New York Journal of Books | Review of PROSPEROUS FRIENDS by Christine Schutt

0802120385.01._PC_SCLZZZZZZZ_“Ms. Schutt has a stark, scientific eye and an artist’s voice.”

In Prosperous Friends, Christine Schutt’s crafting of three parts minimalism and one part stream-of-consciousness with rigorous lyricism of voice results in not so much a love story as a dissection of the possibility of love.

It is the tragicomedy of Ned and Isabel Bourne and their many paramours in a new millennium setting with an Edith Wharton telling—a little hotter on the sex, but well within the boundaries of literary marriages artistically rendered.

Writers fresh out of graduate school, the Bournes travel to London, Rome, New York, and Maine, searching for some assurance of their artistic promises, emotional connections and sexual fulfillments. They explore new countries and friendships that complicate and ultimately derail the couple with debauchery and politeness—Madame Bovary on The Age of Innocence…. Read the full review at New York Journal of Books

 

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The Editors
Eckleburg was founded in 2010 as an online and print literary and arts journal. We take our title from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and include the full archives of our predecessor Moon Milk Review. Our aesthetic is eclectic, literary mainstream to experimental. We appreciate fusion forms including magical realist, surrealist, meta- realist and realist works with an offbeat spin. We value character-focused storytelling and language and welcome both edge and mainstream with punch aesthetics. We like humor that explores the gritty realities of world and human experiences. Our issues include original content from both emerging and established writers, poets, artists and comedians such as authors, Roxane Gay, Rick Moody, Cris Mazza, Steve Almond, Stephen Dixon, poets, Moira Egan and David Wagoner and actor/comedian, Zach Galifianakis.