“I know this is supposed to be the most dignified awards show of the season, but…” Newly anointed Tony winner James…
Ellen Wernecke
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The mind works as the second prison in Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State, a story of a kidnapping that essentially never…
Irish author Emma Donoghue was two decades and several books into her career at the publication of her breakout…
In this post-Gone Girl era, there is no happy-looking marriage in a thriller without a toxic backyard jungle of…
How close can the life of a horror film director approach his work? A journalist with a vendetta plumbs a subculture…
Manil Suri’s exuberant images of modern-day India, invoking Hindu gods and probing into religious divisions, provide…
Salt Sugar Fat is an unflattering biography of food in America named for the three ingredients most prevalent in the…
A ripped-from-the-headlines custody dispute is wrapped in a lyrical but creepy defense in Amity Gaige’s third novel,…
In Ron Currie Jr.’s new novel, Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles, a wildly popular novelist is accused of faking his…
Readers who rooted for Milo Burke, the beleaguered fundraiser at the center of Sam Lipsyte’s novel The Ask, will…
After more than 30 years of publishing in her native Russia, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya caught American eyes with a…
Cornet player “King” Bolden is a real historical figure whose reputation is disproportionate to his recorded output:…
Every year, The A.V. Club embarks upon elaborate voting rituals to determine the sorta-consensus best films, albums,…
Bill Roorbach’s John Irving-esque third novel, Life Among Giants, radiates its bemusement with the exquisitely…
A sudden separation and a woman’s health crisis force a family showdown in Jami Attenberg’s third novel, her most…
May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes’ 10th novel, starts with a perfectly poisonous metaphor for the decay of the American…
T.C. Boyle’s fascination with the way nature disrupts a closed system has led him inside human enclaves like…
Everyone’s a little bit racist in Tom Wolfe’s Back To Blood, a Bonfire Of The Vanities with boats, set in a seething…
The moment where an actor at the top of her career realizes the award she’s about to get is meaningless is just one…
Zadie Smith puts forth her most formally daring novel yet in NW, a chronicle of a neighborhood through the eyes of…