“House of Leaves”: Mixed-Media Fiction or Gimmick Fiction?
“House of Leaves” falls into the love-it-or-hate-it category of literature, a book all at once intriguing and inventive and mind-blowingly creative…and also gimmicky, needlessly difficult, frustrating,...
View ArticleMixed-Media Fiction: Sink or Swim?
“The Raw Shark Texts” is an interesting concept that never really rises above “interesting concept.” It’s a breezy read, moves very quickly and sometimes develops real suspense, and the plot is well...
View ArticleNatural Disasters, Graphic Novels, Blogs, Bio-Comics!
“A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge” is a graphic novel that demonstrates the underlying theory that made Art Speigelman’s “Maus” so haunting, memorable, and successful. In our current culture,...
View ArticleBest American Comics?
Each new year, it seems, the genre of “literary comics” (my term of choice is “graphic narratives”) grows and matures just a little bit. Thirty years ago, when the comics medium was dominated mostly...
View ArticleThe Photographer
“The Photographer” is quite possibly the most inventive book I’ve ever read, and it’s a testament to the author(s) that it stands as an amazing example of a memoir, a piece of literary journalism, a...
View ArticleFatherland
I learned about “Fatherland” after reading Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” and Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” both of which were alternate histories that re-imagined the...
View ArticleThe 9/11 Report
The 9/11 Report: Graphic Adaptation is a fascinating read, I think, both for what it does well, and for its negatives implications. What does it do well? I think that it proves that graphic novels can...
View ArticleDaddy’s – Lindsay Hunter
I’ve meant to write about Lindsay Hunter’s Daddy‘s for awhile, and for a lot of different reasons. First and foremost, of course, I went to grad school with Lindsay (for about a year, I think) and I...
View ArticleBook Reviews/ Reviewer Reviews
So…I’ve been writing reviews and critiques for a long time now. Back in 2005 or 2006, I started an account on Shelfari, and wrote a short review of every book that I read. Hundreds of short reviews,...
View ArticleInfinite Jest: is this about me, or the characters?
I spent much of the summer reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and regardless of my final thoughts or critical appraisal, the book itself was an experience that succeeded in challenging me as...
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