Crimson staff writer

Victoria Zhuang

Latest Content


Distinguished ‘Class Distinctions’ Offers New Perspectives on Dutch Art and Society

The Museum of Fine Arts' latest exhibit, “Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” offers a nuanced investigation into the rise of a bourgeoisie created by global trade and a sympathetic meditation on striving to improve, maintain, or accept one’s class identity.


Neuman’s Latest Don’t Quite ‘Do’

Neuman's writing is erratic yet vigorous. There is an unsettling coldness to his prose, a sharpness of cut that proves to be both very refreshing in some moments but is, in many others, unfulfilling.


Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bad Movie

An examination of the art of the film review—in verse.


Staff Rec: 'Higher Gossip'

Arts Board Staff Writers tell about the stories of the books that have changed them. In this installment, Victoria Zhuang explores her relationship with John Updike's "Higher Gossip."


In 'Different Bed,' Jemc Falters

Jac Jemc’s recent collection of stories is the kind that qualifies for applause at intervals only. The title, “A Different Bed Every Time,” is perhaps too appropriate for its own good.


Ford's Newest a 'Frank' Success

Absence, omission, and forgetting turn out to be the true center of the book; there is no external destination to be striven for, no climax and ending to be buttoned on this tale.


'Kill the Messenger' a True-to-Life Portrayal of Journalist Gary Webb

Director Michael Cuesta's "Kill the Messenger" tells the true story of how American journalist Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) wrote an article in the 1990s exposing corruption in the US government, tasted fame, then paid for it.