An erasure text

But what of all the diagrams I had seen, the elaborate play-by-plays of how the North and South collided in this war over slavery? Why such focus not on the stakes of the war and its outcome, but on the positioning of soldiers during the bloody encounter?

Manning is very, very good at telling stories that feel bad wrapped in stories that sound good, stories that seduce the reader just as they seduce the self who’s tired of feeling guilty all the time, thanks.

Things to Do in Hell is the dad bod of poetry collections, chronicling the strain of these times with the quotidian pain of a man who likely eats at Le Pain Quotidian. And that’s what makes it so delicious.

In her direct, wry poems, Burns engages themes of Native American identity and stereotypes. She published a single volume of poems during her life, Riding the One-Eyed Ford (1981). She lived in New York City until her death at the age of 49 from liver and kidney failure.

Zora Neale Hurston’s short story collection, “Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick,” reads as a reflection of Hurston’s own journey from her small-town upbringing in Eatonville, Florida, to her evolution as a central literary figure during the Harlem Renaissance.

It didn’t look like Cher. Cher’s tall and gorgeous and curvy and all of that. This girl was really petite. She looked like a little Jewish girl. I go over there and we’re talking. We’re making out and dancing and she says, “Do you know who I am?”

I said, “I don’t really care; we’re making out.”