Amy Gentry

‘America Is Not the Heart’: Elaine Castillo’s debut novel offers a tender portrait of Filipino-American culture

May 9, 2019 at 11:48 p.m.

The title of Elaine Castillo’s debut novel, “America Is Not the Heart,” riffs on a foundational text of the Filipino diaspora, Carlos Bulosan’s semiautobiographical 1946 novel, “America Is In the...

Review: ‘The Female Persuasion’ by Meg Wolitzer

May 9, 2019 at 11:48 p.m.

Becoming, one of the hardest verbs to capture in any art form, is the big fish the realist novel was more or less invented to catch. Meg Wolitzer, long known...

Review: ‘Feel Free’ by Zadie Smith

May 9, 2019 at 11:46 p.m.

At the beating heart of Zadie Smith’s latest collection, “Feel Free,” an eclectic mix of book reviews, celebrity profiles, awards speeches and long-form philosophical musings, is an essay called “Getting...

Bela Lugosi portrays the evil Count Dracula in the 1931 movie classic.

‘Powers of Darkness’ offers an Icelander’s take on ‘Dracula’

May 9, 2019 at 11:27 p.m.

For sheer notoriety, no Victorian novel beats Bram Stoker's "Dracula." Every modern-day iteration of a vampire owes a debt to Stoker's creation, giving it something of the proprietary eponymity of...

Zadie Smith’s new novel is worth your ‘Time’

May 9, 2019 at 11:22 p.m.

Who has the time? That is the central question posed by Zadie Smith's mesmerizing fifth novel, "Swing Time." It's not only a question of having enough time, but also of...

Emma Donoghue novel focuses on plight and political ramifications of fasting girls

May 9, 2019 at 11:19 p.m.

Since the breakout success of her seventh novel, "Room," a bestseller that was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue has become something of a specialist...

Amy Gentry considers new novels by Jesse Ball and Jade Sharma.

Do we need to like characters to relate to them?

May 9, 2019 at 11:17 p.m.

What makes a woman "unlikable"? It's a question that's been in the news a lot this election cycle, with no shortage of incoherent answers. (See, for reference, David Brooks' "hobby...

‘Trials of the Earth’ offers autobiographical look at being a pioneer woman

May 9, 2019 at 11:15 p.m.

The U.S. Census Bureau officially declared the American frontier closed in 1890, but pockets of wilderness lingered on into the 20th century, waiting to be cleared and prepared for habitation...

Highly anticipated novel ‘The Girls’ riffs on Manson-like cult

May 9, 2019 at 11:13 p.m.

Describing her Brooklyn writer's shack for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, debut novelist Emma Cline called a drawing of Tom Cruise that hangs on her wall "a tawdry...

Mavis Gallant’s novels reissued and reconsidered

May 9, 2019 at 11:11 p.m.

What compels a consummate writer of short stories to stretch her legs in a novel? For the Canadian-born Mavis Gallant, who penned 116 stories for The New Yorker before her...

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