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Articles by Michael Magras
Book review of Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh
One of the most famous title bouts in human history pits knowledge against belief. Proponents of the former don’t accept that a thing exists if it can’t be documented. The latter root their certainty in faith. Both perspectives battle it out in Ghost-Eye, Amitav Ghosh’s challenging but rewarding novel that cleverly fuses a story of reincarnation with the actions of environmental activists working to combat climate change. The novel shifts between two time periods.
This Is Where the Serpent Lives
It should come as no surprise that a novel with the title This Is Where the Serpent Lives would involve characters involved in treacherous behavior. And that’s exactly what readers get in this new work from Pakistani-American author Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose 2009 story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders was a Pulitzer finalist. Mueenuddin moves seamlessly among three distinct stories that span more than half a century.
Book review of Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen
Mother-daughter stories are fixtures in literature, but not many are as original and slyly surreal as Bad Bad Girl, the latest from the always excellent Gish Jen. This standout mashup of literary novel and memoir tells the fictionalized story of Jen’s mother, Loo Shu-hsin, from her 1924 birth in Shanghai to her death in the United States in 2020.
Book review of One of Us by Dan Chaon
Cinephiles will spot the allusion to Tod Browning’s 1932 cringe fest Freaks in the title of Dan Chaon’s equally unsettling and mesmeric novel, One of Us. Killers and circus curiosities abound in both works, and the creepy chants of “One of us!” directed at the trapeze artist in the Browning film are echoed in this early 20th-century tale of orphaned twin siblings, the traveling carnival that takes them in and their supposed uncle who has a side gig as a serial killer.
Rooms for Vanishing
What if the innocent dead of the Holocaust had gone on to live alternate lives? And what if each survivor didn’t know that others in their family existed elsewhere in the universe? That’s the central premise of Rooms for Vanishing, Stuart Nadler’s poignant, ornate tapestry of a novel. At the center of this grief-soaked, nonlinear narrative are the Altermans, a Jewish family originally from Vienna.
Folklore and romance mingle in ‘The Story of the Forest’
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God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer
Emergency rooms often resemble war zones, with patients who have ghastly injuries and medical personnel needing to make quick decisions. Joseph should know: An employee at an understaffed trauma center in Philadelphia—or, as he calls it, a “northeastern middling city”—he’s also an Iraq War veteran. And he has a complicated family life with its own set of distresses, including a series of ex-lovers and a mother who once asked him to kill her boyfriend.
Book review of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
“What’s past is prologue,” Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. Tommy Orange demonstrates the veracity of that line in Wandering Stars, his follow-up to There There, the 2018 debut novel for which he was a Pulitzer finalist. Few literary debuts are as chillingly of-the-moment as There There, which spanned a huge cast of Native American characters and culminated in a tragedy at an Oakland powwow. Orange further explores the lives of some of those characters in this assured continuation.
Book review of Tremor by Teju Cole
Most people eventually think about the concept of permanence—how one could live on after inevitable death. Some are drawn to photography for what has been, at least until recently, incontrovertible proof of what once existed. But attempts to secure a permanent place in history are often complicated by changes in technology, the prejudices of others, or, in the case of art, the purloining of treasured works.
Book review of Small Joys by Elvin James Mensah
Some people feel like outsiders every day of their lives. One such person is Harley Sekyere, a 21-year-old gay Black man in England who comes from an unsupportive household, felt at sea at college and has no idea where to turn. That’s a situation plenty of people will relate to. And it’s the premise of Small Joys, Elvin James Mensah’s sympathetic debut novel. It’s 2005, shortly after terrorists coordinated a series of subway and bus bombings that devastated London.
The Thing in the Snow
Few conditions feel more dystopian than toiling away at a dead-end job. But imagine performing menial chores in a massive, vacant research facility so remote that a helicopter is required to get there. Plus, outdoor conditions are so fierce that anyone who steps outside is likely to develop a mysterious “snow sickness.” This is the situation accepted by three people in Sean Adams’ new novel.
A poet and river guide celebrates family life and the environment in a new memoir
There's enjoying nature, and then there's the desire to be one with it. Poet Chris Dombrowski is in the latter category. A native of Michigan, he left the world of his "forbearers' General Motors jobs" when he was 19 "in search of wild trout [and] vast systems of unfettered freestone water." That journey is the subject of his memoir, "The River You Touch." He wasn't alone in his journey.
Review: 'Mothercare' an unsentimental account of medical struggles
“Mothercare,” by Lynne Tillman (Soft Skull Press, 176 pages) “Death was a longtime fascination,” novelist Lynne Tillman writes in “Mothercare,” her powerful new memoir. At age 5, decades before the contours of a heartbreaking family illness became visible, she asked her father to bury her in a coffin. She wanted her blanket with her, “so I wouldn’t be cold if I woke up dead.” More than 40 years later, in 1994, those contours became more pronounced.
'Mothercare,' by Lynne Tillman
NONFICTION: A novelist recounts the experience of caring for her ailing, dependent mother. "Mothercare" by Lynne Tillman; Soft Skull Press (176 pages, $23) "Death was a longtime fascination," novelist Lynne Tillman writes in "Mothercare," her powerful new memoir. At age 5, decades before the contours of a heartbreaking family illness became visible, she asked her father to bury her in a coffin.
'Mothercare,' by Lynne Tillman
NONFICTION: A novelist recounts the experience of caring for her ailing, dependent mother. "Mothercare" by Lynne Tillman; Soft Skull Press (176 pages, $23) "Death was a longtime fascination," novelist Lynne Tillman writes in "Mothercare," her powerful new memoir. At age 5, decades before the contours of a heartbreaking family illness became visible, she asked her father to bury her in a coffin.
Review: 'Mothercare,' by Lynne Tillman
NONFICTION: A novelist recounts the experience of caring for her ailing, dependent mother. "Mothercare" by Lynne Tillman; Soft Skull Press (176 pages, $23) kAm———k^Am kAmQs62E9 H2D 2 =@?8E:>6 72D4:?2E:@?[Q ?@G6=:DE {J??6 %:==>2? HC:E6D :? Q|@E96C42C6[Q 96C A@H6C7F= ?6H >6>@:C] pE 286 d[ 564256D 367@C6 E96 4@?E@FCD @7 2 962CE3C62<:?8 72>:=J :==?6DD 3642>6 G:D:3=6[ D96 2D<65 96C 72E96C E@ 3FCJ 96C :? 2 4@77:?] $96 H2?E65 96C 3=2?<6E H:E9 96C[ QD@ x H@F=5?VE 36 4@=5 :7 x H@<6 FA 5625]Qk^Am kAm|@C6 E92?
'Happy-Go-Lucky' by David Sedaris
NONFICTION: More comic essays, this time in a more somber vein, from the celebrated satirist. "Happy-Go-Lucky" by David Sedaris; Little, Brown & Co. (304 pages, $29) Even satirists get the blues. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that satirists are among the likeliest to get the blues, given the pomposity-skewering nature of their work.
'Off the Edge,' by Kelly Weill
A journalist investigates the reasons some people believe the Earth is flat and other conspiracy theories. "Off the Edge" by Kelly Weill; Algonquin Books (256 pages, $27.95) Some might think: How could they do it?
'Off the Edge,' by Kelly Weill
A journalist investigates the reasons some people believe the Earth is flat and other conspiracy theories. "Off the Edge" by Kelly Weill; Algonquin Books (256 pages, $27.95) Some might think: How could they do it?
Review: 'Chasing History,' by Carl Bernstein
People are also reading… "Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom," by Carl Bernstein. (Henry Holt/TNS) Henry Holt/Henry Holt/TNS Michael Magras, Star Tribune NONFICTION: A legendary newspaper journalist looks back at the formative years of his career. "Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom" by Carl Bernstein; Henry Holt (384 pages, $29.99) ——— Fear not, aspiring journalists with lousy academic records.
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