Prose from San Antonio Review

Dispelling the Dementors of Grad School

A discussion with the authors of White Faced Lies.

The most tragic irony of all: the religious right professes brotherly love but looks to a prophet of hate and instruments of death for its salvation.

Including photographs from the series "Dark, Dark."

"The photo is shocking: A massive sea turtle lies dead in the back of a pickup truck, its speckled front flippers so big they stretched far beyond the width of the vehicle."

On the water with Texas painter and boatwright Brianna Keeper.

“It’s as though he’s trying to soften the blow now that it’s landed.”

Elaina Foley ponders the queer possibilities of rot in disrupting articulations of preservation as care.

וּבָֽחַרְתָּ֙ בַּחַיִּ֔ים

The author of "The New Laws of Love" discusses the privatization of intimacy.

The Children of Auschwitz

“The medical record does not describe what happened next.”

“All art cheats. The honest cheat will tell you she’s cheating and you’ll love her for it anyway.”

“As if each person knew their happiness could not last. ”

An excerpt from City Lights From the Upside Down.

'Cause everyone loves (book review) lists.

A virtual exhibition.

“Who does half-smart like a renegade Trotskyite?”

Timeline of Irresponsibility: A Narrative — On Having No Idea What You're Doing — A Call for Texas Critical Theory

Knowing the enemy?

Baylor professor Mia Moody-Ramirez looks at Texas Republicans' attempts to limit discussions in schools.

“Hell was set deep in the woods, in Willington, Massachusetts”

Murder, Mayhem, Mantel and More…

". . . [a] sententious performance of intellect, slathered over a fundamental lack of insight or even curiosity . . ."

The long history of the end of slavery.

“It’s another losing year, another year of coming out on the very bottom.”

A review of Reverberations of Racial Violence: Critical Reflections on the History of the Border

Prose editor's introductory note to San Antonio Review (Volume V | Summer 2021)

Poetry editor's introductory note to SAR V (Summer 2021)

The Last Man Takes LSD, Ministry for the Future, Margaret Randall, Edward Said and On the Nature of Ecological Paradox recommended.

Microfiction ranging over the variety of human relationships.

David Hanlon reviews C. Cimmone's debut poetry chapbook, "Torn Up."

“Hell, most people would have you believe the county is chock-full from end to end with nothing but kind, Christian folk.”

San Antonio Review's second Alternative History Lesson.

A Meditation on a Translation Work-in-Progress

"Can I survive the very light I created"

Can the long tradition of war prognostication in novel form be called honorable?

“I begin as a twitch in my father’s groin.“

The many times Texas' leadership has failed us.

Peter Berard Revisits the Seventies

"I like games and fun and play and I like talking about how easy poetry is, how everyone is a poet, how the alphabet is a playground and we are the players."

(The book, not the movie)

Peter Berard reads right-wing shit so you don't have to.

“He’ll explain to her the historical necessity of his act, its ultimate logic.”

"Craftsmen lay out their hand-made dolls wearing ancient emperors’ robes and hats."

"side to side like strangers"

I warned about this.

John Willingham looks at what's lost in the translation to film.

Berard on Lovecraft, Lehane and the Puritan Legacy

On the necessity of putting away rhetoric and rivalry.

Peter Berard reviews The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams by David S. Brown.

How much color can a thriller hold before it ceases to be a thriller?

“Diana said the days on the road would be cleansing.“

“It was a tremendous world then, everything larger and more vivid, each event new and full of possibility.”

“She’d spent the first night on her own in a West Hollywood motel that cost a hundred bucks for a room with a stained bedspread and stale pot reek, then decided to move into the station.”

SAR Book Review Editor Peter Berard finally reads Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

“Is now the time to speak up?”

Post-war academia and counterculture fight queer liberation.

Were opportunities to bring about parity missed?

The personal and the political in Tulsa.

“Jesus, Carrie. You look like summer.”

“Popular participation in a nationalist liturgy — a full-fledged secular religion”

“And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it!”

“He could surf her repeatedly on those recorded meetings. Her electronic self was on demand.”

“Of their first meeting, little has come down to us and yet less is known for certain.”

“This place, this glorified shed on an industrial estate in the arse-end of Warrington, it was everything to me.”

Andy Boyd reviews Marilynne Robinson's latest novel, Jack.

“Emily LeGrange was experiencing one of those moments where she had to admit she was doing pretty good.”

Margaret A. Hagerman, sociologist and author of "White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America," says parents need to do more than talk to their kids to counter racism.

“Want to cut them off?”

"So we go to this gallery—me, Marie, the kids—and it’s not only what I expect, it’s worse."

"She was convinced that her cruz, the cross she carried every day ambushing her chances at happiness, was the result of sorcery."

"I am building a presence of my fatherhood."

The future of our Postal Service is all of our futures

"My folks sent me away to live with my Aunt Charlene and Uncle Bud in eastern Colorado the summer of 1969, praying I’d come back a reformed boy."

Christine Sloan Stoddard shares her art and work with adults with disabilities.

The past — and future — of the Social Democrats

"You eat steak, you want sex; you want sex, you want sex.”

Kimberly Tolson confronts racism in the family.

“Fifteen seconds later, Ray crashed into the oak tree in our front yard.”

“Pain does not forget me, nor do I forget it, my constant companion, my best friend”

"A mule can only do what a mule can do. And that’s enough.”

William O. Pate II reviews Alex Z. Salinas' debut book of poetry, WARBLES.

"I must wander this earth without a core."

An essay in two parts.

“With your mind free from earthly shackles, it will be free to wander.”

Dr. Russell Arben Fox’s follow-up essay on Charles Marohn’s Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.

"Sometimes, I wonder why I ever talk at all."