Nevertheless, it has been said that history is the greatest teacher even though the life lessons are usually tough to accept. Historical fiction is a great way to introduce readers to bygone eras, and James Markert’s “All Things Bright and Strange” (HarperCollins, 2018) is a powerful novel about illusions and reality within America during the early 1900s.

Set in Bellhaven, South Carolina, this novel is a moving exploration of enigmatic concepts, such as life, death and the meaning of religion. Protagonist Ellsworth Newberry is a professional pitcher who at one point contemplates suicide. This character is very interesting because he is much like the eponymous Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s celebrated play because they both consider taking their own lives because of their own personal struggles with confronting reality.

Newberry also has a symbolic surname: “new” implies “rebirth” and “berry” is a homophone for that fresh fruits could be harvested after performing hard work with dedication. This character offers readers a sense of hope for the citizens suffering in Bellhaven due to the chaos of World War I.

Ellsworth Newberry has very difficult conflicts that he must deal with given the nature of his circumstances. For example, the chapel that is found in the woods brings about a lot of tension for the townspeople who want to overcome years of mourning. The mourning is almost like a pun because “mourning” implies grieving, but “morning” suggests that there is hope for a new day. James Markert actually does a fantastic job at combining universal issues that people face in order to create a powerful novel that offers a lot about what life really means.

The title “All Things Bright and Strange” references our wonder at the seemingly inexplicable phenomena that happen throughout life. Think of all the reports of unexplained or strange lights that appear in the sky—such as will-o’-the-wisp. James Markert dazzles us with his spellbinding prose in order to remind readers that some concepts are simply inexplicable (and sometimes require no explanation at all). Sometimes truth really can be stranger than fiction in this world of ours.

James Markert is an author from Louisville, Kentucky who writes with the charm we’ve come to expect from the American South. He blends fantasy with reality in order to create compelling prose that is simply a joy to read. Sometimes life is full of tough questions that rarely delivers easy answers, but at least Markert does his best to offer explanations for these mysteries. Life itself can be difficult at times, but sometimes having a sense of faith and trust are all that people truly need in order to understand what it means to be alive.

Alex Andy Phuong graduated from California State University-Los Angeles with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2015.  He is very passionate about art, culture and anything cinematic. His has been previously published on a wide variety of websites ranging from Literary Yard to The Society of Classical Poets. Alex Andy Phuong writes continuously and voluntarily with the belief that his writing will make the world a better place.

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Ball is not afraid to write about disturbing topics, which makes his newest novel “Census” (HarperCollins, 2018) a modern masterpiece that presents characters who persevere in the face of adversity.

“Census” is a hauntingly beautiful novel about an unnamed widower given a terminal diagnosis who now must seek help for his adult son with Down syndrome. Father and son travel together through towns named in alphabetical order (the father is officially employed as Census taker), a metaphor about how life is a journey that can be disorderly at times. Indeed, this father and son duo encounter many challenges along the way to the final letter, “Z.”

Even with the difficulties that they face, the father ultimately has to deal with tough and philosophical questions about how to cope with reality. This powerful novel might be hard to read because of its heavy subject matter, but it can still serve as a reminder to keep going in life no matter what obstacles lie ahead.

Ball’s very prose style, unconventional to say the least, displays his commitment to innovative writing. Part of this mastery is the ability to mix different kinds of sentences within one page. In many instances, simple sentences appear right after very lengthy paragraphs. This writing technique could also symbolize how itself does not always progress so smoothly.

Indeed, the trials and tribulations that the father and son encounter on their travels are metaphorical because they symbolize how life itself is never always that easy. Even with the atypical form of writing, the prose is still a pleasure to read because it offers a sense of hope that maybe the father and son will find happiness eventually after enduring the struggles that they face side-by-side. It is almost as if they embark on an odyssey that parallels the famous epic poem by Homer because these two characters have to combat against difficulties as they reach the final letter “Z.” Readers interested in knowing what happens at the end must first endure all of the letters of the alphabet, which is also a lot like the challenge associated with reading a full-length novel from beginning to end.

Jesse Ball is a masterful writer with the audacity to challenge the conventions of modern fiction. His ideas might make some readers feel uncomfortable, but such harsh truths all reflect the bleakness of reality. Nevertheless, readers can actually learn a lot from “Census” because it remind us that life can still be a blessing even with the hardships it brings. This novel might not be an easy read, but readers can summon up the courage to take the journey alongside a loving father and his son with a disability as they learn what the purpose of the titular “Census” is all about.

Alex Andy Phuong graduated from California State University-Los Angeles with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2015.  He is very passionate about art and culture, which is part of the reason why he studied the humanities extensively during his undergraduate career.  Alex also loves cinema and has written reviews for more one hundred motion pictures. Finally, he loves writing for the sake of creativity and productivity, which is why he constantly contributes writing voluntarily.

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How does one separate what is true from what is false? Given the subjective nature of reality, it can be very difficult for people to trust anyone, even those near and dear to them.

This famous theme has formed the basis of countless works of fiction and major motion pictures (just one example is the 1996 film “Secrets & Lies“). As the audience, we know that secrecy can create a compelling story filled with tension, drama, and suspense. In this tradition, Rebecca Drake’s “Just Between Us” (St. Martin’s Press, 2018) provides a fascinating examination of the limits of friendships, especially when close friends lose the trust that originally bonded them together.

Alex Andy Phuong graduated from California State University-Los Angeles with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2015. He is a passionate writer who thoroughly enjoys classic literature and cinema. Alex is a very altruistic person who enjoys contributing writing and donating time for the sake of helping other people. Finally, he fully supports those who dare to pursue their dreams.

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The protagonist, 26-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, is our guide into an America where a totalitarian state rules and babies are being born with animal traits.

The novel feels like a combination of scientific exploration and literary dystopia. The scientific aspects of the plot deal with biological concepts: evolution itself is reversing and human births have gone awry. Indeed, babies are being born with primitive qualities, as if evolution were taking a step backward. It’s is a chilling reminder that all people, both real and fictional, are creatures by default.

To deal with this anomaly in births, the government in rounding up all pregnant women. Cedar herself is pregnant and must lie low. Such social commentary hearkens back to literature from the Augustan Age in Britain, an era that included the classic “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. Taken this way, the story is an allegory or parody.

Still, “Future Home of the Living God” appears to be a warning about a nightmarish future and encourages readers to practice eternal vigilance that would (hopefully) prevent such chaos.

In spite of such bleak content, the novel itself is beautiful in many ways. The prose is very stylized, elegant and eloquent. Cedar Hawk Songmaker is a fabulous character because of her own self-determination to achieve her goals, especially finding her birth mother, Mary Potts. Cedar’s name is also very symbolic because she is the composer of her own figurative “song,” which is her own personal narrative that flows like music. Cedar could serve as a great role model for women who feel oppressed in modern times while encouraging women to stand up for themselves.

Louise Erdrich is a renowned Native American writer and in this work she beautifully explores the trials and tribulations that women face given the patriarchal nature of modern society. There has been a lot of recent advocacy for the rights of women in the real world, and Erdrich’s  novel contributes to that current social movement. People might never know what the meaning of life is, and life might never be explained clearly, but “Future Home of the Living God” will always be a great contemporary novel that explores such profound questions poetically.

Alex Andy Phuong graduated from California State University-Los Angeles with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2015.  He currently writes articles and film reviews online.  Alex is a very altruistic person who enjoys volunteering online and in real life daily.  Finally, he believes in the power of hope and creative expression, and strives to continue learning forevermore.

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The cyclical nature life is one of the major themes of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Hours,” a profoundly beautiful tour de force that led to the Academy Award-winning film adaptation in 2002.  Cunningham successfully explores fundamental themes while also making Virginia Woolf a very real person instead of a literary enigma. Woolf might have suffered from mental illness and tragically committed suicide in 1941, but she will remain one of the greatest authors of all time.

One remarkable part of “The Hours” is the interconnectedness between the three female protagonists. Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf form a trinity that reveals the struggles that all women face, such as their place in society. Such challenges are also still relevant to the present day because everyone in the real world has roles to fulfill, whether they are workers, fathers, mothers, or any other role that defines them.

The main focal point for the three characters is Virginia Woolf’s celebrated novel “Mrs. Dalloway,” which continues to be a literary landmark. Cunningham masterfully connects the lives of these women by implying that all people are the main protagonists within their own personal narratives. Ultimately, life is nothing more than a simple story, and everyone in the world are merely characters in a meaningless cycle.

Robert Frost once stated that an eternal truth about life is that it goes on. That statement, of course, only applies to the lives of people until they die.

The novel also echoes fundamental themes that writers have explored for centuries. The eponymous protagonist of William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” eventually realizes that life is pointless, and so did Leo Tolstoy, the acclaimed Russian novelist of the gargantuan classics “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina.”

Clarissa Vaughan might have been a modern representation of Mrs. Dalloway, but she is also nothing more than a character in Cunningham’s novel. The thematic title also suggests that the hours will just continue passing. The future might be uncertain, and death is inevitable, but life can still have meaning if people choose to believe in their own capabilities.

Robert Frost once stated that an eternal truth about life is that it goes on. That statement, of course, only applies to the lives of people until they die. Philosophers might argue about what it means to be alive, but maybe there really is no meaning to life at all. Michael Cunningham’s novel offers profound questions about the nature of reality without concrete answers.

If Cunningham were to offer an answer to the meaning of life, that response might simply be that there is no answer.  His characters all go through about their lives and then sleep when the day ends. The answer to the reason for mankind’s existence might very well just be that all people just do whatever they do, and that is just the way of the world.

The real-life Virginia Woolf might have had mental illness, but she is still just one person. In fact, some audiences in the real world express no interest in Virginia Woolf even though some people consider her to be the greatest novelist who has ever lived. That is the funny thing about life—everyone has their own opinions on art, beauty, and life itself.  Even some people reading this review of “The Hours might never take the time to read the novel or watch the film version of it.

Everyone lives extraordinarily ordinary lives, and that is just what people do. Michael Cunningham’s novel defines the nature of time, reality, and life in the simplest way possible.

Alex Andy Phuong graduated from California State University-Los Angeles with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2015.  He currently writes articles and film reviews online.  Alex is a very altruistic person who enjoys volunteering whenever possible. Finally, he believes in the power of hope and creative expression, and strives to continue learning forevermore.

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