Book Reviews – Michigan Quarterly Review

Book Reviews

The Novel in Circular Streams: Raymond Queneau’s The Skin of Dreams

The Skin of Dreams is Raymond Queneau’s book about daydreaming multiple lives into existence. It is Queneau’s dance across that diaphanous membrane separating the waking real and imagined fantastical. Since boyhood, Jacques L’Aumône, the story’s lead character, has loved the “pictures” at his local theater. As he takes in the films, he not only empathizes […]

The Novel in Circular Streams: Raymond Queneau’s The Skin of Dreams Read More »

The Skin of Dreams is Raymond Queneau’s book about daydreaming multiple lives into existence. It is Queneau’s dance across that diaphanous membrane separating the waking real and imagined fantastical. Since boyhood, Jacques L’Aumône, the story’s lead character, has loved the “pictures” at his local theater. As he takes in the films, he not only empathizes

“Every being is harnessed to another and another and soon”: Harmonizing the Whole in Alessandra Lynch’s Wish Ave

Nearly two-thirds of the way through Wish Ave, I see the question I’d been wondering since the beginning: “Is there a real Wish Ave?” The response is as simple as it is delightful: “Sure. Between Payne Rd and 86th, west of Ditch.” As an Indiana native who grew up driving on and around 86 th

“Every being is harnessed to another and another and soon”: Harmonizing the Whole in Alessandra Lynch’s Wish Ave Read More »

Nearly two-thirds of the way through Wish Ave, I see the question I’d been wondering since the beginning: “Is there a real Wish Ave?” The response is as simple as it is delightful: “Sure. Between Payne Rd and 86th, west of Ditch.” As an Indiana native who grew up driving on and around 86 th

Three book covers by Ranjit Hoskote

Hope is a Choice: A Review of Ranjit Hoskote’s Trilogy—Jonahwhale (2018), Hunchprose (2021), Icelight (2023)

“I stand firm because i stand nowhere” — Ranjit Hoskote, Apostle, Icelight, 2023 David Graeber and David Wengrow begin the book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) by stating, “Most of human history is irreparably lost to us.” Early cave paintings around 25,000 and 15,000 BC provide us a glimpse of

Hope is a Choice: A Review of Ranjit Hoskote’s Trilogy—Jonahwhale (2018), Hunchprose (2021), Icelight (2023) Read More »

“I stand firm because i stand nowhere” — Ranjit Hoskote, Apostle, Icelight, 2023 David Graeber and David Wengrow begin the book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) by stating, “Most of human history is irreparably lost to us.” Early cave paintings around 25,000 and 15,000 BC provide us a glimpse of

Two book covers on blue background

We, Sonnet: Language, Love, and Power in the Poems of Brandy Nālani McDougall and Margaret Rhee

Like many contemporary poets, Brandy Nālani McDougall and Margaret Rhee evoke the sonnet in ways that both adhere to and stretch its formal bounds and exploit expectations of what the sonnet itself represents, employing the sonnet and its associations to amplify their investigations of language, love, and power. In her series “Ka ‘Ōlelo,” McDougall, a

We, Sonnet: Language, Love, and Power in the Poems of Brandy Nālani McDougall and Margaret Rhee Read More »

Like many contemporary poets, Brandy Nālani McDougall and Margaret Rhee evoke the sonnet in ways that both adhere to and stretch its formal bounds and exploit expectations of what the sonnet itself represents, employing the sonnet and its associations to amplify their investigations of language, love, and power. In her series “Ka ‘Ōlelo,” McDougall, a

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