I have been a reader of Hölderlin for many years. I took down his collected poems and read his hymns to the Virgin Mary and Patmos, his elegy “Bread and Wine” and his river poems (on the Main, the Neckar, the Rhine, the Ister).… They are fraught, paradoxical poems that display majestic architecture, and they brought me some peace.| Slant Books
On an eerily warm October evening in a suburb of Detroit, a new father and struggling fantasy novelist named McPhail gazes at a honey locust tree. The sight triggers a memory of the sudden, inexplicable death of Hannah, whom he loved when they were both fourteen. So begins a year-long odyssey, in which McPhail becomes obsessed with recollections of Hannah, puts his job and his marriage in jeopardy, and fears that his “obsolete consciousness” is spiraling into apocalyptic religious and eco...| Slant Books
