Susan Coll

Book Review
The Washington Post
‘The Crane Wife’ is a romantic book for realists

In an oft-told story from Japanese folklore, an enchanted bird marries a man. There are many variations of the tale, but the one CJ Hauser relates in the title essay of her new collection, “The Crane Wife,” involves a creature who plucks her feathers out each night to preserve her marriage, to trick her husband into believing she is human. It’s a love of self-erasure, one that is painful to contemplate.

Read the full article at The Washington Post
PREVIOUSALLNEXT

more articles

Book Review
The New York Times
They sell frocks at F. G. Goode’s, these women in black, and when they arrive for work they don rayon crepe dresses that smell of frequent dry cleaning, cheap talcum powder and sweat.
Book Review
NPR
It was nearly 20 years ago that I first read A Good Man in Africa. I lived in India at the time, and aspired to write sweeping literary fiction of the sort that featured memsahibs sipping sweet lime sodas against the backdrop of heat and dust.
Book Review
The New York Times
And then there is the appendix. You have turned the last page of Lucy Ives’s intricate, darkly funny debut, and a curious timeline appears. Have you missed a plot point or two or 10?
Scroll to Top