Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Elizabeth Poliner's book takes a familiar dramatic trope — the death of a child — and makes it the linchpin for an intricate tale that follows a close-knit family at a cultural turning point.
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Adoption is a metaphor for cultural dislocation in Boris Fishman's new novel, which follows an immigrant Jewish couple in New Jersey who adopt a baby from Minnesota — and set out to find his roots.
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Elizabeth McKenzie's novel inverts the traditional romantic comedy formula — for her odd, brainy lovers, the engagement is only the beginning of their troubles. And did we mention the squirrel?
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Tessa Hadley's new novel follows four siblings as they gather at a dilapidated family cottage for a bittersweet summer together. Critic Heller McAlpin praises Hadley's "wry compassion."
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Leslie Jamison's new book of essays, The Empathy Exams, combines the intellectual and the emotional to explore the humanizing effect of empathy. Heller McAlpin calls it a "soaring performance."
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In her new book of essays, I See You Made an Effort, comedian Annabelle Gurwitch muses on middle-aged life. Critic Heller McAlpin says that the book, infused throughout with "sharp wit," is hilarious.
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Nicholson Baker's latest novel, Traveling Sprinkler, revolves around Paul Chowder, a lonely poet who's fascinated by drone warfare and Debussy. Chowder was the star of Baker's 2009 novel The Anthologist, and reviewer Heller McAlpin welcomes his reappearance — though not his political rants.
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Iconoclastic journalist Christopher Hitchens, who died from esophageal cancer in December 2011, chronicled his battle with the disease — his 18 months "of living dyingly" — in Mortality. Critic Heller McAlpin says the tragically posthumous work is full of his pugnacious, ever-bright prose.
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Thomas Mallon's new novelization of the infamous political scandal re-imagines the events through the eyes of the perpetrators. Critic Heller McAlpin says Mallon manages to capture both the metastasizing dishonesty and the ludicrousness of this great American tragedy of political ambition run amok.