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51
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
52/100Critics
50/100Scholars
Author:
Danielle Dutton
Publisher:
Coffee House Press
Date:
April 23, 2024
"Prairie" is a cycle of surreal stories set in the disappearing prairieland of the American Midwest. "Dresses" offers a portrait of literary fashions. "Art" turns to essay, examining how works of visual art and fiction might relate to one another; while the final section, "Other," includes pieces of irregular forms, stories-as-essays or essays-as-stories that defy category.
What The Reviewers Say
A medley of tangled nonfiction and some very intriguing fiction, linked by mentions of prairies.
Swerving into non-fiction risks breaking the book’s momentum, yet the authority of Dutton’s essay balances out the dreaminess of her stories.
[Dutton] creates on the page the disorienting and surreal feeling of being alive today, with our crushing end-of-the-world barkers in our pockets.
One might assume that such indebted writing would feel impersonal by the nature of it not being at any point entirely [Dutton's] own, yet her work gains power from this knack for collage. She is a magpie of feminist literature.
