Three-Sentence Reviews

• 

  A Prison Wherever He Turned (Stoner by John Williams)

  July 22, 2017

  The plot of John Williams’ 1965 novel, Stoner (NYRB Classics, 2006): Young man becomes assistant professor at University of Missouri, lives unhappy life, has undistinguished career, dies. You can hardly be blamed if you don’t find this particularly enticing, but make no mistake: Stoner (last name of the protagonist—sorry to disappoint) is a work of almost unbearable beauty. [Read More]
• 

  I’ll Come Back Once You’re Dead (Henri Duchemin and His Shadows by Emmanual Bove, trans. Alyson Waters)

• 

  So Fearsome a Blue; or, From Grandmother’s House We Go (Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter, trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore)

• 

  The American Uncanny (American Innovations: Stories by Rivka Galchen)