-
Book Review – A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò
A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò is a novel that illuminates and explores, with great candour and heart, two very different sides of modern Nigeria. Wúràolá, a young doctor from a wealthy family, is weighed down by the punishing hours and strained environment of her job, and the pressure from her family and…
-
Book Review – The White Rock by Anna Hope
The White Rock by Anna Hope is an epic journey bringing us backwards and forwards in time through four different story lines, unfolding decades and centuries apart, loosely bound together by the powerful Mexican landscape within which they take place, and by the echoes that run through them. The Writer (2020), the Singer (1969), the…
-
Book Review – Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
I preferred to wallow in the problem, dream of better days. It’s 1964 in wintry New England, and Eileen does not have it good. Living in a run-down house with her alcoholic father – a bully she mostly despises but remains dutiful too – Eileen is a young woman who drapes and drowns herself in…
-
Book Review – Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a story of two parts and two worlds, a story that encapsulates two very different sides of Haruki Murakami’s writing. One part: a Tokyo muchly similar to contemporary Tokyo but with a cyber twist, where our narrator lives a life typical to all Murakami’s male narrators…
-
Book Review – Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton
Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton is a dynamic and compulsive multigenerational story that moves back and forth in time and place, between mother Sook-Yin and daughter Lily, between Hong Kong and London, spanning four decades from the 1960s to 1990s. It’s a story of love and betrayal; of the struggles of dual-heritage identity; of…
-
Book Review – Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah
When Efe and Sam meet in 1990s London, Efe is burdened by the expectations of her parents, who sent her to London from Ghana in hopes of a better future, while Sam is consumed by his studies in pursuit of a career in law. They come and go from each other, in ebbs and flows,…
-
Book Review – Avalon by Nell Zink
Avalon by Nell Zink is a quirky and satirically philosophical coming-of-age novel with a resilient underdog as its narrator. Bran is not having it easy; with a dysfunctional family and unusual upbringing, she was abandoned by first her father and then her mother, one for the promise of Australia and the other for the promise…
-
Book Review – I Wanted To Be Close To You by Katie Oliver
I Wanted To Be Close To You by Katie Oliver is a collection of darkly humorous and sharply written short stories exploring the female experience in particular, written at a snappy pace that perfectly suits their short length. In fact, these stories are so short – some merely a page long – that they emerge…
-
Interview – Paper Visual Art
At a time when the Irish cultural scene is alive and kicking with predominantly literary journals, PVA is an initiative which has carved out a very special place of its own. With its origins as an art journal, it has since evolved into a space where contributions on visual art, contemporary culture and literature sit…
-
Book Review – Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison
One time we had the whole world in our hands, but we ate it and we burned it and it’s gone now. Written in 1966, Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison is a novel that merges science fiction and the dystopian with detective story and a little bit of a love story thrown in…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
The Resting Willow 