By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 29th, 2023
0 Comments
105 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “The shock of the water – there is nothing like it on land. The temporary reprieve from gravity. It’s just like flying. The pure pleasure of being in motion. The dissipation of all want. I’m free.” Julie Otsuka’s novel explores the mundane nature of daily human exist...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 29th, 2023
0 Comments
77 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “I ran my finger along his collarbone and said: I can’t remember if I thought about this at the beginning. How it was doomed to end unhappily. He nodded, looking at me. I did, he said. I just thought it would be worth it.” SallyRooney’s first novel, published in 2017, foll...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 1st, 2023
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126 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “I guess somewhere in a corner of our hearts, we are always twenty.” Kelly’s sweeping historical fiction novel chronicles the Rabbits – the women confined in the Ravensbruck concentration camp who were subjected to experimental surgical procedures that left survivors...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 1st, 2023
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93 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “And what was I to say? Most days, these days, I didn’t feel as though I loved him. Most days I thought of him as a problem I would have to solve eventually, when I felt like making the effort.” I hesitate to review novels set in the world of academia, a […]...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2023
0 Comments
412 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Names are talismans of memory too – Katrina, Camille. Perhaps this is why we name our storms.” When we think of Hurricane Katrina, we think of New Orleans. The media’s fascination with the Big Easy resonated across our screens as we watched people stranded on roofto...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2023
0 Comments
125 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “I was what I was and could no more choose my family, even a family denied me, than I could choose a country that denies us all the same.” On a 19th century Virginia plantation, young Hiram Walker knows only the landscape in front of him. As the dominance of American [&hel...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
129 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl’s groundbreaking book, originally published in 1959, details his experience as a prisoner of war during World War II, his post-war development of a school of psychother...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
124 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Among many enumerated rights that the government cannot abridge, the right to vote remained conspicuously absent and remains so to this day.” In Lichtman’s book centered on the history of voting rights in America, the most surprising revelation is the book’s premise...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
126 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Amma experienced commitment to one person as imprisonment. She hadn’t left home for a life of freedom and adventure to end up chained to another’s person’s desires.” Evaristo’s novel revolves around the lives of twelve black women in Europe. In a woven narrative of pasts ...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 31st, 2023
0 Comments
302 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Because something in him knew she’d be there. That she was waiting. Because that’s what mothers do. They wait. They stand still until their children belong to someone else.” Ocean Vuong’s memoir is equal parts harrowing and gorgeous, as evident in its title. I was drawn t...
