Essays

“Joanna Russ, the Science-Fiction Writer Who Said No.” New Yorker.

“A decade of sore winners.” The Outline.

“Tell Me I’m OK.” The Hedgehog Review.

“The Ills That Flesh Is Heir To.” The Hedgehog Review.

“What exactly do we want from the author of ‘Cat Person’?” The Outline.

“The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces.” LitHub.

“Of Course They Hated Her: The Uncomfortable Honesty of Mary McCarthy,” Commonweal.

Reviews

“‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ is a haunted play about religious conservatives.” The Outline.

“Spirits in the Material World.” The American Scholar.
Review of Timothy Egan’s A Pilgrimage to Eternity and Tom Holland’s Dominion.

“A Girl in Need of a Torniquet.” Commonweal.
On the TV show Fleabag.

“The Burden of Suffering.” Commonweal.
Review of the Met’s 2019 production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.

“The Puppet Master.” The Baffler.
Review of the oeuvre of John Williams (not the movie score guy).

“Of Faith and Tragedy.” The American Scholar.
Review of Elaine Pagels’s Why Religion? A Personal Story.

“The Life You Take Won’t Be Your Own.” The Hedgehog Review.
Review of Jesse Bering’s Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves.

“Footnotes.” Commonweal.
Not-quite-review of Jean Améry’s Charles Bovary.

“Chance of a Lifetime.” The Weekly Standard.
Review of Sheila Heti’s Motherhood.

“A Saint Born of Blood.” Commonweal.
Review of André Vauchez’s Catherine of Siena.

“Your Other Body.” The Weekly Standard.
Review of Daisy Hildyard’s The Second Body.

“‘Free Woman’ review: Lara Feigel studies the life of Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing and the meanings of freedom.” Newsday.
Review of… see above.

“Witty Women.” The Weekly Standard.
Review of Michelle Dean’s Sharp.

“We’re Here, That’s All.” The Hedgehog Review.
Review of Marilynne Robinson’s What Are We Doing Here?

 

Religious

“Small Graces.” Commonweal.

“Except on Sundays.” Commonweal.

“Innocents Abroad.” Commonweal.

“Narrative Loop.” Commonweal.

“‘You Might Try Holy Water.’” Commonweal.

“Start As You Mean To Go On.” Commonweal.

“Problems Like Maria.” Commonweal.

“Summer Blues.” Commonweal.

“Tearful Among Women.” Commonweal.

“‘Log Off’ or Pray.” Commonweal.

“You Can’t Earn Easter.” Commonweal.

“Living in the Middle.” Commonweal.

“Thunder Entered Her.” Commonweal.

“The Comedy in Ash and Roses,” Commonweal.

“Reconciliation through Beauty?,” Commonweal.

 

Short Takes

“James Joyce’s grandson and the death of the stubborn literary executor.” The Outline.

“The language of consent is ill-suited to politics.” The Outline.

“The thesaurus is good, valuable, commendable, superb, actually.” The Outline.

“Christmas Is a Time for Justice.” Commonweal.

“My Ebenezer.” The Weekly Standard.

“The Art of the Possible.” The Hedgehog Review.

“Virtue Signaling.” The Hedgehog Review.

“French women don’t get sad, and other useful lies.” The Week.

“An Unenclosed Mind.” Commonweal.

“The soothing dullness of social media.” The Week.

“Rape Is A Sin.” Commonweal.

“Phenomenology of the Gun.” Commonweal.

“‘No’ is not enough,” The Week.

“Teaching a Dog to Talk,” Full Stop.

“The underestimated Kazuo Ishiguro,” The Week.

“America is still treating college sexual assault victims like they’re stupid,” The Week.

“Friends don’t let friends read Hillary Clinton’s new book,” The Week.

“Enough with the ‘forgotten’ writers,” The Week.