​We the Animals by Justin Torres is a novel about three brothers who live with an abusive father. The youngest, and the narrator, describes moments where they play around with their mother at the kitchen when they were young, and watch as their father digs a hole and they all go inside it, in addition to other moments. One day, the mother decides to pack up everything and the boys to try and flee the father, but as they hang around the park, the mother can’t bring herself to completely leave so they return home. We get moments of the boys throwing rocks at a neighbor’s house, and the neighbor’s son invites them into his basement where they watch gay porn. Another moment where the father takes the youngest to Niagara Falls, dangles him over the edge, and when they arrive at a museum, the father notes how pretty his son is. All of it comes to a head when the boys are older and the youngest hangs around a bus station restroom hoping to have sex with men. Eventually, as a bus driver asks him where he’s going, he is brought onto the bus where the man touches him. When the youngest arrives home however, his family has found his journal which he’s written down his fantasies. This causes his parents to take him to get institutionalized. At the end, right before they’re about to make him leave their home, his father bathes him while his mother watches, and his brothers sit outside in their truck.
 
Torres writes so succinctly and powerfully that the characters feel so real in their rendition. We get to see the collective feeling of the brothers in the beginning due to the abusiveness of their father, which showcases the brothers splintering in the end of the novel. Its lyrical quality reminds me of Ocean Vuong’s writing which felt completely heartbreaking but also true to the character’s experiences. I particularly felt that the chapter ‘Us Proper’ worked so well with the voice that Torres cultivates. The brothers are brash and violent which is a product of how they were treated by their father. I remember hearing on a Tin House podcast that because he was on a bus, he had to write one of the chapters in his head and memorize it. The novel is short, but every word felt so intentional. I think it’ll be one of those novels I’ll be returning to over and over again.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorcia is a novel about a man, Daniel, who comes to terms with his sexuality upon meeting his college roommate in Ithaca, Sam. Sam is a soccer player who doesn’t fit the ordinary understanding of being queer. However, as Daniel and Sam get to know each other, there are signs that Daniel picks up on: being spooned during a camping trip, kisses, stares, and touches that last a little too long for mere friendship. As their freshman year progresses, they run with each other and the tension of Daniel’s love pulls them together. All of Daniel’s friends encourage him to be more forthright with Sam, where they go to a queer party, and eventually Sam invites Daniel out to a party with all the soccer players after he wins their college game. Their will-they-won’t-they continues on until Daniel explains to Sam his feelings for him. Then, they have sex in the last few weeks of the year. However, Sam hasn’t quite understood his sexuality and so near the end of the year, he pulls farther away from Daniel, where he plans to live in a frat house instead of with Daniel. During summer break, Daniel goes to Mexico to bring his grandfather back to America when he receives an email from Sam that he’s not ready to be out and that they should stop seeing each other. This breaks Daniel while he tries to keep up appearances for his grandfather and family in Mexico. At his welcome party, Daniel meets the wealthy caterer, Diego, who falls quickly for him. Diego invites Daniel out that night where Daniel tries to process his feelings for Sam while also trying to handle Diego. Diego and Daniel then go on a trip where they make love and their relationship blossoms, though Daniel’s true feelings lie with Sam. Then, Daniel gets a call from Sam’s mother saying that Sam died in a drunken car accident without a seatbelt. Daniel is so heartbroken that he retracts himself from his family, drinking and sleeping and trying to figure out how he’d be able to live. In an attempt to get him out of his shell, his grandfather talks to him about his uncle, Daniel, who was also gay and died after accidently being shot by his best friend. Diego then reaches out to invite Daniel out, where Diego’s true intentions are revealed where he only wants Daniel and not for Daniel to process his loss. Daniel ditches Diego after they fight where he eventually returns to his grandfather’s house. It takes Daniel an understanding and an opening up to his grandfather for him to start the process of moving on. When Daniel is able to start thinking about the next year, he goes through his emails where he finds Sam’s final email saying he loved him and that it was stupid of him to write the email before. And so, to reconnect with his uncle’s best friend and provide closure to his uncle’s death, Daniel and his grandfather go to his uncle’s best friend. They talk and go to his uncle’s gravesite where all three men try to process life, death, love, and loss.
 
 Ordorcia frames the novel with Daniel writing to Sam after returning for his sophomore year. Essentially he is in the middle of processing his loss by talking to his dead lover, which provides a beautiful and reflective understanding of Daniel and Sam’s relationship. At the beginning of each chapter, there’s also a diary entry we later learn is from Daniel’s uncle describing his feelings for other men and his desire for activism during the AIDs crisis. It’s a truly intense story of first love, how to process death, and a family’s desire to reconnect.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​New Ohio Review Issue 34 is a collection of poetry, short stories, essays and reviews. I particularly enjoyed ‘visiting the Natural History Museum with my 97-Year-Old Dad’ by Michael Mark, ‘The Hair Cutting’ by Ockert Greeff, ‘In Our Nature’ by Sunni Brown Wilkinson, ‘My Body is a Cemetery’ by Eliza Sullivan, ‘Pantoum’ by Maria Martin, and ‘Kate Sessions Park’ by Bruce McKay. In ‘Kate Sessions Park’, McKay describes a girl, Fatima, who helps an intellectually disabled girl, Cici. When Fatima and the speaker bring Cici to a junior lifeguarding event, Cici pees herself, which causes Fatima to drive her to a beach 90 miles away, effectively getting her fired from helping Cici. It’s a raw story that works with the speaker’s sense of observations and intuitions.
 
Final Rating; 3.5/5

​In Tongues by Thomas Grattan is a novel about a gay man, Gordon, who, after being dumped, moves from Minneapolis to New York where he eventually works as a dog walker. He gets by through living at a bar owner’s, Janice’s, place and during his job is brought on as a helper for a wealthy older couple in Brooklyn. The wealthy couple, Philip and Nicola, work as art curators who let Gordon tag along with them. During this time, Gordon has encounters with other men, and at a party, hooks up with Nicola. As Gordon integrates more into Philip’s and Nicola’s lives, he pines over a well-known painter, Pavel. However, Gordon’s introduction into the couple causes some rifts in their relationship, and so on a trip to Germany, Gordon and Philip go alone. There, Gordon and Philip grow closer to each other in a platonic way. Pavel also appears in Germany, but leaves before Gordon can pursue him. On their trip in Germany, 9/11 happens which starts the separating of Gordon from the couple’s life. When they return, and while Philip and Nicola are on a trip, Gordon invites Janice and her friends over to the couple’s house where they perform burlesque. Then, Gordon and Pavel have a relationship while Pavel paints Gordon. All of it comes to a head when word of the party reaches Nicola, who never liked Gordon in the first place. Gordon is fired, his friendship is strained with Janice, and so in a desire to keep what little he has, Gordon travels to meet up with Pavel in Mexico City. However, by that time, Pavel is already in a relationship and was not expecting Gordon to take up his offer of staying. In Mexico City, Gordon receives an email from his father saying that he’s going in for heart surgery, which spurs Gordon to return home. Gordon and his father had never had a good relationship which is slathered in religion. When he returns to Minneapolis, he stays with his father and step-mother, but is rejected once they find out he’s been sleeping with other men. After being kicked out, and living at a friend’s place, Gordon receives a letter from Philip with five thousand dollars. With that, Gordon travels to Brooklyn and picks himself up by working at hospitals, eventually working at an ICU. One day, ten years after their first encounter, Gordon finds Philip succumbing to cancer as a patient. There, they have a final moment together laying in Philip’s hospital bed. At the end and in an effort to repair his friendship after Philip’s death, Gordon calls Janice where they talk about Philip, Janice’s new family, and the small things of New York.
 
Grattan imbues Gordon with a wry and smart sense of humor, often times to a fault of his character. The writing is direct and specific and I found the way it addressed religion, Gordon’s misdeeds, and the way he’s treated to really work. We get to see Gordon continually fail to forge strong and meaningful relationships either with Philip, Pavel, his father, his mother, or Janice. I really loved the sometimes tender, sometimes contentious moments between Gordon and Philip. An utterly raw and drama filled read.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​A Cold Winter from Idaho by Lawrence Matsuda is a collection of poems detailing his family’s experience during World War II as Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to an internment camps. It follows Matsuda’s childhood in Minidoka as well as reflecting on the crimes America had committed on its citizens during the war. I enjoyed poems such as ‘1942 Nightmare’, ‘Too Young to Remember’, and ‘Arc de Triomphe, 2003 Invasion of Iraq’. Though, as a reader having a base understanding of Japanese American culture, I felt at points the language and images catered to a white audience. Many of the Japanese terms are italicized, which signals to the audience that those words are exotic or different. And in the poem ‘Go Game’, one stanza reads, “Thumps and slaps transform/gohan into mochi,/a gooey white blob,/for the New Year’s Day’s feast.” While technically fine, the poem assumes the reader doesn’t know what mochi is, taking precious space to explain. Another instance can be found in ‘The Noble Thing’ where a line says, “Gaman, ‘endure the unbearable with dignity.’” It’s not that these ideas shouldn’t be mentioned, but rather their desire to be defined within the poem accepts the conceit that the reader doesn’t know these things. And the people who are less likely to know are folks that aren’t Japanese American. Also, there’s a recurring image of samurai that parallels the soldiers of the 442nd, and while I understand this connection, I would’ve liked one with more dimension and a little more complexity. It was an interesting read, however I felt disconnected from the intended audience.
 
Final Rating: 3/5

​Bones Worth Breaking by David Martinez is a memoir about a pair of brothers both struggling with drug addictions, childhood trauma, and the reverberations of living as mixed-race kids. Though, it’s so much more than that. It’s about skateboarding, the brother’s unbreakable bond, Martinez’s LDS mission in Brazil, his marriage, his writing journey, and his brother, Mike’s, death from sepsis due to COVID while in prison. The memoir spans Martinez’s struggles with doing hard drugs which were used to cope with his childhood sexual trauma, strict conservative household, and his bipolar disorder. It’s a deeply personal and important story which shows the divergence of the two brothers bonding over skateboarding and doing drugs, and the difficulties of hiding mental illness and drug abuse. While the whole memoir infuses itself with importance of the brother’s love, I felt the greatest connection when reading Mike’s emails while Martinez is on his mission in Brazil. The pain and knowledge of what is to come for Mike is raw and bleeds in each moment. Martinez writes about a painful and hard life, and I feel now changed because of it.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe is a novel about a cram-school teacher, Bird, whose son is born with a brain hernia and Bird’s attempt at dealing with its ramifications. On the night of his son’s birth, Bird is not with his wife, but is instead buying maps to Africa, where he’s had a desire to go to. While waiting, he also gets in a fight with a street gang who initially thinks he’s an easy man to rob. Though, when his son is finally born, he’s told there’s something wrong. So, he rushes to the hospital where the doctor tells him of the brain hernia and that they can’t take care of the child. Instead, the child is taken to another hospital where the doctors try to stabilize it before surgery. After seeing the horror of his child, he goes to his father-in-law, who’s a professor, and tells him of the child. Knowing of Bird’s alcoholic past, his father-in-law gives him a bottle of Johnny Walker and sends him on his way. This is where Bird begins to spiral, where he goes to his old friend, Himiko, who he once raped in a lumber yard. He tries to push out the idea of the child by seeing Himiko, and they both get so drunk that the next day, Bird pukes in front of his cram-school class. Periodically, Bird checks in with his son, at times hoping the son to be dead so that he doesn’t have to tell his wife of their son’s defect. At one point, Bird lies to his recovering wife saying that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with their child. Eventually, Bird returns to Himiko wanting to have sex with her, but can’t stop thinking about getting her pregnant until she suggests anal. They get closer, and at one point they come up with the plan to take the child from the hospital and have him murdered by a shady doctor Himiko knows, and then they can flee to Africa. So, they take the child from the hospital before it’s to be operated on and drive to the shady clinic. They drop the baby off and go to a gay bar which, coincidently, is the same name Bird reluctantly gave to the child. There, he sees an old friend who he once betrayed. Upon talking with his old friend, Bird realizes he can’t have a doctor kill his child. So, he races back in a taxi to the clinic. Weeks later, it turns out that brain hernia was only a benign tumor which was successfully operated on. Bird then takes on the responsibility of being a father, ending with hope and possibility for him.
 
Ōe instills violence and sex into this narrative that felt powerful and at times terrifying. The run in with the gang, the man who he’d searched for when he was younger, the continual desire for his son to be dead. It’s an interesting way to show how Bird tries to rationalize the fact he’d prefer a dead son over one with a disability. Another thing that was interesting to me was how Bird expressed his sexuality. In one of the first scenes, he sees a trans woman (the novel is much more transphobic/homophobic than what is published today) and he, “…felt a surge of affection for the young man masquerading as a large woman.” Where he, “…would probably lie around naked, as close as brothers, and talk. I’d be naked too so he wouldn’t feel any awkwardness.” Later on in the novel, when Bird can’t seem to get hard due to Himiko saying there’s a potential for her to get pregnant, she suggests anal. And in Bird’s mind, “…he had longed for the most malefic sex, a fuck rife with ignominy.” In that same moment, Himiko also asks if Bird ever had sex with one of his male students. And what’s more interesting is at the end, after dropping off the baby at the clinic, Himiko and Bird decide on going to a gay bar. While Bird has a wife and mistress, it’s interesting to note the way Ōe approaches sexuality in tones close to Yukio Mishima’s (i.e. violence, power, shame). The novel flashes forward a few weeks at the end where we get to see Bird seemingly as a new person where even the gang doesn’t seem to recognize him. Though, because the rest of the novel is set within a span of a few days and I personally like ambiguity, I wonder what the novel would’ve looked like had the narrative stopped the moment Bird gets in the taxi to go back to the clinic. By then, we know the change that has come over Bird, and I would’ve liked to stew in the unknown the same way the rest of the novel sat in. Though, on the whole I really enjoyed the novel and, in the context of Ōe’s own personal life (his own son being born with a mental disability), it may have been too sad of an ending for Ōe to consider.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5

​Grief Sequence by Prageeta Sharma is a collection of poems about the loss of her husband, Dale, due to esophageal cancer. It’s a painful, though important look at how or what a person is supposed to do with the grief they have. I particularly enjoyed, ‘Complicated Spiritual Grief, Part 1’, ‘Sequence 7’, and ‘Returning to Our Creation Myth’. There are moments where the speaker takes Dale’s medication away because they are being over prescribed or sending Dale’s ashes down a river. In the poem, ‘March Wind’, I was floored by what Sharma writes, “I learn that there are two winters and two early springs happening at the same time and I have to turn one season to the other to get past their painful awakenings. It’s just a snow patch. It’s still melting.”
 
Final Rating: 4/5

​Austral by Carlos Fonseca is a novel about a professor, Julio, who digs up the past after receiving a request to edit the last novel of his dead friend, Aliza Abravanel. He’s sent to a commune called Humahuaca in Argentina where he meets Aliza’s assistant and is given Aliza’s manuscript. All the while, Julio’s wife returns to her family after a fight about Julio leaving the US. At the commune, Julio reads parts of the manuscript meant to be the ending of Aliza’s tetralogy on the elements of the earth. The novel seems to parallel the life of Aliza, though she was insistent her writing is not memoir. Along the way, Julio tries to fill and understand the space of Aliza’s passing by meeting another one of her assistants, Sarapura, who helped Aliza transcribe some of her writing into another manuscript titled Dictionary of Loss. With the two manuscripts, Julio returns home trying to determine the meanings of Aliza’s writing. Though, he keeps on hitting dead ends. That is until he finds out about a man who built a theater in the ruins of a town where an earthquake had destroyed it. In the theater, there are recordings of residents describing their childhoods before war and the earthquake. And in the voices, Julio realizes what to do with the manuscripts, as they weren’t meant to be edited by him, rather they were for him to read. So, he walks a little farther from the theater and buries both manuscripts in the ground.
 
Fonseca creates stories within stories as there are excerpts of Aliza’s novels in Austral. I enjoyed the way he illustrates the parallels between Julio and his journey to Aliza’s narrators, and I enjoyed the feeling that I was excavating a life along with Julio.
 
Final Rating: 4/5