Jared Lemus’s robust, melancholy debut short story collection ‘Guatemalan Rhapsody’ gives us characters who strive for love, respect or mere survival in tales that unfold in Guatemalan towns or among immigrant communities in the United States.
Jenny Shank
Jenny Shank’s first novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post and Image. She is on the faculty of the Mile High M.F.A. in creative writing at Regis University in Denver.
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Review: A mother’s thoughtful memoir delves deep
Megan Nix’s ‘Remedies for Sorrow’ is ostensibly a memoir, but confining Remedies for Sorrow to one genre seems too restrictive for what this expansive and enlightening book accomplishes.
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Review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s books continue to cast a spell over readers.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels ‘Silver Nitrate’ and ‘Mexican Gothic’ feature complicated heroines, compelling plots and supernatural elements solidly grounded in research.
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Review: Two novels about women of laughter and resilience
In ‘How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water’ by Angie Cruz and ‘Factory Girls’ by Michelle Gallen, readers encounter female protagonists who are smart, tough, hilarious survivors.
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Review: An intergenerational look at the messiness of falling in love
In ‘Monster in the Middle,’ Tiphanie Yanique shows how the choice to love is always a leap of faith, a heedless plunge into the unknown.
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Review: Two new novels show the hidden lives of nuns
‘Matrix’ and ‘Agatha of Little Neon’ differ in their historical settings, but they both center on women perceiving the ways of the world with absolute clarity, realizing the extent of their power and deciding to use it for the good of others.
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Kirstin Valdez Quade’s debut novel explores grace and tension across five generations of a New Mexico Catholic family
In ‘The Five Wounds,’ Kirstin Valdez Quade depicts a family in which each member embodies human weaknesses yet remains worthy of love. Each finds they are stronger together than any of them is alone.
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Review: In Patricia Engel’s ‘Infinite Country,’ a family grapples with borders and belonging
The American dream exerts a magnetic pull in Patricia Engel’s new novel.
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Review: Inside the very Catholic history of college basketball
John Gasaway examines the entire history of Catholic college basketball in the United States. We see just how many different teams, coaches and athletes have contributed to a reputation for basketball excellence, from the University of San Francisco to Georgetown, Gonzaga and Villanova.
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Review: A refugee’s big-hearted tale of building an American identity
This story of a Vietnamese immigrant growing up in the United States is constructed as a series of meditations on the lessons from great books that moved and instructed him.