Content Tagged ‘Lanie Tankard’

Echoing a familial refrain

June 28, 2013 | 5 Comments

Khaled Hosseini’s third novel strikes universal chords. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Riverhead Books  (Penguin Group ); 404 pp., $28.95 hardback. Also available in paperback (Bloomsbury Publishing), Kindle, Nook, Audible, audiobook CD, SoundCloud, iTunes, and large-print (Thorndike Press) editions. Guest Review by Lanie Tankard “…and the place echoed every word, and when he said ‘Goodbye!’ Echo also said ‘Goodbye!’”  —Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book III (Trans. by A.S. Kline) Khaled Hosseini took a risk in his third novel. He tried a …

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Fiona Maazel on loneliness

May 23, 2013 | 6 Comments

A novel approach to the absurdities of mass desolation.   Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel Graywolf Press, 336 pp., $26.00. Guest Review by Lanie Tankard We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story . . . —John Steinbeck, to the Paris Review A Google search for the term lonely can yield 287,000,000 results in less than twenty seconds. A Facebook Community called “Loneliness” has …

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Junot Díaz: Voice of a genius

November 14, 2012 | 9 Comments

The novelist holds up a mirror to society through narrative. This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz Riverhead Books, 213 pp., $26.95. Guest Review by Lanie Tankard “I stand in for the absolute silence in our communities.”—Junot Díaz Will Junot Díaz add the National Book Award to his shelf of literary prizes? He’s one of five fiction finalists for the honor to be announced on November 14. Díaz has already scooped up so many awards, however, that he’s a …

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Using myth to drive narrative

October 10, 2012 | 4 Comments

David Levithan wrote his new book for teens, but snagged adult imagination, too. Every Day by David Levithan Alfred A. Knopf/Random House Children’s Books, 336 pp., $16.99. Guest Review by Lanie Tankard In uncertain times, we cling to the power of myth.—Bill Moyers  Archetypes of myth have undergirded many a tale enjoyed by readers of all ages. Certainly George Lukas understood the power of myth when he created Star Wars. Lukas was greatly influenced by Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero …

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The Silent Voice

June 30, 2012 | 19 Comments

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice                      by Terry Tempest Williams                                                                                       New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 208 pp. Guest Review by Lanie Tankard …

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Review: P.F. Kluge’s ‘Master Blaster’

April 25, 2012 | 16 Comments

Guest Review By Lanie Tankard The Master Blaster by P.F. Kluge. Overlook Press/Peter Mayer, 304 pp. When fiction and nonfiction meet up, consideration of the resulting technique can be enlightening for anyone working in words. Journalist P.F. Kluge, writer in residence at Kenyon College, has combined in an intriguing way these two seemingly polar opposites in his new novel about an island. Island. That word usually conjures up the image of a palm-fronded speck surrounded by water—tranquil and carefree. In …

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John Gardner’s killer sentence

April 22, 2012 | 5 Comments

I was reading the late novelist’s short story “Redemption,” based on the accidental death of his younger brother in a horrifying farming accident, and found its sentences beautifully crafted. John Gardner, at eleven, was driving a tractor when his brother fell under its towed cultipacker, a pair of giant rolling pins for mashing the clods in harrowed soil that weighed two tons. In the story, grief almost destroys the father, like Gardner’s father a dairyman, orator, and lay preacher; the …

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