What We’re Loving: Pulp Fiction, Struggles, Kuwait

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, an anthology of “domestic suspense” fiction written by women between the forties and the seventies, makes for perfect subway reading: not only are the stories magazine-short, but the book’s terrific, pulpy cover is a real conversation starter. In her introduction, editor Sarah Weinman makes a compelling case for the genre’s subversive impact, both on society and the modern psychological thriller. But influence aside, the stories are just plain fun: whether it’s Patricia Highsmith’s highly-strung nanny, Shirley Jackson’s paranoid runaway, or a noirish housewife with a sinister secret, the cast of characters will haunt you long after you’ve reached your stop. —Sadie Stein

My first read through Geoffrey O’Brien’s new collection, People on Sunday, induced a kind of dazzled bafflement. The language is precise but the turns are hard to follow: “It’s the opposite / of dreaming,” he explains in one poem, “except that objects / are alive and episodic, connected / by comforting blurs.” I especially liked a poem set in New Mexico (“This land was always postnuclear, / Out of time while in it”), and another about riding the F train (“it’s embarrassing / still to be riding this system, antiquated / As reading a newspaper or choosing / The semicolon”). After a second and third reading, I find that O’Brien’s most urgent theme is the difficulty of writing public-spirited poetry at a time when “the poem / Is now believed to be the most distant / Object ever seen.” You might think this would make for a poetry of despair or irony, but oftentimes it’s just the opposite: “We decided to rebuild our home again / In the intermittent sun, strangers with arms / Linked to protect the thing behind them.” —Robyn Creswell Read More »