CMColm McKenna

1. Article · Jul 25, 2026 · Colm McKenna

   How Do People Stay the Same by Mark Bowles: The making of the man (opens the original)

   Excerpt · English

   Read excerpt

   While autobiographical in nature, Mark Bowles’s second novel does without life’s hallmark events. “Canonically big events” don’t import meaning into our lives, according to narrator Patrick Boyd. It’s life’s borderless events “which pass unrecognised, unheeded, unnamed” that develop and mark us. Patrick the “belated recipient of [his] own experience”, yearns to make sense of his days, and rather than relying on cryptic memories, he reads through his diaries in reverse, from

   Feedback

2. Article · Jul 18, 2026 · Colm McKenna

   It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez: Unforgettable short stories from the author of The Friend (opens the original)

   Excerpt · Positive tone · English

   Read excerpt

   It’s a rare pleasure to finish reading a short story collection and vividly recall each entry, and one that It Will Come Back to You, Sigrid Nunez’s first collection of short fiction, affords. The trademark wit and empathy that won Nunez plaudits for works such as The Friend and The Vulnerables is present here and perhaps even more so than in her long-form fiction. Nunez runs the gamut of human emotion in this kaleidoscopic, boundless collection. Throughout these stories, the simple act of l

   Feedback

Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.

Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.

• Sigrid Nunez1 piece
• Brad Pitt1 piece
• Virago Press1 piece