Open Letters Monthly
  • Open Letters Monthly
  • About
  • Contact

Open Letters Monthly

  • Open Letters Monthly/
  • About/
  • Contact/

Open Letters Monthly

Archive

Main Archive

The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.

Open Letters Monthly

  • Open Letters Monthly/
  • About/
  • Contact/
July 31, 2010

Midlife Magic

July 31, 2010/ Karen Vanuska

Emmanuel Carrere’s memoir is an uneasy blend of sexual fantasy and archival records, of a future with a beautiful young woman and a past haunted by a possible Nazi collaborator

Read More
July 31, 2010/ Karen Vanuska/
Monthly Cover
August 2010, Book Review, fiction, Karen Vanuska
May 31, 2009

Uppity Blues

May 31, 2009/ Karen Vanuska

Master of the mannered sneak-attack, Kazuo Ishiguro has enraptured readers for years – including Karen Vanuska, who walks us through Nocturnes, his collection of linked stories.

Read More
May 31, 2009/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, June 2009, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
April 30, 2009

Roots Into Entrails

April 30, 2009/ Karen Vanuska

A Nazi picaresque wouldn’t seem to be a likely read, but Karen Vanuska reviews a new reprint of Jakov Lind’s 1962 World War II novel Landscape in Concrete and finds its grim, absurd power undimmed by the years.

Read More
April 30, 2009/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism, May 2009
April 30, 2009

How to Wreck a Planet

April 30, 2009/ Karen Vanuska

Jeanette Winterson has made a career of pushing her prose poetry into different worlds. But by abandoning Earth altogether, has she left her readers stranded? Karen Vanuska heretically challenges The Stone Gods.

Read More
April 30, 2009/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism, May 2009
March 31, 2009

Rescue Pieces

March 31, 2009/ Karen Vanuska

Much critical buzz has accompanied Philipp Meyer’s debut novel American Rust (there’s talk of a Pulitzer)—Karen Vanuska cuts through the hype and attempts to nail down the thing itself.

Read More
March 31, 2009/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
April 2009, fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
December 31, 2008

Like Diamonds on Display

December 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska

Karen Vanuska finds plenty to praise in Louise Erdrich’s The Red Convertible: New and Selected Stories—as well as some loose bolts and steam under the hood.

Read More
December 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, January 2009, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
October 31, 2008

A Woman Walks Into Her Therapist’s Office…

October 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska

Fans of Sylvia Brownrigg’s fiction admire the hidden complexity beneath its surface simplicity; we plumb the depths of The Delivery Room and Morality Tale with Karen Vanuska.

Read More
October 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism, November 2008
September 30, 2008

Murders Most Foul

September 30, 2008/ Karen Vanuska

What constitutes particularly Southern fiction? In reckoning Ron Rash’s Serena, Karen Vanuska goes below the Mason-Dixon line in search of something that sets Southern fiction apart – aside from all the dead bodies stacked like cordwood.

Read More
September 30, 2008/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism, mystery, October 2008
June 30, 2008

Strange Bedfellows

June 30, 2008/ Karen Vanuska

In America America, a suburban everyman like those in Ethan Canin’s stories and novels finds himself in the center of a scandal that leads to a presidential hopeful’s ruin. Karen Vanuska explores how well Canin navigates his character through the bumptious subject of highstakes political intrigue.

Read More
June 30, 2008/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, July 2008, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
May 31, 2008

The Best Intentions

May 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska

As a startling suicide shows, evil is in the mundane details of Margot Livesey’s The House on Fortune Street. Karen Vanuska follows the novel’s four main characters and tries to tease out the peril beneath their most pedestrian actions.

Read More
May 31, 2008/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, June 2008, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
December 17, 2007

Whispers Through the Curtain

December 17, 2007/ Karen Vanuska
Whispers Through the Curtain

For fifteen years a British and a Soviet family built a friendship by slipping letters past KGB censors. Karen Vanuska celebrates From Newbury with Love, a collection of their rich correspondence.

Read More
December 17, 2007/ Karen Vanuska/
Politics & History
December 2007, fiction, history, Karen Vanuska
October 31, 2007

Under the Microscope

October 31, 2007/ Karen Vanuska

Andrea Barrett’s novels and stories have been quiet, restrained affairs, but, as Karen Vanuska reports, her new book The Air We Breathe is given a stimulating shot in the arm by the intrusion of World War I.

Read More
October 31, 2007/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism, November 2007
May 31, 2007

Limitless Apocalypse

May 31, 2007/ Karen Vanuska

Karen Vanuska reviews Jim Crace’s post-apocalyptic novel The Pesthouse, in which Americans seek salvation by emigrating to Europe. Hmm, think Crace might be trying to tell us something…?

Read More
May 31, 2007/ Karen Vanuska/
Fiction, Literary Criticism
fiction, June 2007, Karen Vanuska, literary criticism
  • Open Letters Monthly/
  • About/
  • Contact/

Open Letters Monthly

Features

stevereads Features Cover.png

Novel Readings Features Cover.png

Hammer & Thump Features Cover.png

Four Color Opera Features Cover.png

Like Fire Features Cover.png

It’s a Mystery book reviews by Irma Heldman

Open Letters Monthly Archive Feature Second Glance

Powered by Squarespace.