Rough Likeness

“All about looking: at a landscape, at language, at a sign . . . Purpura goes beneath the surface, writing not just about what she sees but what it means.” —Los Angeles Times
 
Lia Purpura’s essays are full of joy in the act of intense observation; they’re also deliciously subversive and alert to the ways language gets locked and loaded by culture. These elegant, conversational excursions refuse t...