Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Patricia Lockwood's first novel follows an Extremely Online woman whose life changes forever when her niece is born with a serious illness — which sounds Hallmark-ready, but Lockwood pulls it off. -
What's particularly salient in this book of previously uncollected essays is Didion's trademark farsightedness — especially striking decades later. But it does leave one wishing to hear from her now.
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Eley Williamsdid her doctoral dissertation on "mountweazels," fake words inserted into dictionaries as copyright traps — and she builds on that in her charming debut novel, about an epic dictionary.
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Fans of Jane Smiley's previous books will be pleased to see that talking horses make a return in her latest — plus a dog, a raven and a couple of ducks, all making lives for themselves in Paris.
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The British author writes beautifully of her own recent bout with a personal winter, a period when she felt low and overwhelmed — and aims to help others to embrace their winters.
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David Leavitt's new novel Shelter in Place aims for sparkling social comedy — but it's let down by a cast of privileged, shallow characters you wouldn't want to spend your lockdown with.
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Graham Smith's new novel seems at first to be a light little story about a seaside love triangle in Brighton, England in the 1950s — but it turns out to be about something far deeper.
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Sigrid Nunez's new novel follows an unnamed narrator who agrees to keep a dying friend company until the end — but despite encompassing all kinds of sadness, the story is never grim.
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In Ali Smith's new novel, she reveals the overarching connections between the characters and themes of her previous three. Critic Heller McAlpin says connection is the great theme of these works.
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Maggie O'Farrell's new novel confronts a parent's worst nightmare: The loss of a child. In this case, it's Hamnet, the real-life son of William Shakespeare, whose death may have inspired Hamlet.
