American Storyteller

Eric Bennett of Public Books writes about Viet Nguyen’s The Refugees, alongside musings on other authors and their work(s), including Ottessa Moshfegh, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Junot Díaz, Roxane Gay, and Chanelle Benz. What makes American life meaningful? Apple products? Cat videos? Torrential pornography? The prospect of a lavish retirement? The senior prom? Forestalling your plunge into poverty? Prescription narcotics? […]
The latest short stories are far from sweet

Tom Fleming reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘The Refugees’ and Ottessa Moshfegh’s collection of short stories. Originally published in The Spectator. Collections from Viet Thanh Nguyen and Ottessa Moshfegh are largely concerned with drug-addiction, vitiligo and dementia. Like his Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel, The Sympathisers, the stories in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees are set largely among the Vietnamese […]
Literary Review: Short Cuts – Viet Thanh Nguyen, April Ayers Lawson, Roxane Gay, Ottessa Moshfegh

Jude Cook reviews short stories by Viet Thanh Nguyen, April Ayers Lawson, Roxane Gay, and Ottessa Moshfegh. Originally published by The Literary Review. It might be premature to herald another renaissance of the American short story, but after books such as last year’s Prodigals by Greg Jackson and Scary Old Sex by Arlene Heyman, and the appearance of these […]