In ‘Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, Edwin Frank explores how reality has been presented and even transformed through the way it is molded in fiction—and how the novel evolved from the 19th century novel to that of the 20th century.
Cynthia-Marie Marmo O'Brien
Cynthia-Marie Marmo O’Brien is a writer and educator in New York.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Abdulrazak Gurnah on war, chance encounters and destiny
Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘Afterlives,’ which was not published in the United States until 2022.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
The holiness of asking for help
By letting others in, we enable them to do the work of God.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Violence and hospitality in a seaside town
In ‘Vigil Harbor,’ Julia Glass shares a complex tale about a town’s history of close encounters with violence, but also about the open and helpful community that unintentionally enables some of the calamities that ensue.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The limits of the human body
In ‘The Body Scout,’ Lincoln Michel explores the limits of what it means to be human through a future in which companies tempt consumers with upgrades—new arms, organs and more.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: In a dystopian future, a family navigates grief in the midst of political and environmental upheaval
The latest novel by Richard Powers, “Bewilderment,” is a meditation on love for our planet as well as our individual love for one another.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Women, chronic illness and resurrection
Sarah Ramey in her new book: “My case went unsolved for fourteen years because no one would listen to me and the reason they would not listen to me is because I am a woman.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The remarkable friendship of Emerson and Thoreau
In Solid Seasons, Jeffrey S. Cramer explores the deep friendship between the two literary titans.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Andrew Krivak’s ‘The Bear’ shows the cycle of life
Andrew Krivak’s new novel is an elegiac tale that resonates deeply with the creation spirituality that has been rising in our collective imagination.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
A writer who helps us understand the lives of others
Paley knew by instinct what science now confirms: the role reading plays in developing empathy for the other.