, he or she becomes more human. That’s not the case […]
BOOK REVIEW
In Colonial America, Thomas Morton Took the Pure out of Puritan
A new book examines a rebel antihero among the religious exiles
In the book of Joshua, the ancient Israelites settle upon the land that God had promised them, a land called Canaan, and they do so without slaughtering any of the […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Mothers Behind the Civil Rights Movement
Anna Malaika Tubbs gives their story a Black feminist affirmation
It is easy to pan Anna Malaika Tubbs’s The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, released last month […]
METAPHYSICS: PERSONAL HISTORY
Ending Where You Began
A journey without travel: irony and contradictions
…I am waiting to get some intimations of immortality by recollecting my early childhood and I am waiting for the green mornings to come again youth’s dumb green fields come […]
AUTHORS
Remembrance of Serial Murders Past
The Babysitter is part memoir, part investigative report about Tony Costa
Sixteen years ago, a nightmare Liza Rodman had been having for months suddenly got real. She finally recognized the face of the man who approached her in the dream — […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Survivors Is Jane Harper at Her Criminal Best
An Aussie mystery with echoes of the Outer Cape
If you are in need of a particularly good escape that requires no travel this pandemic February, look no further than Australian crime writer Jane Harper’s latest whodunit, The Survivors, […]
TALKING POINTS
From New York to Truro to Russia and Back
Journalist turned novelist Karen Dukess interviews authors for Castle Hill
Beginning next week, writer Karen Dukess is hosting a series of virtual talks with authors of new fiction and nonfiction via Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. On […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Story of America Through Hand-Crafted Objects
Glenn Adamson’s new history looks at under-represented talents
Perhaps you are turned off by standard American histories, from expensive textbooks to doorstop-sized biographies of Important Men. You might find descriptions of the conflict between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander […]
BOOK REVIEW
Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar Tell It Like It Is
They write of casual racism with candor and humor
Under no circumstances should you crack the covers of Amber Ruffin’s and Lacey Lamar’s You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey in a place you need to be quiet — […]
POETRY
A Secular Celebration of Love and the Earth
Five poems from a new Brendan Galvin collection
Editor’s note: Truro poet Brendan Galvin’s 19th volume of poems, titled Partway to Geophany, was published by Louisiana State University Press in November 2020. Galvin’s many awards include a Guggenheim […]
BOOK REVIEW
Alexis Pauline Gumbs Reveals Marine Mammals’ Radical Nature
Reclaiming the ocean from the heteropatriarchy
Alexis Pauline Gumbs describes herself as a “queer Black feminist love evangelist and marine mammal apprentice” in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals, published this past November. The description […]
BOOK REVIEW
How to Hold Animals Is a Book to Curl Up With
It offers tips for handling furry, slimy, and scaly creatures
The cover of Toshimitsu Matsuhashi’s How to Hold Animals features an adorable sugar glider, a bug-eyed mouse-like creature, gently cupped between two human hands. Readers might therefore expect the book […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Many Faces of Adrienne Rich
Hilary Holladay’s portrait of a complicated artist
Hilary Holladay’s The Power of Adrienne Rich is an accessible biography of the celebrated American poet. Published last month, it is the first comprehensive exploration of both the person and […]
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?
This Is Not an Interview With André Gregory
In This Is Not My Memoir, a provocateur looks back with wit
Preparing for my phone call with actor, playwright, and director André Gregory, I felt a bit like the socially anxious Wallace Shawn at the beginning of My Dinner With André. […]
