Zyzzyva Magazine

Jul 24, 2024 | zyzzyva.org | John McMurtrie

How do we share history after it has already been claimed? That is the question at the heart of Ed Park’s latest novel. A fiction finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, Same Bed Different Dreams is a riveting, revisionist take on Korean and American history—or at least what is assumed to be Korean and American history.

Jul 17, 2024 | zyzzyva.org | John McMurtrie

1. The monument consists of twenty-one hexagonal marble pillars set in a pyramid. The pillars range in height between one and six feet, representing the range in age of the victims. The oldest was seventy-four and had stopped to pick up hamburgers on the way to visit his grandchildren. The youngest was six months old and died in the arms of his mother, also murdered. 2.

Jul 10, 2024 | zyzzyva.org | John McMurtrie

Coming out of the pandemic, one could be forgiven for not wanting to dive into a novel set during that not-so distant past. Hari Kunzru’s Blue Ruin, however, vividly captures the anxiety of a world in quarantine while simultaneously offering a riveting glimpse into the lives of artists struggling to survive. Jay, the protagonist of Blue Ruin (Knopf; $28), is a former artist who finds himself delivering groceries to the wealthy in upstate New York.

Jun 20, 2024 | zyzzyva.org | John McMurtrie

There’s some grainy footage of a 1966 performance by Joni Mitchell on a show called “Let’s Sing Out” for students at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. When you first see Mitchell, she looks like “girl singer’’ furniture, a la Mary Travers, as the trio she’s playing with motor through a painfully corny tune that could be an outtake from A Mighty Wind, the documentary spoof about a folk music reunion concert. But wait.

Jun 6, 2024 | zyzzyva.org | John McMurtrie

On the hillside west of the swimming pool, men with shovels followed the line of the fire, turning dirt onto glowing patches. Above them, on the ridge, a bulldozer clanked and roared as it cut a gap. The fire burned slowly through the dampened yellow grass, flaring only when a bush caught. Ashes lifted and broke apart, drifting down the hill.