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Standing Up, Standing By
A Review of Dawn Major’s The Bystanders by Jon Sokol The bystander effect is a theory describing a syndrome where normally decent people display apathy toward an injustice being perpetrated in front of them, especially in the presence of other people. Their thinking is that surely someone will do something. The unfortunate result is that…
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A Family Far Afield
A Review of Michelle Dowd’s Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Marlana Botnick Fireman Harsh but preparatory, bohemian but doctrinal. Michelle Dowd’s recently published memoir details her experience growing up in a family cult called The Field, and we discover that aspects of life which might seem at odds are actually far…
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Songs Out of Time
A Review of Craig Terlson’s Samurai Bluegrass By Ashley Holloway Samurai Bluegrass, the latest from prolific author Craig Terlson, set to be released in July 2023 by Literary Wanderlust, is an action-packed tale of a time-traveling samurai who finds himself in 1984 Toronto. Combining such disparate things such as samurai and bluegrass in a work…
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In Search of Truth and Love
A Review of Dan Leach’s Dead Mediums: Stories By Jon Sokol If you haven’t noticed lately, we seem to be experiencing a bit of a resurgence of the Southern literary short story. In what appears to be utter defiance against the novel-centric publishing industry, a new crop of writers is delivering significant contributions to what…
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Worse Than Black and White
An Analysis of Racism and Double-Consciousness in Dorothy B. Hughes’ The Expendable Man By Wiley Reiver N.B.: This essay inaugurates an occasional series at Reckon Review in which we dive deeply into crime or noir works of note. One of the least useful, or even interesting, debates in contemporary literary criticism concerns whether a fiction…
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To Live Outside the Law, You Must be Honest
A Review of Chris Offutt’s Code of the Hills By Maud Lavin Chris Offutt’s latest novel Code of the Hills (Grove Atlantic, June 2023) is Kentucky noir, with a twist. Or two or three. Offutt delivers a dirty, dangerous, suspenseful, page-turning tale that takes us from the vengeful Kentucky hill country to the gun-ridden streets…
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Love in the Blood-Stained Blue Dot
A Review of Bobby Mathews, Magic City Blues By Wiley Reiver Alabama author Bobby Mathews has followed up his well-regarded 2022 release Living the Gimmick with the newly released Magic City Blues, a novel that, for all his first book’s strengths, reveals how dramatically Mathews is growing as a crime author. Blues depends on Mathews’…
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The Road Never Ends
A Review of Craig Rodgers’ Drift By Eric Williams When reading Craig Rodgers’s forthcoming novel, Drift (Death of Print, 2023), I kept wanting to flip back to the inside cover and consult a map of the late capitalist America he writes about so sharply. Like the imaginary worlds documented at the front of paperback fantasy…
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Magic, Madness, Meaning
A Review of Jen Knox’ We Arrive Uninvited By Ashley Holloway What is the definition of a “strong female character”? A character who is physically strong and effective at wielding a multitude of weapons as she gracefully takes down the evil villain? Or is she more of a subtle badass like Elle Woods in Legally…
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Trusting Them, Trusting Ourselves
A Review of Tommi Parrish’s Men I Trust By Helena Pantsis Opening up on a support meeting for alcoholics and people impacted by alcohol, the graphic novel Men I Trust by Tommi Parrish immediately draws you in with its vivid and emotionally cogent watercolour art style. Tackling themes of recovery, gratitude, and queer relationships, Parrish…