by Cynthia Newberry Martin | May 14, 2010 | novels, provincetown |
Annie Dillard published her most recent book, The Maytrees, a novel, in 2007. The cover of the paperback has recessed letters that I can feel with my eyes closed and uneven pages that make me think the book was created by a real person. It’s interesting, I...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 24, 2010 | first novels |
Edinburgh, the first novel by Alexander Chee, is the best book I’ve read so far this year. The subject matter is difficult, but the writing–with its repetitions, its wondrous quality, its innocence–lures the reader forward. “Blue. Blue because...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 9, 2010 | first novels, my writing, reviews |
The new issue of Contrary Magazine is online with my review of Kim Wright’s first novel, Love in Mid Air. Here’s the first paragraph of the review: As a plane heads down a runway, a stranger reaches for the Narrator’s hand. “Here comes the dangerous part,”...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 11, 2010 | first novels, my writing, reviews |
An Equal Stillness, the debut novel by Francesca Kay, who grew up in South-east Asia and India and now lives in Oxford, was one of the best books I read in 2009. My review of this book is now online in Contrary Magazine’s Winter Issue. An Equal Stillness also...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jun 12, 2009 | first novels, reviews |
At the beginning of The Vagrants, the first novel by Yiyun Li, one at a time, each of the main characters comes into contact with one of the notices being posted all over the Chinese town of Muddy Waters announcing the execution and denunciation of a...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 2, 2009 | Columbus GA, first novels, place |
“The first days of April were windy and warm. White clouds trailed across the blue sky. In the wind there was the smell of the river and also the fresher smell of fields beyond the town.” from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Carson...
