Axiomatic a New Yorker Best Book of 2019
The New Yorker released its annual 10 Best Books of the Year, which included Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin among the year’s brightest lights. As New Yorker book critic Katy Waldman writes:
The book is comprised of restless, gorgeous essays, each of which uses an aphorism—“time heals all wounds,” “you can’t enter the same river twice”—to reflect on Tumarkin’s preoccupations: trauma, the ongoingness of the past, and the unworkability of language. Tumarkin takes up subjects like youth suicide and the plight of homeless people in North Melbourne, but her approach is never maudlin. The book exudes pity, as it’s classically defined—“a sorrowing compassion.”