My Review of Things that Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini

When I was in high school, I was disappointed that none of the assigned stories in my English classes were set in contemporary times. Literature from bygone eras felt like a dead end to me. Shakespeare, Twain, Joyce, it all, on some level, was over.

I would come around on all three of those authors, and I would also learn that it's almost impossible to write stories about contemporary times because it's hard to tell what's important about the times we live in, what merits our attention as fiction writers and readers.

We're now getting to the point where novels are starting to depict the 1990s, and I recently received the opportunity to review one such novel, Things that Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini. My review just appeared at Los Angeles Review of Books. Come get a taste of how Barzini is portraying my (and probably your) generation.

Here's that review link again.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art


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