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Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new release titles from De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Dan Kois, Colm Tóibín, and more—that are publishing this week.
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Decent People by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Decent People: “Winslow (In West Mills) chronicles the aftermath of a triple homicide that rocks a segregated Southern community in his dynamic latest. Residents of mid-1970s West Mills, N.C., become embroiled in the shooting of Black siblings Marian, Marva, and Laz Harmon, after local authorities turn a blind eye. Spearheading the citizen-led investigation is Jo Wright, who moved back to her birthplace after decades in Harlem to retire and marry her childhood sweetheart, Olympus ‘Lymp’ Seymour, the half-brother of the murder victims. Amid speculation of drug deals gone bad, medical malfeasance (Marian was a pediatrician), and other motives, Jo digs into the case, bringing up painful secrets about the town’s history. A bevy of characters offer their personal histories and perspectives on the town’s racial woes, among them Savannah, Marian’s best friend who chose to be with a Black man against her white family’s wishes; and Eunice, who sent her queer teenage son La’Roy to Marian in the misguided hope of having ‘the gay removed.’ There are a trove of surprises along the way to the well-earned resolution, and Winslow entrances readers with strong characters, impeccable prose, and brisk pacing. As a character-driven mystery, it delivers the goods.”
Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Vintage Contemporaries: “Kois’s charming if schematic latest (after the memoir How to Be a Family) charts the lives of two off-and-on-again friends from the early 1990s through the mid-aughts. In 1991, Emily, a Midwestern transplant newly entering the literary world as an agent’s assistant, meets another Emily, a hard-partying playwright living in an East Village squat. Punk Emily turns publishing Emily into Em, reasoning that ‘if we were characters in a story… it would be pretty confusing that we were both named Emily.’ More than a decade later, Em—going by Emily again—is a senior editor and a new mother. It’s been eight years since she last saw punk Emily, the latter’s addiction having caused a rupture in their friendship. Punk Emily is sober now, and when publishing Emily wanders into the bar where she works, she hopes they can reconcile. Kois meanders through roughly sketched plot points—the lukewarm comeuppance of Emily’s boss for his indelicate behavior toward the women at the office; a memorial protest at the old squat, now another expensive New York apartment building; the change in pace of life with a two-year-old, rather than a newborn—and resolves the substantial conflict that arises between the Emilys too quickly. With its sharp edges filed into a too-perfect smile, this one lacks bite.”
The 12th Commandment by Daniel Torday
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about The 12th Commandment: “The provocative if undercooked latest from National Jewish Book Award winner Torday (The Last Flight of Poxl West) concerns a small enclave of Islamic Jews in Ohio. Zeke Leger works as a magazine editor in New York, but returns to his college town of Mt. Izmir for the funeral of his friend Gram Silver, who died by suicide. There, Leger reunites with lost love Johanna Franklin, who successfully prosecuted Nathan Fritzman, the leader of the Dönme sect, for the murder of his son, Osman. According to Johanna’s case, Osman had violated the 12th commandment of the sect’s religion by sharing its secrets with outsiders, thus providing motive to Fritzman. Dönme members, however, insist that Osman was killed by someone else. Leger smells a story and lingers to work on it, and is granted access to the Dönme, a group of rifle-toting Hasids who freely indulge in cannabis and view Fritzman as a messianic figure. Leger’s less-than-captivating search for his own life’s purpose and meaning overwhelms the question of who really killed Osman, and the author never gets back to Gram, which makes the funeral and Johanna’s connection to the case feel like narrative contrivances. Still, the premise allows for some engaging insights on the potential and perils of faith. The author has a bold vision, but this doesn’t quite hang together.”
Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Forbidden Notebook: “Late Italo-Cuban author de Céspedes (Between Then and Now) spins a fearlessly probing and candid look at marital dynamics and generational divisions, first published in Italy in 1952. Narrator Valeria Cossati views her life, aside from getting married and having children, as ‘rather insignificant,’ until November 1950, when she starts keeping a journal in pursuit of the idea that ‘if we can learn to understand the smallest things that happen every day, then maybe we can learn to truly understand the secret meaning of life.’ She reflects on her family’s financial troubles, which persist despite her job as a secretary, and society’s domestic expectations of her to prioritize being a mother and wife. Her daughter, Mirella, 19, starts staying out late with a man in his 30s, while her son, Riccardo, resentful of his younger sister’s aspirations, courts a mousy, traditional girl. Valeria’s husband, Michele, buoyed briefly by a raise, loses himself in dreams of a career change, as Valeria, frustrated at Michele’s neglect, fantasizes about an affair with her boss, Guido, and glimpses a richer, more passionate world. The diary takes on a life of its own for Valeria; she calls it ‘an evil spirit,’ which de Céspedes (1911–1997) makes palpable. As Valeria writes, she finds herself ‘drawn into acts that I condemn and yet which, like this notebook, I seem unable to do without.’ Goldstein’s translation invigorates a remarkable story, one that remains intensely relevant across time, cultures, and continents.”
Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter by John Hendrickson
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Life on Delay: “Hendrickson, a senior editor at the Atlantic, debuts with a powerful examination of his lifelong stutter. After his 2019 story about Joe Biden’s stuttering went viral, Hendrickson decided to write about his own experiences. His stuttering, which began at a young age, was ‘viewed as something to be fixed, solved, and cured’ and he underwent speech therapy lessons in elementary and middle school, which proved to be mostly futile. Throughout high school, Hendrickson attempted to mask his dysfluency by drinking and getting high: ‘Nearly every decision in my life has been shaped by my struggle to speak,’ he writes. Hendrickson captures the claustrophobic terror that a stutterer feels when he’s unable to express the sound of a letter (‘A bad block can make you feel like you’re going to pass out’), and his interviews with researchers, therapists, fellow stutterers, and parents of children who stutter widen the narrative scope and compassionately uplift a stigmatized community. The author is a thoughtful reporter, and he delivers a visceral understanding of how he compartmentalized his shame. This memoir casts a necessary light on a disability that too often goes unseen.”
The Call of the Tribe by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by John King
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about The Call of the Tribe: “Nobel Prize winner Vargas Llosa (Harsh Times) lays out in this pensive survey the seven thinkers who shaped his belief in liberal democracy. An early supporter of the Cuban Revolution and socialism, Vargas Llosa saw how powerful ‘the call of the tribe’ was, but ultimately came to view it as ‘sovereign responsible individuals regress[ing] to being part of a mass submissive to the dictates of a leader.’ Vargas Llosa devotes a chapter to each of the seven authors: Adam Smith, ‘the father of liberalism,’ ‘wrote with elegance and precision’ and ‘was sensitive to good literature’; José Ortega y Gasset ‘would today be as widely known and read as Sartre‘ were he French; Friedrich von Hayek’s work gave ‘liberalism a very clear content and very precise boundaries’; Jean-Francois Revel had a keen ‘ability to see when theory stops expressing life and begins to betray it’; and Isaiah Berlin wrote with ‘discretion and modesty’ as a ‘wily strategy.’ The snapshot biographies of each figure are fascinating (Hayek’s ‘first passion’ was botany and Smith ‘was known for being extraordinarily absentminded’), and cumulatively they amount to an illuminating look at the author’s own political and intellectual trajectory. Vargas Llosa’s fans should check this out.”
The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about The Once and Future Sex: “This incisive revisionist history tracks ‘societal expectations of women’ from the Middle Ages to today. Blogger and historian Janega (The Middle Ages: A Graphic History) notes that early Christian theologians relied on ancient and scientifically erroneous assumptions to argue against women’s education, sexual agency, and professional equity, and examines how these viewpoints still influence modern schools, churches, and workplaces. Throughout, she documents the gap between the Middle Ages’ virginal ideal of womanhood and women’s actual roles in society, noting that medieval women farmed, brewed alcohol, and ran large estates while taking primary responsibility for homemaking and childcare, or outsourcing those duties to other women. Janega also shows that modern and medieval women faced similar pressure to effortlessly achieve the right body shape (hourglass today; pear-shaped in the Middle Ages) and dress stylishly, and draws on theologian Hildegard of Bingen, poet Christine de Pizan, and other medieval women to offer an alternate perspective on their era. Accessible, informative, and clear-sighted about the insidious workings of misogyny, this is a persuasive call for deconstructing the past to create a more equitable future.”
Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Black and Female: “These incisive, impassioned essays by novelist Dangarembga (Nervous Conditions) confront the lingering effects of imperialism in Zimbabwe. She examines empire, racism, and misogyny through personal stories about growing up in what was then called Rhodesia and contrasts her experiences there with a stint she spent living with a foster family in Dover, England. In ‘Writing While Black and Female,’ Dangarembga remembers learning the power of language from its ability to produce action (‘After adults spoke to each other, things happened: little children were left’), and relates how writing allows her to transcend racial and gender categories by building and affirming an identity independent of them. She examines Zimbabwe’s pre- and post-colonial history of gender inequality, noting that colonial legislation treated adult women as minors and lamenting how as a child, her brother once felt compelled to ally himself with the ‘toxic masculinity’ of their father by offering his belt to beat her with. Calling for ‘mental decolonisation,’ the author argues that Black feminists must play a crucial role in building a more just future because they ‘have experienced the more repressive edge of most demographic categories and not succumbed.’ Dangarembga’s candid reflections and lyrical prose bring urgency to this thought-provoking argument for political and social equality. Readers won’t want to miss this.”
A Guest at the Feast by Colm Tóibín
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about A Guest at the Feast: “Novelist Tóibín (The Magician) gathers 11 essays that showcase his versatility in this erudite collection of previously published material. In ‘Cancer: My Part in Its Downfall,’ Tóibín reflects on his testicular cancer and the trials of chemotherapy: ‘the effect of the drug darkened the mind and filled it with something hard and severe and relentless. It was like pain or a sort of anguish, but those words don’t really cover it.’ ‘A Brush with the Law’ recalls Tóibín’s earlier career as a magazine editor reporting on the Irish Supreme Court, while ‘The Paradoxical Pope’ profiles John Paul II: ‘It is not simply the aura of his office that draws people to him but the mixture of his steely strength and his humanity. Also, he was once an actor, and knows about the theater.’ In ‘The Ferns Report,’ Tóibín poignantly examines an account of sexual abuse that occurred in the diocese where he grew up. The book closes with essays on literature, including pieces on novelists John McGahern and Marilynne Robinson. Of the latter, Tóibín writes, ‘With her wide reading and her well-stocked mind, Robinson is also deeply engaged with matters both philosophical and political’; this collection places him in that same class. Tóibín’s fans will relish these sharp reflections.”