Feature on The Marriage-Go-Round

An interview with Andrew Cherlin, professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in American Today, published in the Baltimore City Paper.

The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, reviewed

A review of Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg’s new book published in the May/June issue of Search magazine.

Brooklyn, reviewed

A review of Colm Colm Tóibín’s quiet and unsentimental new novel, Brooklyn, published in the New Haven Advocate.

Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move, reviewed

A review of Nobody Move, Denis Johnson’s hard-bitten, hard-boiled crime caper, for the Pittsburgh City Paper.

Michael Blumenthal’s And, reviewed

A review of a wonderful volume of poetry simply titled And by Michael Blumenthal (BOA Editions). I’m fortunate to have reviewed it for the venerable Forward. Thanks to DF for the opportunity.

Interview with Jennifer Moxley

An interview with poet and University of Maine professor Jennifer Moxley on the politics of poetry and her new book of poems Clampdown published in the New Haven Advocate and syndicated in the Hartford Advocate and Fairfield County Weekly.

Marriage-Go-Round, briefly reviewed

An incredibly short review of a complex book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today by Andrew Cherlin published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

On Charles D’Ambrosio

A piece on Charles D’Ambrosio’s Dead Fish Museum for the Pittsburgh City Paper.

If I were to ask Charles D’Ambrosio, the acclaimed author whose short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and other esteemed journals of literary writing, one question, it might be this: Are you OK?

Seriously. You might want to see a doctor. Get a second opinion. Take something for that. I just read his most recent collection, The Dead Fish Museum, and pretty much in every one, swaddled around a still-beating but congestive heart, is a broken soul.

In the title story, the down-and-out Ramage is a carpenter for a low-rent pornographer. He’s spent time convalescing in a hospital for reasons unclear. He carries around a tool sack at the bottom of which is a gun. After the job is done, he plans to finish it. Meanwhile, his boss wants his S&M bondage flick to quote Citizen Kane.

Full story . . .

Eternal Enemies, reviewed

A review of Adam Zagajewski’s wonderful volume, Eternal Enemies, published in the Pittsburgh City Paper.

The Spartacus War

I interview Barry Strauss, the military historian and author of The Spartacus War. This is published in Creative Loafing Atlanta.

Strauss recognizes the rebellion as one of the most successful insurgencies in world history, and finds some intriguing parallels between it and the United States’ War on Terror.

Full story . . .