I should call this blog post “What I Read” because, really, I read this book back in April. But!: At Harvard Review Online, I’ve just published my review of Empty Set, written by Verónica Gerber Bicecci, translated by Christina MacSweeney, and published by the always awesome Coffee House Press.
(Above, the scene: a tasty toast, a pen for note-taking, a delicious coffee, and an ARC of Empty Set. Good company on my conference trip to Spain a few months ago, where I stopped in a bookstore-cafe for breakfast and review writing.)
“There are—I’m certain of this—things that can’t be told in words,” explains the self-described “visual artist who writes” Verónica Gerber Bicecci in her novel Empty Set, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. Empty Set makes no attempt to tell only with words. Its fragmentary written vignettes are interspersed with sketches and explanatory diagrams that illustrate and, in some cases, build the understandings of its twenty-two-year-old narrator, Verónica. Acutely observant and persistently curious, Verónica’s voice powers the novel, guiding readers to travel its winding route with the same patience and wonder as its protagonist.
[Keep reading my review of Empty Set at Harvard Review Online…]