Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2012) One day recently I was out hiking with my husband in the woods by our new house, and we came upon a stranger. At first he pointed in … Continued
Translated from the Japanese by Takuma Sminkey (Berkely, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2017) When In The Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma opens, a number of girls are working and playing in a narrow passageway by the water, a “safe … Continued
(Portland, OR: Tin House Books, 2014) Over the last several months, it seems, the internet has been exploding with issues about women’s health and well-being, issues of inequality, issues of gendered violence. There was a month in the summer when … Continued
(The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Mood, Masochism, and Murder. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2009) In my husband’s family if you’re reading a book and put it down on the coffee table to go get a snack, your book is fair game. … Continued
Books Discussed: Bonnie J. Rough’s Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA (Counterpoint Press, 2010); Roland Barthes’s Mourning Diary, translated and with an Afterword by Richard Howard (Hill and Wang, 2012); Roger Rosenblatt’s, Making Toast (Ecco, 2010) It was six months, almost to the day, from … Continued
When I think of Virginia Woolf, the picture that springs to mind is a woman in a large dress, wading slowly into a river, her pockets laden with stones so that she will be sure never to surface again. … Continued