Books
At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf
Ig Publishing, February 2023
Now available as an audiobook: At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf
“Sends us to the dusk that borders the familiar and the wild, the known and the unknown. It’s where our beliefs and suspicions cast dark shadows over our lives. And of course, the lives of others.”
- New York Times Editors’ Choice and Recommended Reading
“Brilliant, timely and chilling.” - PEOPLE magazine, a Best New Book
“Ison is unflinching in her depiction of the self-inflicted corruption that replaces the character's moral core with a twisted version of Christianity, brilliantly illustrating the epigraph from Solzhenitsyn: ‘To do evil, a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good’.” - Kirkus, starred review
“A Parisian Jewish girl is sent into hiding in the piercing Holocaust novel At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf…. Beneath the bucolic scenes of Tara Ison’s novel are foreboding realities. Neighbors turn against neighbors; fascism creeps up; “good” people avert their eyes. Danielle, suspended between worlds, yearns for the safety of the prewar days, but makes concessions to mimic peace; each time she chooses blindness over alarm, her truths slip a bit further from her grasp. Willing to compromise friends, family, and her past for the illusion of safety, she flirts with nothingness. Even at the novel’s gripping end, the question of whether she will be able to rebuild remains.” - Forward Reviews, starred review
“…a chilling psychological portrait of a young Jewish girl hiding in France during WWII…. Finely drawn characters and scenes of rural life complement Ison’s unique vision and original spin on a familiar set-up. This challenging work stands out among historical fiction of the period.” - Publishers Weekly
“A disturbingly timely story.” - Los Angeles Daily News
“Recommended Reading,.” - Jewish Book Council, Winter 2023
“A suspenseful and disturbing psychological story of an adolescent Jewish girl, relocated from Paris to a small village in Vichy during WWII and hiding with a Catholic family, who becomes increasingly and dangerously aligned with her invented identity. Written in exquisite prose, Tara Ison’s novel of persona, identity and survival in collaborationist France is chilling and profoundly moving.” — Janet Fitch
"At the Hour Between Dog & Wolf is a thrilling novel, not just as a splendid read but as a deeply resonant work of art driven by the central yearning in the greatest literary narratives: the yearning for a self, for an identity, for a place in the world. Tara Ison has always been a writer I’ve ardently admired. Here she is at the height of her estimable powers." — Robert Olen Butler
"Tara Ison’s riveting historical novel, At the Hour Between Dog & Wolf, takes the reader into Vichy France in the early 1940s at the moment when ordinary life shifts into complicity with horror, as the Free French government first accommodates the Nazi regime then amplifies its fascist, anti-Semitic project. Told from the perspective of a young Jewish girl grappling with identity, Ison’s timely book considers that moment between dusk and night, the almost imperceptible shift into darkness, both political and personal, as it exposes the high cost of accommodation of evil and bigotry. Provocative, vivid, and affecting, this novel will inspire important conversations that we all need to be having now." — EJ Levy
Ball
Soft Skull/Counterpoint Press, 2015
“A collection that explores the dark underbelly of sex, American-style…” – One of “Ten Titles To Pick up Now!” — O. The Oprah Magazine
“Elegant, creepy short stories with a horror-film sensibility…. Freaky, nasty, highly original and unforgettable” — Kirkus
“Ison delves into the minds of these characters and others in this captivating and disturbing collection of stories: think Mary Gaitskill or Miranda July, but more demented.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Each tale in Ison’s story collection, seemingly innocuous, delves into a dark examination of inappropriate behavior: affairs, self-mutilation, shocking deaths; no faux pas stone is left unturned. But with her expert writing and willingness to push boundaries the grotesqueness and horrors are bearable, even beautiful.” — Marie Claire
“As an exploration in emotional deviance, the stories in Ball are as exquisite as they are ruthless. They are deft, painful accounts of the space that exists between what is desired and what is feasible—made defter still in the hands of an author who resists all impulses to moralize or to judge. Consequently, no punch is pulled. Brace yourself.” — Jill Alexander Essbaum, Hausfrau
“Tara Ison is the mistress of bad behavior. She divines the beauty in darkness. She twists the familiar—a friendship, an apology—till something fantastic cracks. And she will have you in thrall to her gorgeous language. The stories in Ball are exquisite and harrowing. Must read straight through. Must remember to breathe.” — Dylan Landis, Rainey Royal
“The stories in Ball take place at the far limits of obsession and desire and lust, exploring the dangers of turning toward the kinds of love we have tried always to refuse. Tara Ison is a fearless writer, and her bravery before the dark urges of the heart thrills on every page.” — Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods
Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies
Soft Skull/Counterpoint Press, 2015
Winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Award for Best Creative Nonfiction
Chicago Tribune names Reeling Through Life “Editor’s Choice”
“An innovative blend of film criticism and literary memoir in this absorbing collection of 10 essays…. The result is powerfully universal, and the author’s writing is at once intellectually razor-sharp and poetic as she delves into the most complex of emotions…. These essays, combining cultural criticism with deeply personal reflections on love, religion, family, and the nature of art, offer brilliant analysis and food for thought for film aficionados and casual fans alike.” — Publishers Weekly
“Tara Ison’s passion for the movies shines in every essay in Reeling Through Life, as she gleans life lessons from the movies she’s fallen in love with. By turns hilarious, poignant, and outrageous; always profound and beautifully written.” — Hallie Ephron, Night Night, Sleep tight
“Essential and completely identifiable reading for any film lover. Tara Ison writes about movies and life the way Stephen King can write about horror—with an encyclopedic knowledge of both.” — David Koepp, screenwriter, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man
“Tara Ison’s Reeling Through Life is unforgettable—a must-read for anyone who loves movies. In an exquisite blend of memoir, criticism, and cultural observation, this luminous collection engages readers’ hearts, minds, and intellect the way that only the best movies— and the best storytellers—can. Ison masterfully showcases how movies shape and guide us; how they move and empower and embolden us; how they help us learn how to be, above all, human.” — Emily Rapp, The Still Point of the Turning World
“Like a great film retrospective, Ison’s gorgeous essays flicker and dazzle with nostalgia; her shimmering prose and astute, provocative insights surprise and delight. But it’s in her courage to rack focus, turning her personal life inside-out, that she elevates this book into a profoundly moving, revelatory whole.” — Neil Landau, 101 Things I Learned in Film School
“In Reeling Through Life, Tara Ison fashions a marvelous alchemy, giving cinematic sweep to the challenges in her life—some of them recognizable and very funny, some of them not and damned hard—while finding instructive nuggets in an array of iconic films to help make sense of the daily stuff we’d like to leave, if only we could, on the cutting room floor. The result is a brave yet buoyant personal story, told with grace and wit and not a hint of self-pity.” — Douglas Bauer, What Happens Next?: Matters of Life and Death, Winner of the 2014 PEN/New England Book Award for NonFiction
“Tara Ison’s Reeling Through Life is the most enjoyable, intelligent, sharp-eyed, and intensely personal account I’ve ever read of how movies help to make us who we are. It’s as stirring as Norma Rae’s union sign, as seductive as Mrs. Robinson’s leopard-skin coat.” — Matthew Goodman, Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World
Rockaway
Soft Skull/Counterpoint Press, 2013
“It’s a sheer joy to stay in the company of Ison’s voice.” – Karen Russell
“Here is a young woman at the end of her leash, the end of her youth, the edge of her art, confronting the many true colors of her life in this beautiful and dangerous season. Tara Ison’s Rockaway is a stirring, fresh look at a tough passage.” — Ron Carlson, Return to Oak Pines
“Tara Ison’s novel Rockaway is an illuminating inquiry into the nature of love, the meaning of art, the power of faith and family, and how grace is discovered in the most unexpected places – a stunning, modern echo of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, with a uniquely brilliant voice.” — Emily Rapp, The Still Point of the Turning World
“Tara Ison is one of the premiere stylists of her generation, and Rockaway is pretty much perfect — a meditation on art, aloneness, ambition, love, religion, and the unknowable and unquenchable thirst that is human desire. Just start reading. You won’t stop.” — Charles Bock, Beautiful Children
“Written in language that is utterly liquid, Rockaway inhabits the poetry of a woman fiercely searching for identity. Here, we find an illuminating meditation on the art of being, with the true revelation suggesting that perhaps we were never lost at all. A triumphant reclamation of the soul.” — Ilie Ruby, The Salt God’s Daughter
“Rockaway is a novel that embraces everything: love, art, friendship, faith, and the mystery of why we create the lives we do, with prose that is breathtaking, clear, and elegant. Sarah and Marty and Emily are depicted with honesty that is utterly riveting. This is a beautiful gem of a book.” — Karen E. Bender, A Town of Empty Rooms
The List
Scribner, 2007
“A tale of intoxicating love that turns toxic… Readers who like their sunniness with a side of bitter will appreciate Ison’s portrayal of love’s power to bring out the worst in us.” — The Chicago Tribune
“The List is both wise and wicked about love: why it lasts or doesn’t, and what’s to be done about it. Tara Ison limns her characters’ choices with dark precision and wit.” — Meg Wolitzer, The Position and The Wife
“The List is visceral, honest, and intensely readable; Ison builds two complex, memorable characters, and then embraces their layers and contradictions, both alone and together.” — Aimee Bender, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Willful Creatures
“The List is one fast-paced, word-drunk, film-obsessed, side-splitting roller-coaster: a screwball comedy, an anti-romance romance, the quintessential LA novel. Ison is some kind of genius.” — Brad Kessler, Birds in Fall
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A Child out of Alcatraz
Faber & Faber, Inc, 1997
“A fascinating and wonderfully evocative first novel about life on Alcatraz – seen through the eyes of a little girl growing up in the 1950s. A compelling story, richly evoking a time and place.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Disturbing, dark, and original. A stunning first novel.” — Feminist Bookstore News
“This is a sad, often beautiful novel… Ison renders the slow disintegration of a once-vital woman, and its effect on her daughter, with perfect heartbreaking despair… A provocative story.” — The Boston Book Review
“Ison has a gift…the fearsome plight of Olivia, who narrates much of the novel, is never simplified. It’s through her radiant consciousness that Ison’s novel achieves a natural, basic morality.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“What makes A Child out of Alcatraz particularly memorable is its unique venue… the author paints a searing portrait of an American family that might have been typical had fate and history not intervened.” — Glamour
To purchase an inscribed copy from the author, email TaraIsonWriter@gmail.com