A Day in “The Hole”: Risk, Loss, and Excess in Downtown Lima by Daniella Gandolfo (University of Chicago Press). Reviewed by Cara Tallo. “The tower that was built now houses the country’s Superior Court, ironic given these offices overlook the footprint of the planned second tower, where vendors at El Hueco (which literally translates to ‘the hole’) regularly flout official rules in the name of efficiency, profit, and survival. This tension — the physical and philosophical structure of the court building versus ‘Hueco’s hole and squalid building’ which ‘refuses to be reduced’ to the forms and checkboxes of bureaucracy — is one in a series of dichotomies that Gandolfo lays bare over the course of the book.”

Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th by Mary Clare Jalonick (PublicAffairs). Reviewed by Chris Rutledge. “Contrary to revisionist historians, this was no peaceful protest. As Chad Pergram, a correspondent for Fox News (of all places) stated on the air at the time, and as Jalonick quotes, ‘This is the worst incursion of an American government institution since the British invaded the White House and the Capitol during the War of 1812.’ That a network so openly sympathetic to Trump would use such words is telling.”

Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir by Molly Gaudry (Rose Metal Press). Reviewed by Marcie Geffner. “As the novel portion of Fit Into Me takes shape, Gaudry shows her writing process with notes, ideas, word lists, multiple drafts, and polished versions. What’s on the page is the real work of writing, a creative, messy, associative, hesitant, and painstaking process of seeking, finding, keeping, and discarding until only the necessary words remain.”

Charlie and Me: Charles Manson and the Reporter Who Came to Know the Most Famous Mass Murderer in History by Mary Neiswender with Kate Neiswender (Potomac Books). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “She thought he was a killer, although he steadfastly denied it. Yet, she was bold enough to air his side of the story. ‘Some have suggested I should feel guilty about giving Manson a voice during his trial,’ she wrote. ‘But I believe it is essential to find out what makes such men tick — how they think, how they operate and how they seduce others to kill.’ By getting inside Manson’s strange head and sharing her insights, Neiswender turns a familiar old story into a fascinating new tale.”

Things That Are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really: A Novel by Yannick Murphy (Arcade). Reviewed by Drew Gallagher. “With an opening reminiscent of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, this coming-of-age novel isn’t exactly a lighthearted look at submariners in the Pacific Ocean. Set in the relative calm of the near-present day — with its notable lack of high-seas warfare — the story captures the monotony of life aboard an American nuclear sub, which primarily entails endless tedium punctuated by the occasional catastrophe (despite what Navy recruitment brochures would have you believe).”

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