Sam Franzini

1 week 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 week 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.

1 month ago | ourculturemag.com | Sam Franzini

Akari has arrived at a particularly tough moment in Mariko and Dan’s relationship. The cinematographer has just arrived at her sister’s place in New York to crash on their couch after a particularly long conversation in the middle of the night about sex, literature, and their future. It only gets more tense from there; as the three interact (but mostly worry about each other), they can feel their identities and plans dissolve.

1 month ago | spectrumculture.com | Sam Franzini

If Torrey Peters introduced herself as a fearless and astute chronicler of modern trans life in her 2021 debut novel, Detransition, Baby, she cements her place in Stag Dance, a novel and three stories about the absurdity, horror and misunderstanding of gender. Her closeted crossdressers, hulking self-reflective men and fetishists don’t conform to morality, nor should they. Peters’ fiction is particularly refreshing.

1 month ago | ourculturemag.com | Sam Franzini

After a string of random attacks by Vietnamese Americans, the president signs an executive order demanding their immediate incarceration. A mirror and uncomfortable echo of World War II’s Japanese Internment, Viets are forced into camps, detaining half of one family. While their jobs at Google and a news company, Alvin and Ursula are exempted, but their half-cousins aren’t so lucky. Along with their mother, Jen, an NYU freshman and Duncan, a high school athlete, make their way into the camps.