viragohaus's reviews
237 reviews

An enjoyable use of comic archetypes and their incident-packed narratives as a both a superstructure and a shorthand, allowing Grossman to work up his two alternating voices as literary characters.
Almost inevitably, the male character (the villian Doctor Impossible) fares better in characterisation terms than the female hero (Fatale), something that unintentionally underscores the gender imbalance in the comics books industry itself.
Smart and affectionate but unlikely to linger like the book it reminds me so much of, Alan Moore's Watchmen.

One moment after another: Jo Case’s well-crafted memoir is a graceful tale of living with difference.
http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/04/23/jo-case-boomer-me-a-memoir-of-motherhood-and-aspergers-reviewed-by-james-tierney/

What else could such a collection be but a mix in both style and quality? Matthew Lamb and Romy Ash's short stories and Greg Lehman's essay stand out.

This is a book of impressive economy that I wished I had admired more.

The odd near-and-not-near starkness of its prose maps well to its settings. The filling-in frontier has survival and plain-observation, rather than ceremony.

Every chapter is a dream of grief, but -puzzlingly - its central mythic metaphor lies on the page without the waking tears that grief surely brings.

Desire is a stone in our mouths, we don’t spit it out – we talk around it.
http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/06/04/jennifer-mills-the-rest-is-weight-reviewed-by-james-tierney/

‘There are only so many plots in the world. It’s how they unfold that makes them interesting.’

http://jamestierney.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/lauren-beukes-the-shining-girls/