Sam Franzini

1 week ago | thelineofbestfit.com | Sam Franzini

On the new U.S. Girls album Scratch It, Meg Remy dials down the politics to pick through inner turmoil and history against a backdrop of dusty, soulful numbers. But it doesn’t mean she’s not still thinking ahead, as she tells Sam Franzini. The women of 2015’s Half Free (her first for 4AD) were waiting, wondering, and lonely, while 2018’s In a Poem Unlimited and 2020’s Heavy Light seethed with stories of domestic abuse, environmental pollution, and the lunacy of capitalism.

2 weeks ago | spectrumculture.com | Sam Franzini

Uncanniness has always been Marie-Helene Bertino’s game. Her gorgeous and affecting novel, Beautyland, a buzzy and beautiful book that earned its accolades, followed a maybe-alien, maybe-human Adina as she received faxes from overlords who have placed her on planet Earth to study humans. That story was actually taken from a kernel in her 2012 collection, Safe as Houses, so it makes sense that her first project after a career revitalization would be another group of stories.

2 weeks ago | ourculturemag.com | Sam Franzini

When Vic Greener, former aspiring Hollywood actor, buys a foreclosed home in the Hudson Valley with money he got from a toothpaste commercial, it sets a series of actions into his life that will, eventually, result in his death. He moves into the first one with his wife Heather, but when a 7-foot-tall garbageman moves into the duplex, encroaching on their lives as Heather pulls freakishly large produce from her garden, things get eerie.

4 weeks ago | ourculturemag.com | Sam Franzini

The time has come to sit on decks and sunburn; to sweat and cool off. Summer is always my favorite season to read, and whether you like to do it by a pool, beach, or with a window open, OurCulture always has recommendations for your next bookstore or library visit. Songs of No Provenance, Lydi Conklin (June 3)Lydi Conklin’s follow-up to Rainbow Rainbow tracks the saga of Joan Vole, a cult-acclaimed folk singer who goes into hiding after a particularly memorable concert.

1 month ago | popmatters.com | Sam Franzini

Great Black Hope Simon & Schuster The image of Black wealth is relatively neglected in American popular culture — we have our finance CEOs, overbearing white matriarchs, and “Crazy Rich Asians”, but the foremost image that comes to mind of someone Black luxuriating is likely Beyoncé for her RENAISSANCE tour, or maybe Oprah’s empire.