Reviews
Review by: Jeffrey Beam, award-winning author of The Broken Flower, Gospel Earth, and many other poetry collections - June 15, 2014
I know of no writer other than Marly Youmans who has the genius to combine the spine-tingling suspense of Gothic storytelling with the immense charm, grace, glamour, realism, and simplicity of Hawthorne. Youmans, one of the biggest secrets of contemporary American fiction, writes with freshness and beauty. Her ability to describe a person, a place, or the psychological underpinnings of a plot or individual, ranks with the great novelists, the highest literature. A tale of love and intrigue, mystery and pathology, Glimmerglass’s appeal is the warmth and charge of a tale told round a fire fused by Hitchcockian anxiety, empathy, and relief. Nature, architecture, dread, thrill, sexual dilemma, and murder echo against Youmans’s gorgeous prose and terrifying romance, which glides like a serpent—without a single extraneous or boring word. Youmans is my favorite storyteller. I come back to her as if to a holy well.
Review by: Margo Lanagan, author of Sea Hearts, Black Juice, and other novels, winner of World Fantasy and Printz awards - June 15, 2014
Glimmerglass is a series of mirrors and panes that splinter and soften to let you fall deeper into the heart of myth and artistic desire. A resonant, beautiful exploration of fragile hopes and the courage that comes from resisting their trampling by others.
Review by: John Wilson, editor, Books & Culture - June 15, 2014
You might not even know what you are seeking, but once inside the pages of Glimmerglass, you’ll find exactly what you need: ‘a cup of music, a hill of sea.’ In the Republic of Letters, Marly Youmans is our Magician in Chief.