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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It is hard not to fall in love with Katherine Browne, the eager to please, mini-skirted narrator in Barbara Trapido's 40-plus-year-old debut novel, reissued this month. -
Julie Orringer's new novel is a multivalent love story, a tale of sickness and health, dementia and brilliance, betrayal and loyalty. It's both heartbreaking and heartwarming. -
Like his previous work, including Homeland Elegies, The Radiance exposes the fissures of American racial, political and economic identity. -
Like much of Rachel Cusk's work, Life of M is driven by her concern with conditions that impede self-definition -- for writers, artists, and women in particular. -
In Jem Calder's debut novel, the characters have boarded a plane, baggage first -- with no idea where it will land. Will it lead to an actual relationship, nevermind happiness? -
In 'My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein,' the narrator, a writer, actually spends one month trying to understand Stein's genius, how she invented herself, and her relationship with Alice B. Toklas. -
The author restores balance in the homophones with her latest novel; both stories are thought-provoking, although somewhat less beguiling than her usual fare. -
In Five Weeks in the Country, author Francine Prose imagines a distressing, ill-timed visit to Charles Dickens' home in 1857 — offering a memorable twist on the classic English country house drama. -
Departure(s) explores several of Barnes' lifelong obsessions — mortality, memory, and time. It's slim but weighty, digressive yet incisive. Barnes, who just turned 80, says it will be his last. -
America's literary highways may be plenty crowded with middle-aged runaways fleeing lives that increasingly feel like a bad fit. But Ben Markovits adds a moving tale to the collection.
