Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Elizabeth McKenzie's novel inverts the traditional romantic comedy formula — for her odd, brainy lovers, the engagement is only the beginning of their troubles. And did we mention the squirrel?
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The slightly demented homemakers in Helen Ellis' new collection wield sharp elbows and sharper knives, but critic Heller McAlpin says the stories build to touching, unexpected punchlines.
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Tessa Hadley's new novel follows four siblings as they gather at a dilapidated family cottage for a bittersweet summer together. Critic Heller McAlpin praises Hadley's "wry compassion."
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Physicist-turned-author Paolo Giordano's new novel follows a couple adrift after their beloved housekeeper dies. Critic Heller McAlpin says the book is melancholy, but offers a subtle hope.
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Joseph Skibell's new collection of personal essays is full of offbeat life lessons, moving from whimsy to weight. And, as he puts it, though the stories are true, they're full of "imaginary things."
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Sloane Crosley's new novel, The Clasp, follows a group of disaffected 30-somethings who gather for a classmate's posh wedding — but the casual misanthropy of the characters dims the book's pleasures.
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Patti Smith's new memoir is a dreamy, elegiac recollection of loved ones gone too soon, energized by her interests and travels. It jumps in time, from her husband's death in 1994 to Hurricane Sandy.
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Critic Heller McAlpin calls Valeria Luiselli's novel a "philosophical funhouse" that melds the story of a charming auctioneer with meditations on the value of objects and the power of story.
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Jesse Eisenberg specializes in playing (and writing about) jittery, antisocial nerds. Critic Heller McAlpin says the wonder is the empathy he brings to the sad sacks in his new story collection.
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Stephanie Clifford's debut novel, about the desperate social strivings of a young woman in Manhattan, has its roots in the tragic, old-money fascinations of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.