Mentioned in:
Most Anticipated: The Great Spring 2024 Preview
April
April 2
Women! In! Peril! by Jessie Ren Marshall [F]
For starters, excellent title. This debut short story collection from playwright Marshall spans sex bots and space colonists, wives and divorcĂ©es, prodding at the many meanings of womanhood. Short story master Deesha Philyaw, also taken by the book's title, calls this one "incisive! Provocative! And utterly satisfying!" âSophia M. Stewart
The Audacity by Ryan Chapman [F]
This sophomore effort, after the darkly sublime absurdity of Riots I have Known, trades in the prison industrial complex for the Silicon Valley scam. Chapman has a sharp eye and a sharper wit, and a book billed as a "bracing satire about the implosion of a Theranos-like company, a collapsing marriage, and a billionairesâ 'philanthropy summit'" promises some good, hard laughsâhowever bitter they may beâat the expense of the ĂŒber-rich. âJohn H. Maher
The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso, tr. Leonard Mades [F]
I first learned about this book from an essay in this publication by Zachary Issenberg, who alternatively calls it Donoso's "masterpiece," "a perfect novel," and "the crowning achievement of the gothic horror genre." He recommends going into the book without knowing too much, but describes it as "a story assembled from the gossip of societyâs highs and lows, which revolves and blurs into a series of interlinked nightmares in which people lose their memory, their sex, or even their literal organs." âSMS
Globetrotting ed. Duncan Minshull [NF]
I'm a big walker, so I won't be able to resist this assemblage of 50 writersâincluding Edith Wharton, Katharine Mansfield, Helen Garner, and D.H. Lawrenceârecounting their various journeys by foot, edited by Minshull, the noted walker-writer-anthologist behind The Vintage Book of Walking (2000) and Where My Feet Fall (2022). âSMS
All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld [NF]
Hieronymus Bosch, eat your heart out! The debut book from Rothfeld, nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post, celebrates our appetite for excess in all its material, erotic, and gluttonous glory. Covering such disparate subjects from decluttering to David Cronenberg, Rothfeld looks at the dire culturalâand personalâconsequences that come with adopting a minimalist sensibility and denying ourselves pleasure. âDaniella Fishman
A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins [F]
Higgins, a regular contributor here at The Millions, debuts with a novel of a young woman who is drawn into an intense and all-consuming emotional and sexual relationship with a married lesbian couple. Halle Butler heaps on the praise for this one: âSometimes I could not believe how easily this book moved from gross-out sadism into genuine sympathy. Totally surprising, totally compelling. I loved it.â âSMS
City Limits by Megan Kimble [NF]
As a Los Angeleno who is steadily working my way through The Power Broker, this in-depth investigation into the nation's freeways really calls to me. (Did you know Robert Moses couldn't drive?) Kimble channels Caro by locating the human drama behind freeways and failures of urban planning. âSMS
We Loved It All by Lydia Millet [NF]
Planet Earth is a pretty awesome place to be a human, with its beaches and mountains, sunsets and birdsong, creatures great and small. Millet, a creative director at the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, infuses her novels with climate grief and cautions against extinction, and in this nonfiction meditation, she makes a case for a more harmonious coexistence between our species and everybody else in the natural world. If a nostalgic note of âAuld Lang Syneâ trembles in Milletâs title, her personal anecdotes and public examples call for meaningful environmental action from local to global levels. âNathalie op de Beeck
Like Love by Maggie Nelson [NF]
The new book from Nelson, one of the most towering public intellectuals alive today, collects 20 years of her workâincluding essays, profiles, and reviewsâthat cover disparate subjects, from Prince and Kara Walker to motherhood and queerness. For my fellow Bluets heads, this will be essential reading. âSMS
Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, tr. Robin Moger [NF]
Mersal, one of the preeminent poets of the Arabic-speaking world, recovers the life, work, and legacy of the late Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat in this biographical detective story. Mapping the psyche of al-Zayyat, who died by suicide in 1963, alongside her own, Mersal blends literary mystery and memoir to produce a wholly original portrait of two women writers. âSMS
The Letters of Emily Dickinson ed. Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell [NF]
The letters of Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest and most beguiling of American poets, are collected here for the first time in nearly 60 years. Her correspondence not only gives access to her inner life and social world, but reveal her to be quite the prose stylist. "In these letters," says Jericho Brown, "we see the life of a genius unfold." Essential reading for any Dickinson fan. âSMS
April 9
Short War by Lily Meyer [F]
The debut novel from Meyer, a critic and translator, reckons with the United States' political intervention in South America through the stories of two generations: a young couple who meet in 1970s Santiago, and their American-born child spending a semester Buenos Aires. Meyer is a sharp writer and thinker, and a great translator from the Spanish; I'm looking forward to her fiction debut. âSMS
There's Going to Be Trouble by Jen Silverman [F]
Silverman's third novel spins a tale of an American woman named Minnow who is drawn into a love affair with a radical French activistâa romance that, unbeknown to her, mirrors a relationship her own draft-dodging father had against the backdrop of the student movements of the 1960s. Teasing out the intersections of passion and politics, There's Going to Be Trouble is "juicy and spirited" and "crackling with excitement," per Jami Attenberg. âSMS
Table for One by Yun Ko-eun, tr. Lizzie Buehler [F]
I thoroughly enjoyed Yun Ko-eun's 2020 eco-thriller The Disaster Tourist, also translated by Buehler, so I'm excited for her new story collection, which promises her characteristic blend of mundanity and surrealism, all in the name of probingâand poking funâat the isolation and inanity of modern urban life. âSMS
Playboy by Constance Debré, tr. Holly James [NF]
The prequel to the much-lauded Love Me Tender, and the first volume in DebrĂ©'s autobiographical trilogy, Playboy's incisive vignettes explore the author's decision to abandon her marriage and career and pursue the precarious life of a writer, which she once told Chris Kraus was "a bit like Saint Augustine and his conversion." Virginie Despentes is a fan, so I'll be checking this out. âSMS
Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal [NF]
DuVal's sweeping history of Indigenous North America spans a millennium, beginning with the ancient cities that once covered the continent and ending with Native Americans' continued fight for sovereignty. A study of power, violence, and self-governance, Native Nations is an exciting contribution to a new canon of North American history from an Indigenous perspective, perfect for fans of Ned Blackhawk's The Rediscovery of America. âSMS
Personal Score by Ellen van Neerven [NF]
Iâve always been interested in books that drill down on a specific topic in such a way that we also learn something unexpected about the world around us. Australian writer Van Neerven's sports memoir is so much more than that, as they explore the relationship between sports and race, gender, and sexualityâas well as the paradox of playing a colonialist sport on Indigenous lands. Two Dollar Radio, which is renowned for its edgy list, is publishing this book, so I know itâs going to blow my mind. âClaire Kirch
April 16
The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins by Sonny Rollins [NF]
The musings, recollections, and drawings of jazz legend Sonny Rollins are collected in this compilation of his precious notebooks, which he began keeping in 1959, the start of what would become known as his âBridge Years,â during which he would practice at all hours on the Williamsburg Bridge. Rollins chronicles everything from his daily routine to reflections on music theory and the philosophical underpinnings of his artistry. An indispensable look into the mind and interior life of one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of all time. âDF
Henry Henry by Allen Bratton [F]
Brattonâs ambitious debut reboots Shakespeareâs Henriad, landing Hal Lancaster, whoâs in line to be the 17th Duke of Lancaster, in the alcohol-fueled queer party scene of 2014 London. Halâs identity as a gay man complicates his aristocratic lineage, and his dalliances with over-the-hill actor Jack Falstaff and promising romance with one Harry Percy, who shares a name with historyâs Hotspur, will have English majors keeping score. Donât expect a rom-com, though. Halâs fraught relationship with his sexually abusive father, and the fates of two previous gay men from the House of Lancaster, lend gravity to this Bard-inspired take. âNodB
Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek [F]
Graywolf always publishes books that make me gasp in awe and this debut novel, by the author of the entrancing 2020 story collection Imaginary Museums, sounds like itâs going to keep me awake at night as well. Itâs a tale about a young woman whoâs lost her way and writes a letter to a long-dead ballet dancerâwho then visits her, and sets off a string of strange occurrences. âCK
Norma by Sarah Mintz [F]
Mintz's debut novel follows the titular widow as she enjoys her newfound freedom by diving headfirst into her surrounds, both IRL and online. Justin Taylor says, "Three days ago I didnât know Sarah Mintz existed; now I want to know where the hell sheâs been all my reading life. (Canada, apparently.)" âSMS
What Kingdom by Fine GrÄbÞl, tr. Martin Aitken [F]
A woman in a psychiatric ward dreams of "furniture flickering to life," a "chair that greets you," a "bookshelf that can be thrown on like an apron." This sounds like the moving answer to the otherwise puzzling question, "What if the Kantian concept of ding an sich were a novel?" âJHM
Weird Black Girls by Elwin Cotman [F]
Cotman, the author of three prior collections of speculative short stories, mines the anxieties of Black life across these seven tales, each of them packed with pop culture references and supernatural conceits. Kelly Link calls Cotman's writing "a tonic to ward off drabness and despair." âSMS
Presence by Tracy Cochran [NF]
Last year marked my first earnest attempt at learning to live more mindfully in my day-to-day, so I was thrilled when this book serendipitously found its way into my hands. Cochran, a New York-based meditation teacher and Tibetan Buddhist practitioner of 50 years, delivers 20 psycho-biographical chapters on recognizing the importance of the present, no matter how mundane, frustrating, or fortuitousâbecause ultimately, she says, the present is all we have. âDF
Committed by Suzanne Scanlon [NF]
Scanlon's memoir uses her own experience of mental illness to explore the enduring trope of the "madwoman," mining the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, and others for insights into the long literary tradition of women in psychological distress. The blurbers for this one immediately caught my eye, among them Natasha Trethewey, Amina Cain, and Clancy Martin, who compares Scanlon's work here to that of Marguerite Duras. âSMS
Unrooted by Erin Zimmerman [NF]
This science memoir explores Zimmerman's journey to botany, a now endangered field. Interwoven with Zimmerman's experiences as a student and a mother is an impassioned argument for botany's continued relevance and importance against the backdrop of climate changeâa perfect read for gardeners, plant lovers, or anyone with an affinity for the natural world. âSMS
April 23
Reboot by Justin Taylor [F]
Extremely online novels, as a rule, have become tiresome. But Taylor has long had a keen eye for subcultural quirks, so it's no surprise that PW's Alan Scherstuhl says that "reading it actually feels like tapping into the internetâs best celeb gossip, fiercest fandom outrages, and wildest conspiratorial rabbit holes." If that's not a recommendation for the Book Twitterâbrained reader in you, what is? âJHM
Divided Island by Daniela Tarazona, tr. Lizzie Davis and Kevin Gerry Dunn [F]
A story of multiple personalities and grief in fragments would be an easy sell even without this nod from Ălvaro Enrigue: "I don't think that there is now, in Mexico, a literary mind more original than Daniela Tarazona's." More original than Mario Bellatin, or Cristina Rivera Garza? This we've gotta see. âJHM
Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton [NF]
Coffee House Press has for years relished its reputation for publishing âexperimentalâ literature, and this collection of short stories and essays about literature and art and the strangeness of our world is right up there with the rest of Coffee Houseâs edgiest releases. Donât be fooled by the simple cover artâDuttonâs work is always formally inventive, refreshingly ambitious, and totally brilliant. âCK
I Just Keep Talking by Nell Irvin Painter [NF]
I first encountered Nell Irvin Painter in graduate school, as I hung out with some Americanists who were her students. Painter was always a dazzling, larger-than-life figure, who just exuded power and brilliance. I am so excited to read this collection of her essays on history, literature, and politics, and how they all intersect. The fact that this collection contains Painterâs artwork is a big bonus. âCK
April 30
Real Americans by Rachel Khong [F]
The latest novel from Khong, the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, explores class dynamics and the illusory American Dream across generations. It starts out with a love affair between an impoverished Chinese American woman from an immigrant family and an East Coast elite from a wealthy family, before moving us along 21 years: 15-year-old Nick knows that his single mother is hiding something that has to do with his biological father and thus, his identity. C Pam Zhang deems this "a book of rare charm," and Andrew Sean Greer calls it "gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft." âCK
The Swans of Harlem by Karen Valby [NF]
Huge thanks to Bebe Neuwirth for putting this book on my radar (she calls it "fantastic") with additional gratitude to Margo Jefferson for sealing the deal (she calls it "riveting"). Valby's group biography of five Black ballerinas who forever transformed the art form at the height of the Civil Rights movement uncovers the rich and hidden history of Black ballet, spotlighting the trailblazers who paved the way for the Misty Copelands of the world. âSMS
Appreciation Post by Tara Ward [NF]
Art historian Ward writes toward an art history of Instagram in Appreciation Post, which posits that the app has profoundly shifted our long-established ways of interacting with images. Packed with cultural critique and close reading, the book synthesizes art history, gender studies, and media studies to illuminate the outsize role that images play in all of our lives. âSMS
May
May 7
Bad Seed by Gabriel Carle, tr. Heather Houde [F]
Carleâs English-language debut contains echoes of Denis Johnsonâs Jesusâs Son and Mariana Enriquezâs gritty short fiction. This story collection haunting but cheeky, grim but hopeful: a student with HIV tries to avoid temptation while working at a bathhouse; an inebriated friend group witnesses San Juan go up in literal flames; a sexually unfulfilled teen drowns out their impulses by binging TV shows. Puerto Rican writer Luis NegrĂłn calls this âan extraordinary literary debut.â âLiv Albright
The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak [F]
Zyzakâs sophomore novel is a nail-biting delight. When Viva, a young Polish Ă©migrĂ©, has a chance encounter with an enigmatic gallerist named Bobby, Vivaâs life takes a cinematic turn. Turns out, Bobby and her husband have a hidden agendaâthey plan to steal a Vermeer, with Viva as their accomplice. Further complicating things is the inevitable love triangle that develops among them. Victor LaValle calls this âa superb accomplishment," and Percival Everett says, "This novel popsâcosmopolitan, sexy, and funny." âLA
América del Norte by Nicolås Medina Mora [F]
Pitched as a novel that "blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bolaño and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of U.S. writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole," Mora's debut follows a young member of the Mexican elite as he wrestles with questions of race, politics, geography, and immigration. n+1 co-editor Marco Roth calls Mora "the voice of the NAFTA generation, and much more." âSMS
How It Works Out by Myriam Lacroix [F]
LaCroix's debut novel is the latest in a strong early slate of novels for the Overlook Press in 2024, and follows a lesbian couple as their relationship falls to pieces across a number of possible realities. The increasingly fascinating and troubling potentialitiesâB-list feminist celebrity, toxic employer-employee tryst, adopting a street urchin, cannibalism as relationship cureâform a compelling image of a complex relationship in multiversal hypotheticals. âJHM
Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang [F]
Ting's debut novel, which spans two continents and three timelines, follows two gay men in rural Chinaâand, later, New York City's Chinatownâwho frequent the Workers' Cinema, a movie theater where queer men cruise for love. Robert Jones, Jr. praises this one as "the unforgettable work of a patient master," and Jessamine Chan calls it "not just an extraordinary debut, but a future classic." âSMS
First Love by Lilly Dancyger [NF]
Dancyger's essay collection explores the platonic romances that bloom between female friends, giving those bonds the love-story treatment they deserve. Centering each essay around a formative female friendship, and drawing on everything from AnaĂŻs Nin and Sylvia Plath to the "sad girls" of Tumblr, Dancyger probes the myriad meanings and iterations of friendship, love, and womanhood. âSMS
See Loss See Also Love by Yukiko Tominaga [F]
In this impassioned debut, we follow Kyoko, freshly widowed and left to raise her son alone. Through four vignettes, Kyoko must decide how to raise her multiracial son, whether to remarry or stay husbandless, and how to deal with life in the face of loss. Weike Wang describes this one as âimbued with a wealth of wisdom, exploring the languages of love and family.â âDF
The Novices of Lerna by Ăngel Bonomini, tr. Jordan Landsman [F]
The Novices of Lerna is Landsman's translation debut, and what a way to start out: with a work by an Argentine writer in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares whose work has never been translated into English. Judging by the opening of this short story, also translated by Landsman, Bonomini's novel of a mysterious fellowship at a Swiss university populated by doppelgĂ€ngers of the protagonist is unlikely to disappoint. âJHM
Black Meme by Legacy Russell [NF]
Russell, best known for her hit manifesto Glitch Feminism, maps Black visual culture in her latest. Black Meme traces the history of Black imagery from 1900 to the present, from the photograph of Emmett Till published in JET magazine to the footage of Rodney King's beating at the hands of the LAPD, which Russell calls the first viral video. Per Margo Jefferson, "You will be galvanized by Legacy Russellâs analytic brilliance and visceral eloquence." âSMS
The Eighth Moon by Jennifer Kabat [NF]
Kabat's debut memoir unearths the history of the small Catskills town to which she relocated in 2005. The site of a 19th-century rural populist uprising, and now home to a colorful cast of characters, the Appalachian community becomes a lens through which Kabat explores political, economic, and ecological issues, mining the archives and the work of such writers as Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Hardwick along the way. âSMS
Stories from the Center of the World ed. Jordan Elgrably [F]
Many in America hold onto broad, centuries-old misunderstandings of Arab and Muslim life and politics that continue to harm, through both policy and rhetoric, a perpetually embattled and endangered region. With luck, these 25 tales by writers of Middle Eastern and North African origin might open hearts and minds alike. âJHM
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children by Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker [NF]
Two of the most brilliant minds on the planetâwriter Jamaica Kincaid and visual artist Kara Walkerâhave teamed up! On a book! About plants! A dream come true. Details on this slim volume are scantâsee for yourselfâbut I'm counting down the minutes till I can read it all the same. âSMS
Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov, tr. Angela Rodel [F]
I'll be honest: I would pick up this bookâby the International Booker Prizeâwinning author of Time Shelterâfor the title alone. But also, the book is billed as a deeply personal meditation on both Communist Bulgaria and Greek myth, soâyep, still picking this one up. âJHM
May 14
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud [F]
I read an ARC of this enthralling fictionalization of Messudâs family historyâpeople wandering the world during much of the 20th century, moving from Algeria to France to North Americaâ and it is quite the story, with a postscript that will smack you on the side of the head and make you re-think everything you just read. I can't recommend this enough. âCK
Woodworm by Layla Martinez, tr. Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott [F]
Martinezâs debut novel takes cabin fever to the max in this story of a grandmother, granddaughter, and their haunted house, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. As the story unfolds, so do the houseâs secrets, the two women must learn to collaborate with the malevolent spirits living among them. Mariana Enriquez says that this "tense, chilling novel tells a story of specters, class war, violence, and loneliness, as naturally as if the witches had dictated this lucid, terrible nightmare to MartĂnez themselves.â âLA
Self Esteem and the End of the World by Luke Healy [NF]
Ah, writers writing about writing. A tale as old as time, and often timeworn to boot. But graphic novelists graphically noveling about graphic novels? (Verbing weirds language.) It still feels fresh to me! Enter Healy's tale of "two decades of tragicomic self-discovery" following a protagonist "two years post publication of his latest book" and "grappling with his identity as the world crumbles." âJHM
All Fours by Miranda July [F]
In excruciating, hilarious detail, All Fours voices the ethically dubious thoughts and deeds of an unnamed 45-year-old artist whoâs worried about aging and her capacity for desire. After setting off on a two-week round-trip drive from Los Angeles to New York City, the narrator impulsively checks into a motel 30 miles from her home and only pretends to be traveling. Her flagrant lies, unapologetic indolence, and semi-consummated seduction of a rent-a-car employee set the stage for a liberatory inquisition of heteronorms and queerness. July taps into the perimenopause zeitgeist that animates Jen Beaginâs Big Swiss and Melissa Broderâs Death Valley. âNodB
Love Junkie by Robert Plunket [F]
When a picture-perfect suburban housewife's life is turned upside down, a chance brush with New York City's gay scene launches her into gainful, albeit unconventional, employment. Set at the dawn of the AIDs epidemic, Mimi Smithers, described as a "modern-day Madame Bovary," goes from planning parties in Westchester to selling used underwear with a Manhattan porn star. As beloved as it is controversial, Plunket's 1992 cult novel will get a much-deserved second life thanks to this reissue by New Directions. (Maybe this will finally galvanize Madonna, who once optioned the film rights, to finally make that movie.) âDF
Tomorrowing by Terry Bisson [F]
The newest volume in Duke Universityâs Practices series collects for the first time the late Terry Bissonâs Locus column "This Month in History," which ran for two decades. In it, the iconic "Theyâre Made Out of Meat" author weaves an alt-history of a world almost parallel to ours, featuring AI presidents, moon mountain hikes, a 196-year-old Walt Disneyâs resurrection, and a space pooch on Mars. This one promises to be a pure spectacle of speculative fiction. âDF
Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle T. King [NF]
A large portion of the American populace still confuses Chinese American food with Chinese food. What a delight, then, to discover this culinary history of the worldwide dissemination of that great cuisineâwhich moonlights as a biography of Chinese cookbook and TV cooking program pioneer Fu Pei-mei. âJHM
On the Couch ed. Andrew Blauner [NF]
AndrĂ© Aciman, Susie Boyt, Siri Hustvedt, Rivka Galchen, and Colm TĂłibĂn are among the 25 literary luminaries to contribute essays on Freud and his complicated legacy to this lively volume, edited by writer, editor, and literary agent Blauner. Taking tacts both personal and psychoanalytical, these essays paint a fresh, full picture of Freud's life, work, and indelible cultural impact. âSMS
Another Word for Love by Carvell Wallace [NF]
Wallace is one of the best journalists (and tweeters) working today, so I'm really looking forward to his debut memoir, which chronicles growing up Black and queer in America, and navigating the world through adulthood. One of the best writers working today, Kiese Laymon, calls Another Word for Love as âOne of the most soulfully crafted memoirs Iâve ever read. I couldnât figure out how Carvell Wallace blurred time, region, care, and sexuality into something so different from anything Iâve read before." âSMS
The Devil's Best Trick by Randall Sullivan [NF]
A cultural history interspersed with memoir and reportage, Sullivan's latest explores our ever-changing understandings of evil and the devil, from Egyptian gods and the Book of Job to the Salem witch trials and Black Mass ceremonies. Mining the work of everyone from Zoraster, Plato, and John Milton to Edgar Allen Poe, Aleister Crowley, and Charles Baudelaire, this sweeping book chronicles evil and the devil in their many forms. --SMS
The Book Against Death by Elias Canetti, tr. Peter Filkins [NF]
In this newly-translated collection, Nobel laureate Canetti, who once called himself death's "mortal enemy," muses on all that death inevitably touchesâfrom the smallest ant to the Greek godsâand condemns death as a byproduct of war and despots' willingness to use death as a pathway to power. By means of this book's very publication, Canetti somewhat succeeds in staving off death himself, ensuring that his words live on forever. âDF
Rise of a Killah by Ghostface Killah [NF]
"Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why did Judas rat to the Romans while Jesus slept?" Ghostface Killah has always asked the big questions. Here's another one: Who needs to read a blurb on a literary site to convince them to read Ghost's memoir? âJHM
May 21
Exhibit by R.O. Kwon [F]
It's been six years since Kwon's debut, The Incendiaries, hit shelves, and based on that book's flinty prose alone, her latest would be worth a read. But it's also a tale of awakeningâof its protagonist's latent queerness, and of the "unquiet spirit of an ancestor," that the author herself calls so "shot through with physical longing, queer lust, and kink" that she hopes her parents will never read it. Tantalizing enough for you? âJHM
Cecilia by K-Ming Chang [F]
Chang, the author of Bestiary, Gods of Want, and Organ Meats, returns with this provocative and oft-surreal novella. While the story is about two childhood friends who became estranged after a bizarre sexual encounter but re-connect a decade later, itâs also an exploration of how the human body and its excretions can be both pleasurable and disgusting. âCK
The Great State of West Florida by Kent Wascom [F]
The Great State of West Florida is Wascom's latest gothicomic novel set on Florida's apocalyptic coast. A gritty, ominous book filled with doomed Floridians, the passages fly by with sentences that delight in propulsive excess. In the vein of Thomas McGuane's early novels or Brian De Palma's heyday, this stylized, savory, and witty novel wields pulp with care until it blooms into a new strain of American gothic. âZachary Issenberg
Cartoons by Kit Schluter [F]
Bursting with Kafkaesque absurdism and a hearty dab of abstraction, Schluterâs Cartoons is an animated vignette of life's minutae. From the ravings of an existential microwave to a pencil that is afraid of paper, Schluterâs episodic outrĂ© oozes with animism and uncanniness. A grand addition to City Lightâs repertoire, it will serve as a zany reminder of the lengths to which great fiction can stretch. âDF
May 28
Lost Writings by Mina Loy, ed. Karla Kelsey [F]
In the early 20th century, avant-garde author, visual artist, and gallerist Mina Loy (1882â1966) led an astonishing creative life amid European and American modernist circles; she satirized Futurists, participated in Surrealist performance art, and created paintings and assemblages in addition to writing about her experiences in male-dominated fields of artistic practice. Diligent feminist scholars and art historians have long insisted on her cultural significance, yet the first Loy retrospective wasnât until 2023. Now Karla Kelsey, a poet and essayist, unveils two never-before-published, autobiographical midcentury manuscripts by Loy, The Child and the Parent and Islands in the Air, written from the 1930s to the 1950s. It's never a bad time to be re-rediscovered. âNodB
I'm a Fool to Want You by Camila Sosa Villada, tr. Kit Maude [F]
Villada, whose debut novel Bad Girls, also translated by Maude, captured the travesti experience in Argentina, returns with a short story collection that runs the genre gamut from gritty realism and social satire to science fiction and fantasy. The throughline is Villada's boundless imagination, whether she's conjuring the chaos of the Mexican Inquisition or a trans sex worker befriending a down-and-out Billie Holiday. Angie Cruz calls this "one of my favorite short-story collections of all time." âSMS
The Editor by Sara B. Franklin [NF]
Franklin's tenderly written and meticulously researched biography of Judith Jonesâthe legendary Knopf editor who worked with such authors as John Updike, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bowen, Anne Tyler, and, perhaps most consequentially, Julia Childâwas largely inspired by Franklin's own friendship with Jones in the final years of her life, and draws on a rich trove of interviews and archives. The Editor retrieves Jones from the margins of publishing history and affirms her essential role in shaping the postwar cultural landscape, from fiction to cooking and beyond. âSMS
The Book-Makers by Adam Smyth [NF]
A history of the book told through 18 microbiographies of particularly noteworthy historical personages who made them? If that's not enough to convince you, consider this: the small press is represented here by Nancy Cunard, the punchy and enormously influential founder of Hours Press who romanced both Aldous Huxley and Ezra Pound, knew Hemingway and Joyce and Langston Hughes and William Carlos Williams, and has her own MI5 file. Also, the subject of the binding chapter is named "William Wildgoose." âJHM
June
June 4
The Future Was Color by Patrick Nathan [F]
A gay Hungarian immigrant writing crappy monster movies in the McCarthy-era Hollywood studio system gets swept up by a famous actress and brought to her estate in Malibu to write what he really cares aboutâand realizes he can never escape his traumatic past. Sunset Boulevard is shaking. âJHM
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird [F]
This collection brings together a who's who of literary writersâ10 of them, to be preciseâ to write Kafka fanfiction, from Joshua Cohen to Yiyun Li. Then it throws in weirdo screenwriting dynamo Charlie Kaufman, for good measure. A boon for Kafkaheads everywhere. âJHM
We Refuse by Kellie Carter Jackson [NF]
Jackson, a historian and professor at Wellesley College, explores the past and present of Black resistance to white supremacy, from work stoppages to armed revolt. Paying special attention to acts of resistance by Black women, Jackson attempts to correct the historical record while plotting a path forward. Jelani Cobb describes this "insurgent history" as "unsparing, erudite, and incisive." âSMS
Holding It Together by Jessica Calarco [NF]
Sociologist Calarco's latest considers how, in lieu of social safety nets, the U.S. has long relied on women's labor, particularly as caregivers, to hold society together. Calarco argues that while other affluent nations cover the costs of care work and direct significant resources toward welfare programs, American women continue to bear the brunt of the unpaid domestic labor that keeps the nation afloat. Anne Helen Petersen calls this "a punch in the gut and a call to action." âSMS
Miss May Does Not Exist by Carrie Courogen [NF]
A biography of Elaine Mayâwhat more is there to say? I cannot wait to read this chronicle of May's life, work, and genius by one of my favorite writers and tweeters. Claire Dederer calls this "the biography Elaine May deserves"âwhich is to say, as brilliant as she was. âSMS
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty [F]
Talty, whose gritty story collection Night of the Living Rez was garlanded with awards, weighs the concept of blood quantumâa measure that federally recognized tribes often use to determine Indigenous membershipâin his debut novel. Although Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation, his narrator is on the outside looking in, a working-class white man named Charles who grew up on Maineâs Penobscot Reservation with a Native stepfather and friends. Now Charles, across the river from the reservation and separated from his biological daughter, who lives there, ponders his exclusion in a novel that stokes controversy around the terms of belonging. âNodB
June 11
The Material by Camille Bordas [F]
My high school English teacher, a somewhat dowdy but slyly comical religious brother, had a saying about teaching high school students: "They don't remember the material, but they remember the shtick." Leave it to a well-named novel about stand-up comedy (by the French author of How to Behave in a Crowd) to make you remember both. --SMS
Ask Me Again by Clare Sestanovich [F]
Sestanovich follows up her debut story collection, Objects of Desire, with a novel exploring a complicated friendship over the years. While Eva and Jamie are seemingly oppositesâshe's a reserved South Brooklynite, while he's a brash Upper Manhattaniteâthey bond over their innate curiosity. Their paths ultimately diverge when Eva settles into a conventional career as Jamie channels his rebelliousness into politics. Ask Me Again speaks to anyone who has ever wondered whether going against the grain is in itself a matter of privilege. Jenny Offill calls this "a beautifully observed and deeply philosophical novel, which surprises and delights at every turn." âLA
Disordered Attention by Claire Bishop [NF]
Across four essays, art historian and critic Bishop diagnoses how digital technology and the attention economy have changed the way we look at art and performance today, identifying trends across the last three decades. A perfect read for fans of Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy, or the Style of Too Late Capitalism (also from Verso).
War by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, tr. Charlotte Mandell [F]
For years, literary scholars mourned the lost manuscripts of CĂ©line, the acclaimed and reviled French author whose work was stolen from his Paris apartment after he fled to Germany in 1944, fearing punishment for his collaboration with the Nazis. But, with the recent discovery of those fabled manuscripts, War is now seeing the light of day thanks to New Directions (for anglophone readers, at leastâthe French have enjoyed this one since 2022 courtesy of Gallimard). Adam Gopnik writes of War, "A more intense realization of the horrors of the Great War has never been written."Â âDF
The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater [NF]
In his debut memoir, Leadbeater revisits the decade he spent working as Joan Didion's personal assistant. While he enjoyed the benefits of working with Didionâher friendship and mentorship, the more glamorous appointments on her social calendarâhe was also struggling with depression, addiction, and profound loss. Leadbeater chronicles it all in what ChloĂ© Cooper Jones calls "a beautiful catalog of twin yearnings: to be seen and to disappear; to belong everywhere and nowhere; to go forth and to return home, andâabove all elseâto love and to be loved." âSMS
Out of the Sierra by Victoria Blanco [NF]
Blanco weaves storytelling with old-fashioned investigative journalism to spotlight the endurance of Mexico's RarĂĄmuri people, one of the largest Indigenous tribes in North America, in the face of environmental disasters, poverty, and the attempts to erase their language and culture. This is an important book for our times, dealing with pressing issues such as colonialism, migration, climate change, and the broken justice system. âCK
Any Person Is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert [NF]
Gabbert is one of my favorite living writers, whether she's deconstructing a poem or tweeting about Seinfeld. Her essays are what I love most, and her newest collectionâfollowing 2020's The Unreality of Memoryâsees Gabbert in rare form: witty and insightful, clear-eyed and candid. I adored these essays, and I hope (the inevitable success of) this book might augur something an essay-collection renaissance. (Seriously! Publishers! Where are the essay collections!) âSMS
Tehrangeles by Porochista Khakpour [F]
Khakpour's wit has always been keen, and it's hard to imagine a writer better positioned to take the concept of Shahs of Sunset and make it literary. "Like Little Women on an ayahuasca trip," says Kevin Kwan, "Tehrangeles is delightfully twisted and heartfelt."Â Â âJHM
Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers [NF]
The moment I saw this book's titleâwhich comes from the opening (and, as it happens, my favorite) track on Mitchell's 1971 masterpiece BlueâI knew it would be one of my favorite reads of the year. Powers, one of the very best music critics we've got, masterfully guides readers through Mitchell's life and work at a fascinating slant, her approach both sweeping and intimate as she occupies the dual roles of biographer and fan. âSMS
All Desire Is a Desire for Being by René Girard, ed. Cynthia L. Haven [NF]
I'll be honestâthe title alone stirs something primal in me. In honor of Girard's centennial, Penguin Classics is releasing a smartly curated collection of his most poignantâand timelyâessays, touching on everything from violence to religion to the nature of desire. Comprising essays selected by the scholar and literary critic Cynthia L. Haven, who is also the author of the first-ever biographical study of Girard, Evolution of Desire, this book is "essential reading for Girard devotees and a perfect entrĂ©e for newcomers," per Maria Stepanova. âDF
June 18
Craft by Ananda Lima [F]
Can you imagine a situation in which interconnected stories about a writer who sleeps with the devil at a Halloween party and can't shake him over the following decades wouldn't compel? Also, in one of the stories, New York Cityâs Penn Station is an analogue for hell, which is both funny and accurate. âJHM
Parade by Rachel Cusk [F]
Rachel Cusk has a new novel, her first in three yearsâthe anticipation is self-explanatory. âSMS
Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi [F]
Multimedia polymath and gender-norm disrupter Emezi, who just dropped an Afropop EP under the name Akwaeke, examines taboo and trauma in their creative work. This literary thriller opens with an upscale sex party and escalating violence, and although pre-pub descriptions leave much to the imagination (promising âthe elite underbelly of a Nigerian cityâ and âa tangled web of sex and lies and corruptionâ), Emezi can be counted upon for an ambience of dread and a feverish momentum. âNodB
When the Clock Broke by John Ganz [NF]
I was having a conversation with multiple brilliant, thoughtful friends the other day, and none of them remembered the year during which the Battle of Waterloo took place. Which is to say that, as a rule, we should all learn our history better. So it behooves us now to listen to John Ganz when he tells us that all the wackadoodle fascist right-wing nonsense we can't seem to shake from our political system has been kicking around since at least the early 1990s. âJHM
Night Flyer by Tiya Miles [NF]
Miles is one of our greatest living historians and a beautiful writer to boot, as evidenced by her National Book Awardâwinning book All That She Carried. Her latest is a reckoning with the life and legend of Harriet Tubman, which Miles herself describes as an "impressionistic biography." As in all her work, Miles fleshes out the complexity, humanity, and social and emotional world of her subject. Tubman biographer Catherine Clinton says Miles "continues to captivate readers with her luminous prose, her riveting attention to detail, and her continuing genius to bring the past to life." âSMS
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas [F]
Thomas's debut novel comes just two years after a powerful memoir of growing up Black, gay, nerdy, and in poverty in 1990s Philadelphia. Here, he returns to themes and settings that in that book, Sink, proved devastating, and throws post-service military trauma into the mix. âJHM
June 25
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing [NF]
I've been a fan of Laing's since The Lonely City, a formative read for a much-younger me (and I'd suspect for many Millions readers), so I'm looking forward to her latest, an inquiry into paradise refracted through the experience of restoring an 18th-century garden at her home the English countryside. As always, her life becomes a springboard for exploring big, thorny ideas (no pun intended)âin this case, the possibilities of gardens and what it means to make paradise on earth. âSMS
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum [NF]
Emily Nussbaum is pretty much the reason I started writing. Her 2019 collection of television criticism, I Like to Watch, was something of a Bible for college-aged me (and, in fact, was the first book I ever reviewed), and I've been anxiously awaiting her next book ever since. It's finally arrived, in the form of an utterly devourable cultural history of reality TV. Samantha Irby says, "Only Emily Nussbaum could get me to read, and love, a book about reality TV rather than just watching it," and David Grann remarks, "Itâs rare for a book to feel alive, but this one does." âSMS
Woman of Interest by Tracy O'Neill [NF]
OâNeill's first work of nonfictionâan intimate memoir written with the narrative propulsion of a detective novelâfinds her on the hunt for her biological mother, who she worries might be dying somewhere in South Korea. As she uncovers the truth about her enigmatic mother with the help of a private investigator, her journey increasingly becomes one of self-discovery. ChloĂ© Cooper Jones writes that Woman of Interest âsolidifies her status as one of our greatest living prose stylists.â âLA
Dancing on My Own by Simon Wu [NF]
New Yorkers reading this list may have witnessed Wu's artful curation at the Brooklyn Museum, or the Whitney, or the Museum of Modern Art. It makes one wonder how much he curated the order of these excellent, wide-ranging essays, which meld art criticism, personal narrative, and travel writingâand count Cathy Park Hong and Claudia Rankine as fans. âJHM
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Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Day, WĂŒrger, Owuor, and More
Hereâs a quick look at some notable booksânew titles from the likes of Kate Hope Day, Takis WĂŒrger, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, and moreâthat are publishing this week.
Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then sign up to be a member today.
If, Then by Kate Hope Day
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about If, Then: "The lives of three neighboring families in Clearing, Ore., become inexorably entwined in Dayâs captivating debut novel of parallel worlds. Dr. Ginny McDonnell, a surgeon, feels disconnected from her son, Noah, and her husband, Mark, a behavioral ecologist convinced that nearby Broken Mountain, a volcano, isnât quite as dormant as many believe. Realtor Samara Mehta is still reeling from her motherâs death on the operating table and blames the surgeon, Ginny. Cass Stuart is taking a break from earning her PhD in metaphysics to care for her baby girl but longs to continue her research on the theory of everything and the possibility of a multiverse. Cass, Ginny, and Mark start to glimpse different versions of themselves and Samara of her mother, preceded by a bad taste and a trembling under their feet, while Broken Mountain awakens nearby. Often, Day seamlessly slips readers in and out of realities with little warning, and the scenes in which characters observe and, at times, interact with, their alternate realities are intimate, eerie, and startling, such as Markâs encounters with the wild, disheveled man he dubs âOther Mark.â Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, Dayâs well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things."
The Club by Takis WĂŒrger (translated by Charlotte Collins)
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about The Club: "WĂŒrgerâs chilling if obvious debut opens as Hans Stichler, an orphaned German 19-year-old, is contacted by his English aunt, Alexandra Birk. She teaches art history at Cambridge and says that she can get him accepted into St. Johnâs College, but thereâs a catch: she wants him to infiltrate a Cambridge institution known as the Pitt Club, which is 200 years old and whose members past and present are generations of the English establishment. To help him, Aunt Alex introduces Hans to one of her PhD students, Charlotte, whose father, financier Sir Angus Farewell, is a former member of the club. Charlotte arranges a dinner with Hans and her father, so the latter can nominate the former to the club. Despite Charlotteâs initial reservations about Hans, they are soon an item. A boxer for the schoolâs highly competitive varsity team, Hans is asked to join the Butterflies, a secret subset of the Pitt Club. Delving into the real purpose of this club-within-a-club, Hans finds sinister links to Charlotte, Aunt Alex, and Angus on the way to a dramatic and inevitable ending. Though it moves at a good pace, the novel is contrived in its depiction of upper-class snobbism, hypocrisy, and corruption, resulting in a diverting if thin story."
The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about The Dragonfly Sea: "In this sprawling, beautiful novel from Owuor (Dust), a real-life occurrence of a Kenyan woman travelling to China after learning of her Chinese heritage forms the backdrop for a moving story of loss and discovery. In 1992, on Pate Island, a small island off the coast of Kenya, six-year-old Ayaana spends her days scanning the seas for boats and the return of a father she never knew. One day, a 'sun-blackened, salt-water-seared, bug-eyed and brawny' sailor appears and Ayaana chooses him for a father, much to his surpriseâand to the chagrin of her mother. Then, years later, when cultural emissaries from China arrive at Pate, 20-year-old Ayaana discovers she is a descendant of one of the members aboard the ship of 14th-century mariner Admiral Zhang He, whose seafaring expeditions brought him to Africa, and agrees to set sail for China to be united with distant relatives. Once there, she serves as living justification for a commercial Chinese stake in an increasingly globalized Africa: 'Cohabiting with shadowsâhere was the weight of a culture with a hulking history now preparing itself to digest her continent.' Attracting attention wherever she goes, Ayaana struggles to assimilate to Chinese culture and is as drawn to the sea as ever. Brilliantly capturing Ayaanaâs sense of loss of her home and her family, as well as her hope for the future, Owuorâs mesmerizing prose lays bare the swirling global currents that Ayaana is trapped within. With a rollicking narrative and exceptional writing, this epic establishes Owuor as a considerable talent."
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Running Home by Kate Arnold
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about Running Home: "A womanâs crippling grief over her fatherâs death is the starter pistol for this marathon of self-discovery from Arnold, former Outside magazine editor and daughter of National Geographic photographer David Arnold. When a terminal cancer diagnosis halts her fatherâs retirement project of archiving thousands of photos, those images reopen old wounds for Katie. Recalling her parentsâ separation when she was two, she writes, 'Itâs nearly impossible to untangle my earliest memories from Dadâs photographs.' Shuttling between his rural Virginia home to care for him and her life in Santa Fe raising two children, she suppressed her anguish. After he died in 2010, she found his diaries, in which he had divulged mixed feelings about fatherhood and 'deep resentment' of her. Arnoldâs narrative includes flashbacks of her need for her fatherâs acceptance; she reveals how at age seven, 'desperate for Dadâs attention,' she agreed to his dare to run a 10K race, and from that point became 'a runner by accident.' After his death, she relied on ultrarunning to manage anxiety and developed a friendship with Zen writer Natalie Goldberg (author of Writing Down the Bones) who offered koans during their weekly walks together ('You need to know death in order to blossom fully'). While her summations of lessons learned feel too pat, this is a bittersweet recollection of a father-daughter relationship."
The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack by H.M. Naqvi
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack: "Naqviâs second novel (after Homeboy) is an uproariously funny, poignant family saga told by a glib septuagenarian contemplating life in his beloved city of Karachi. Once manager of his fatherâs Hotel Olympus, the philosophical Abdullah, nicknamed 'Cossack' because he once outdrank a contingent of visiting Russians, now lives, overweight and diabetic, in the upstairs quarters of a crumbling family house shared with his brother Babuâs family. Beloved uncle of the 'Childoos' downstairs, and fancying himself a phenomenologist, Abdullah is nevertheless seen by the majority of his relatives as profligate and irresponsible. Things go treacherously haywire after heâs rescued from thugs in the street by a mysterious lady named Jugnu, and his old friend, a jazz musician dubbed 'the Caliph of Cool,' asks him to act as guardian for his grandson Bosco. It so happens that both Jugnu and Boscoâs family are in danger from the Karachi mob. As threats mount, including from Abdullahâs own family, who are pressuring him to give up the title deed to the house so they can sell it, the nostalgic, courageous Abdullah comes up with a scheme to save everyone. Touching on the metaphysical, the moral, and the absurd, this bawdy epic is a fresh-voiced testament to place, family, and the importance of loyalty."
Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins
Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about Fall Back Down When I Die: "Montanaâs rugged beauty is poetically evoked in Wilkinsâs fine debut. The story is divided into three narratives. First, readers meet Wendell Newman, a high school basketball star turned rancher whose family operation is in financial trouble after paying for his late motherâs failed surgeries. Things become even more complicated when he is asked to become guardian for his possibly mute, seven-year-old cousin, Rowdy Burns, whose mother has just been arrested for possession of methamphetamines. Next, there is Gillian Houlton, an assistant principal who is having a difficult time raising her teenage daughter, Maddy, after the death of her husband, a game warden who was killed by a rancher. Finally, readers get the written apologia of a man named Verl, who is on the run from the law and hiding out in the mountains. The three stories converge when a militia group, the Bull Mountain Resistance, shows up at Wendellâs door just as a deputy sheriff and social worker arrive to check up on Rowdy. Shots are fired, and Wendell is forced to flee into the mountains with Rowdy and Maddy. Though the plot depends on too many coincidences, the novel achieves an undeniable cumulative emotional power as the fates of its memorable characters play out. This is an accomplished first novel, notable in particular for its strong depiction of the timeless landscape of Montanaâs big sky country."
March Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month)
We wouldnât dream of abandoning our vast semiâannual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around). Hereâs what weâre looking out for this monthâfor more March titles, check out our First-Half Preview. Let us know what youâre looking forward to in the comments!
Want to know about the books you might have missed? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then sign up to be a member today.
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell: Described as the âGreat Zambian Novel you didnât know you were waiting for,â this debut novel, from the winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African writing, tells the story of three Zambian familiesâblack, white, and brownâcaught in a centuries-long cycle of retribution, romance, and political change. Serpell asks, âHow do you live a life or forge a politics that can skirt the dual pitfalls of fixity (authoritarianism) and freedom (neoliberalism)? And what happens if you treat error not as something to avoid but as the very basis for human creativity and community?â Recipient of a starred review from Kirkus and advance praise from Carmen Maria Machado, Alice Sebold, and Garth Greenwell, The Old Drift is already well positioned to become the Next Big Thing of 2019. (Jacqueline)
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi: Oyeyemi became a critical darling in 2014 with Boy, Snow, Bird, a retelling of âSnow White.â She takes us back into fairy tale world with Gingerbread, the story of mother and daughter, Harriet and Perdita Lee, and their familyâs famous, perhapsâŠmagical, gingerbread recipe. Along with Harrietâs childhood friend Gretel, the Lees endure family, work, and money drama all for the sake of that crunchy spice. (Janet)
The New Me by Halle Butler: If Butlerâs first novel, Jillian, was the âfeel-bad book of the year,â then her second, The New Me, is a skewering of the 21st-century American dream of self-betterment. Butler has already proven herself a master of writing about work and its discontents, the absurdity of cubicle life and office work in all of its dead ends. The New Me takes it to a new level in what Catherine Lacey calls a Bernhardian âdark comedy of female rage.â The New Me portrays a 30-year-old temp worker who yearns for self-realization, but when offered a full-time job, she becomes paralyzed after realizing the hollowness of its trappings. (Anne)
Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander: Pulitzer finalist Englanderâs latest novel follows Larry, an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When he refuses to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, for his recently deceased father, Larry risks shocking his family and imperiling the fate of his fatherâs soul. Like everyone else in the 21st century, Larry decides the solution lies online, and he makes a website, kaddish.com, to hire a stranger to recite the daily prayer in his place. What follows is a satirical take on God, family, and the Internet that has been compared to early Philip Roth. (Jacqueline)
Minutes of Glory by NgĆ©gÄ© wa Thiongâo: Thiongâo, the perennial Nobel Prize contender who once got through a prison sentence by drafting a memoir on toilet paper, has collected his best short stories in this collection, which spans half a century. From âThe Fig Tree,â which Thiongâo wrote when he was an undergraduate in Uganda, to âThe Ghost of Michael Jackson,â which he wrote while teaching at Irvine, these stories affirm the wide range of a global sensation. (Thom)
Look How Happy Iâm Making You by Polly Rosenwaike: A couple of months ago I zipped through this funny and poignant collection of stories about women grappling with motherhood in many different ways: One struggles with infertility, for instance, and another gets pregnant by accident. Throughout, I was struck by the depth of feeling, not once compromised by the brevity of the form. In its starred review, Kirkus calls it âan exquisite collection that is candid, compassionate, and emotionally complex.â Meaghan OâConnell says, âEach story in Look How Happy Iâm Making You is a lovely universe unto itselfâfunny, intimate, casually profoundâbut there is something transcendent about reading them together like this.â (Edan)
If, Then by Kate Hope Day: In a quiet mountain town, four neighborsâ worlds are rocked when they begin to see versions of themselves in parallel realities. As the disturbing visions mount, a natural disaster looms and threatens their town. From a starred review in Publishers Weekly: âDayâs well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.â (Carolyn)
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden: With a sparkling blurb from Mary GaitskillââSad, funny, juicy and prickly with deep and secret thoughtful placesââand a sparkling cover (literallyâsee her website), T Kira Maddenâs debut memoir, a coming-of-age story set in Boca Raton, is primed for buzz. As a grownup, Madden self-describes as an âAPIA writer, photographer, and amateur magicianâ; as a child, âMadden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability...she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.â One of the best, most evocative titles of the release season, IMHO. (Sonya)
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum: Isra, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl in 1990, prefers reading to suitors, but after her family marries her to an American deli owner she finds herself living in Brooklyn, trapped in a losing struggle against his oppressive mother, Fareeda. Eighteen years later, Fareeda attempts to pressure Israâs oldest daughter into an early marriage, but an estranged family member offers Isra a chance to determine her own life. Rum, who was born to Palestinian immigrants living in Brooklyn, has written that she hopes her debut novel moves readers âby the strength and power of our women.â (Kaulie)
The White Card by Claudia Rankine: The author of Citizen, Macarthur Genius grant honoree, and founder of the Racial Imaginary Institute will publisher her first play, one that examines the concept of whiteness and white Americansâ failures to acknowledge it, through a series of interactions between an artist and an affluent couple. In the playâs introduction, Rankine writes âThe scenes in this one-act play, for all the charactersâ disagreements, stalemates, and seeming impasses, explore what happens if one is willing to stay in the room when it is painful to bear the pressure to listen and the obligation to respond.â (Lydia)
EEG by DaĆĄa Drndic: I first encountered DaĆĄa Drndic through her novel Belladona in June, unwittingly a mere two weeks after the authorâs death from lung cancer. I was struck by the character Andreas Ban, and his idiosyncratic reflection upon ears, that âmarvelous ugly organ,â accompanied by a diagram of an ear marked with the bodyâs points. This character Ban continues into Drndicâs next and final book, EEG, where after surviving a suicide attempt he goes on to dissect and expose the hidden evils and secrets of our times. Heâs stand-in for Drndic herself, who wrote emphatically and had stated that âArt should shock, hurt, offend, intrigue, be a merciless critic of the merciless times we are not only witnessing but whose victims we have become.â (Anne)
Instructions for a Funeral by David Means: Meansâs last publication, Hystopia, was a Booker-nominated novel, but he is still best known for his short stories. Instructions for a Funeral is therefore a return to (the short story) form, 14 pieces, previously published in the New Yorker, Harpers, The Paris Review, and VICE, that display the intelligence and questing range for which Means is known. From a fistfight in Sacramento to a 1920s FBI stakeout in the midwest, Instructions for a Funeral invites readers on a literary journey with a master of the modern short story. (Adam P.)
The Cook by Maylis de Kerangal (translated by Sam Taylor): Writes Priya Parmal in her 2014 New York Times review of Maylis de Kerangalâs first novel translated into English, The Heart, âThese characters feel less like fictional creations and more like ordinary people, briefly illuminated in rich language, beautifully translated by Sam Taylor, that veers from the medical to the philosophical.â In The Cook, a âhyperrealistâ tale centered around a self-taught professional cook, we are treated to âlyricism and [the] intensely vivid evocative nature of Maylis de Kerangalâs prose, which conjures moods, sensations, and flavors, as well as the exhausting rigor and sometimes violent abuses of kitchen work.â The Cook is her 10th novel, her second translated into English (also by Taylor); Anglophones can be grateful that weâre finally catching up with this many-prize-winning author. (Sonya)
Sing to It by Amy Hempel: Hempel, the short story legend best known for âIn the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried,â is back with her first new collection of stories in over a decade. From âCloudland,â which depicts a womanâs reckoning with her decision to give up her child, to âA Full-Service Shelter,â which follows a volunteer at a shelter where abandoned dogs are euthanized, the stories in Sing to It are fitting additions to Hempelâs work. (Thom)
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The Other Americans by Laila Lalami: Lalami, whose previous novel, The Moorâs Account, was a finalist for the Pulitzer, returns with a âstructurally elegant mysteryâ (Kirkus). At the opening of this highly anticipated new novel, Morroccan immigrant Driss Guerraoui is killed by a speeding car on a California highway. The book then follows a number of characters connected to and affected by his death, including his jazz composer daughter, his wife, and an undocumented immigrant who witnessed the accident. J.M. Coetzee says, âThis deftly constructed account of a crime and its consequences shows up, in its quiet way, the pressures under which ordinary Americans of Muslim background have labored since the events of 9/11.â (Edan)
Good Talk by Mira Jacob: A graphic novel about raising her mixed-race son in a white supremacist society by the author of The Sleepwalkerâs Guide to Dancing, built around conversations with a curious six year old. Jacqueline Woodson says âIn Jacobâs brilliant hands, we are gifted with a narrative that is sometimes hysterical, always honest, and ultimately healing.â (Lydia)
Joy by Erin McGraw: In her newest collection, McGraw gathers 53 "very short stories" about time, religion, class, and relationships. In Publishers Weekly's starred review, they said "this quintessential collection of stories serves as an homage to the form while showcasing McGrawâs stunning talent and deep empathy for the idiosyncrasies, small joys, and despairs of human nature." (Carolyn)
The Club by Takis WĂŒrger (translated by Charlotte Collins): German reporter WĂŒrger's debut novel focuses on the Pitt Club, an exclusive all-male dining club, and Hans Stichler, the young boxer tapped to investigate them. Full of secrets, violence, and ruminations on class, the novel explores the dangers of toxic masculinity and the cost of justice. (Carolyn)
The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor: Owuor, whose debut Dust was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, returns with a coming-of-age novel about Ayaana, a young African woman who travels in order to find her place in the world. The book has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weeklyâthe latter writes, "with a rollicking narrative and exceptional writing, this epic establishes Owuor as a considerable talent." (Carolyn)
Portrait of Sebastian Khan by Aatif Rashid: Fiction and nonfiction writer Rashid's forthcoming debut follows the eponymous Sebastian Khanâa noncommittal, Muslim American art history studentâon the cusp of his 2011 college graduation. Author J. Ryan Stradel called the debut "a smart, thoughtfully constructed, and propulsive coming-of-age story." (Carolyn)