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Those who regret missing George Morrison’s drawings at Todd Bockley last winter can more than make up for it with this exhibition. Though the museum points out that this exhibit is not a retrospective, it is, in fact, a decent overview of Morrison’s career from the 1940s to the 80s—effective but not overwhelming. Included are … Read more

Broader even than “pop culture,” the theme of this show seems so all-encompassing as to be almost pointless (or, at least, to invite too much esoteric theory for our tastes). The good news is that the show itself is elegantly sparse and impressively installed, showcasing several works each from three artists, who’ve shown mostly at … Read more

Hand it to Coen + Partners for establishing this gallery as an adjunct to its offices; by doing so, this landscape architecture firm has been admirably carrying on—if not reviving—the gallery tradition within the legendary Wyman Building, featuring both local artists and guest curators. Incidental brings together a quintet of artists whose work, according to … Read more

The tiniest detail, one that would seem perfectly innocuous in another context, can in this exhibit bring to bear the full horror of the Holocaust. Take, for example, a picture of some children on an outing. In the front row, a girl called Celina Cedarbaum appears to be caught in a merry moment, turning her … Read more

Jane Hamilton has been blessed or cursed—take your pick—by not one but two bolts of Oprah’s lightning. Having her novels The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World chosen for the distaff Midas’ book club elevated Hamilton to the rarefied ranks of best-selling literary authors and guaranteed her books ample display space in … Read more

Barbara Ehrenreich’s one of those virtuous full-immersion journalists whose work inspires more admiration than envy. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001), in which she recounted working within America’s hardscrabble underworld of hand-to-mouth laborers, was an eye-opening, compassionate, frequently funny, and dispiriting piece of reportage. It was also an unlikely success story, … Read more

After a six-year hiatus, David Treuer (Little and The Hiawatha) returns with a pair of titles that make an audacious claim for a prominent place among Native American writers. An Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation, Treuer teaches English at the University of Minnesota, but his focus remains on the history and current plight of … Read more

“Astonishing” doesn’t begin to describe the achievement of Octavian Nothing, which is ostensibly, purportedly, and quite incredibly being marketed as a young-adult novel. The latest from M.T. Anderson, whose previous novel Feed was a National Book Award finalist, is as challenging, brilliant, technically ambitious—and, let’s not forget, jaw-droppingly good—as any book you’ll get your hands … Read more

It seems impossible that Cormac McCarthy published his first book more than forty years ago. And even after ten novels, there may be no other American writer who has forged such an inimitable style (even if the Faulkner influence has always been apparent) and honed it to such a spare, violent vision of American history … Read more

BReaders captivated by Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones’ 1992 collection of spare, mostly contemporary stories of life in some of the bleakest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., had to wait more than ten years for a followup. While The Known World could hardly be called a disappointment—it did garner Jones the Pulitzer Prize—as a … Read more