Jessica Ferri

Brooklyn

Owner @wombhousebooks and book critic @latimes and @washingtonpost. Author of Buried Hollywoodland, Buried SF Bay Area, Silent Cities NY and Silent Cities SF.

Articles

Melissa Febos' year without sex was her most fertile season of life

3 weeks ago | latimes.com | Jessica Ferri

On the Shelf The Dry Season By Melissa FebosKnopf: 288 pages, $29If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. After jumping from one relationship to the next, Melissa Febos found herself in bed with a woman she scarcely knew.
Best books to read this summer: 30 recommendations from critics

1 month ago | latimes.com | Mark Athitakis |Lorraine Berry |Jessica Ferri |Bethanne Patrick |Chris Vognar

Nothing says “summer’s here!” than reading near a body of water. And what qualifies as a beach read has evolved to include more than romances and thrillers. From histories on New York’s 1960s art scene and the making of the film “Sunset Boulevard” to biographies on James Baldwin, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Lee, to gripping memoirs from Miriam Toews and Molly Jong-Fast, there’s something from every nonfiction genre.
A work of fiction feeling its way between idea and execution

Feb 12, 2025 | latimes.com | Jessica Ferri

About a dozen pages into Michelle de Kretser’s new novel, “Theory & Practice,” she runs into the granite wall between truth and fiction. The narrative involves a young man dreaming of a woman. He has an “idea of a female musician, which is based on an engraving of the young Clara Schumann that hangs in the institution where his mother is housed,” but his idealized concept suddenly falls away.
A work of fiction feeling its way between idea and execution

Feb 12, 2025 | yahoo.com | Jessica Ferri

About a dozen pages into Michelle de Kretser's new novel, “Theory & Practice,” she runs into the granite wall between truth and fiction. The narrative involves a young man dreaming of a woman. He has an “idea of a female musician, which is based on an engraving of the young Clara Schumann that hangs in the institution where his mother is housed,” but his idealized concept suddenly falls away.
A culture that's ready for a different kind of closeup

Jan 10, 2025 | latimes.com | Jessica Ferri

It’s telling that Manuel Betancourt’s new book, “Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies,” grounded in queer theory and abolition, takes its title from a line from the 2004 film “Closer,” about two messed-up straight couples. The choice of “Closer,” “a bruising piece about the rotting roteness of long-term intimacy,” as Betancourt puts it, is an experience familiar to many. 2024 was a year in which marriage, specifically heterosexual marriage, was taken to task.
The 15 best books of 2024, reissues included

Dec 9, 2024 | latimes.com | Mark Athitakis |Jessica Ferri |Bethanne Patrick

If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. In keeping with our annual tradition, we asked three of our critics for their favorite books of the last year. Between them, they chose 15 books, three of them reissues, and the majority fiction.
Books to read fall 2024: Most anticipated fiction and nonfiction

Sep 2, 2024 | latimes.com | Mark Athitakis |Lorraine Berry |Jessica Ferri |Bethanne Patrick |Paula Woods

Fall Preview Books 30 Most Anticipated Books of Fall If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Peak publishing season is upon us. This fall offers a bounty of books from prominent authors Danzy Senna, Rachel Kushner, Sally Rooney, Michael Connelly and Richard Price and newcomers Kay Chronister and Weike Wang.
Review | A celebration of the garden as a protective and inspiring space

Jun 25, 2024 | washingtonpost.com | Jessica Ferri

The most famous garden, certainly in literature, is the Garden of Eden. It’s a paradise, Olivia Laing writes in her new book, and “every story told about it also incorporates it into a political framework,” from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” to the present day. It’s impossible to read Laing’s buzzing and epic “The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise” without thinking about Gaza, a relatively small patch of land increasingly in ruins.
In 'Parade,' Rachel Cusk persists in a relentless dismantling of the novel and the self

Jun 19, 2024 | latimes.com | Jessica Ferri

Book Review Parade By Rachel CuskFarrar, Straus and Giroux: 298 pages, $27If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Several years ago, I attended a reading by Rachel Cusk from “Kudos,” the final installment of her “Outline” trilogy. She read from near the end of the novel, when the character Paola explains why she is cycling rather than driving.
Review | In ‘Exhibit,’ a woman meets a ballerina and repressed desires bloom

Jun 10, 2024 | washingtonpost.com | Jessica Ferri

“Exhibit,” the second novel by R.O. Kwon, begins with the legend of a Korean curse. “No kisaeng, paid to sing, jig, and flirt in public, had the right to wed a Han.” So when a man from the Han family fell in love with a kisaeng, a courtesan trained to entertain wealthy men, the star-crossed lovers ended up taking their own lives, hanging from a tall pine tree. In the present day, Korean photographer Jin Han is living in San Francisco married to a White man, her college boyfriend.