Halina Duraj's "The Family Cannon" Reviewed in Quarterly West

fig1-for-McAuliffe-review-1024x787

“Time in The Family Cannon,” by Shena McAuliffe, from Quarterly West issue 82

Quarterly West is a literary journal put together by the PhD writing program at the University of Utah. The most recent issue houses a review of Halina Duraj’s The Family Cannon (Augury, 2014) by Shena McAuliffe, who has detailed time and possession of memory in Duraj’s book graphically (chronology pictured above). McAuliffe relishes the emotional weight that Duraj’s stories hold:

“At the end of each story, I had to take a break before moving on to the next—a break from the disappointed desires, the steadfast self-sacrificing mother, the madness and the ghosts, the struggle to remember, to say things just as they should be said. In the end, what is most striking about Duraj’s book is how it moved me; it exhausted me in the way that a good story should.”

Alongside McAuliffe’s review in the summer issue is a creative nonfiction piece by Augury editor Kate Angus. Read both and learn more about the journal at the Quarterly West website.

 

More on THE FAMILY CANNON

buy5._V192207739_

Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!