Contemporary Fiction Books

Book Synopsis*As featured as an editor''s pick on Radio Four''s OPEN BOOK**One of the Guardian''s books to look out for in 2024*An immersive feminist novel that meshes the personal and political to moving effect Preti Taneja, Financial TimesA brilliant novel of the Palestinian diaspora. Funny and gritty, and bursting with life and humour Ahdaf Soueif, GuardianBorn a girl to parents who expected a boy, Jihad grows up treated like the eldest son, wearing boy''s clothing and sharing the financial burden of head of the household with her father.Now middle-aged, each night Jihad tells her daughter a story from her life. As Maleka prepares to leave home to attend university abroad, her mother revisits the past of their Palestinian family, tenderly describing their life in exile in Kuwait and her own experiences of love and loss as she grows up.Huzama Habayeb weaves a richly observed and affectionate portra

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Book Synopsis Some secrets last for generations . . . ''Deliciously twisty'' HEATHER DARWENT''Full of mystery'' ANITA FRANK''A wonderfully twisting tale of family secrets'' REBECCA NETLEYA bewitching and haunting story of family secrets - and the lengths some will go to protect them.When Ailsa Reid''s life in London begins to fall apart, she escapes to her grandparents'' house in Fife. But she arrives to find her grandmother, Moira - recently diagnosed with dementia - has gone missing.Desperate to ensure Moira''s safe return, Ailsa must rely on the help of her estranged mother, Rowan. Tensions simmer between the two women as they attempt to piece together what has happened.To find Moira, both Ailsa and Rowan must look to their ancestors, to a story about witches burned on the hill above the Reid house centuries ago and the curse laid upon the women that came after. Can they break the bonds of history in t

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Book Synopsis"One of the great novels to have been written in our language" MARIO VARGAS LLOSA"Beautifully written and gripping" GuardianHe thought that memories were invisible like light, and just as smoke made light show, there must be a way for memories to be seen... In October 2016, the real-life Colombian film director Sergio Cabrera is attending a retrospective of his films in Barcelona. It's a difficult time for him: his father, Fausto Cabrera, has just died; his marriage is in crisis; and his country has rejected peace agreements that might have ended more than fifty years of war. In the course of a few turbulent and intense days, Sergio will recall the events that marked the family's life, and especially his father's, his sister Marianella's and his own. From the Spanish Civil War to the exile of his republican family in Latin America, and from the Cultural Revolution in China to the guerrilla movements of 1960s Latin America, not only will do we discover a series of adventures extraordinary by any standards, but also a devastating portrait of the forces that for half a century turned the world upside down and created the one we now inhabit. Retrospective is a revelatory and unforgettable novel.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanTrade ReviewOne of the great novels to have been written in our language -- Mario Vargas Llosa * El Pais *The story of their political indoctrination, active deployment, growing unease and ultimate disillusionment is both fascinating and terrifying -- Melissa Harrison * Guardian *Hours and hours of recordings and conversations over the years have resulted in an extraordinary novel of adventures and nightmares, a ruthless exploration of the delusions of political utopianism and moral totalitarianism, an excursion into the dark and buried side of history when history becomes political faith -- Jordi Gracia * El Pais *A true international writer -- Yiyun Li * New York Times *A fascinating novelistic narration of the adventures of the family of the filmmaker Sergio Cabrera, that travels through the twentieth century and three continents, from the flight of his father and grandfather in the Spanish Civil War to his own participation in the Colombian guerrilla after a Kafkaesque and bizarre revolutionary training in China * La Vanguardia *It bites, it hits, it hurts pain, it makes sparks fly. Literature struggles to become life and life struggles to be told. Such an incredible book! -- Manuel RivasWritten with an enviably full style and a superb control of the novelist's impulses * La Vanguardia *A lucid and subtle metaphor for how ideologies marked the private lives of the twentieth century * El Cultural *Vásquez is a Colombian writer with the talent to keep a magician's equilibrium between reality and fiction. . . . Beautifully written and gripping -- Gioconda Belli * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisComparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefansson''s book, nor the uniqueness of his prose DANIEL MASON, author of North WoodsStefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy EILEEN BATTERSBY, TLSA rich depiction of life, love and loss . . . Stefánsson is a writer of great scope and imagination RONAN HESSION, author of Leonard and Hungry PaulStefánsson''s prose rolls and surges with oceanic splendour BOYD TONKIN, Spectator A spellbinding saga about the inhabitants and inheritors of one rural community, by one of Iceland''s most celebrated novelists.A man comes to awareness in a church in rural Iceland, not knowing why he''s there or how he arrived. When a local woman offers to reunite him with her sister, he realises he''s lost not only his bearings, but his memory as well: he doesn''t recognise either woman, and as their stories unfold, he is p

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Book Synopsis''Jo Spain is a sublime storyteller . . . this is a book you won''t want to put down'' JANE CASEY2014, Dublin: at St Edmunds, an elite college on the outskirts of the city, twenty-year-old medical student Theo gets up one morning, leaving behind his sleeping girlfriend, Dani, and his studies - never to be seen again. With too many unanswered questions, Dani simply can''t accept Theo''s disappearance and reports him missing, even though no one else seems concerned, including Theo''s father.Ten years later, Dani returns to the college as a history professor. With her mother suffering from severe dementia, and her past at St Edmunds still haunting her, she''s trying for a new start. But not all is as it seems behind the cloistered college walls - meanwhile, Dani is hiding secrets of her own.''A first-class high-stakes thriller'' CAZ FREAR''Full of intrigue'' PRIMAEVERYONE LOVES JO SPAIN''S UNFORGETTABLE TH

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Book SynopsisRachel's boyfriend Frank is different from other people. His strangeness is part of what she loves about him: his innocence, his intelligence, his passionate immersion in the music of JS Bach. As a coder, Frank sees patterns in everything, but as his theories slide further towards the irrational, Rachel becomes increasingly concerned for his wellbeing. There are people Frank knows online, people who share his view of the world and who insist he has a unique role to play. In spite of Rachel's fears for his safety, Frank is determined to meet them face to face.When Frank disappears, Rachel is forced to seek help in the form of Robin, a private detective who left the police force for reasons she will not reveal. Like Frank, Robin is obsessed with the music of Bach. Like Frank, she has unexplained connections with the criminal underworld of southeast London.An obscure science fiction story from the 1950s appears to offer clues to Frank's secret agenda, but not to where he is. As Robin and Rachel draw closer in their search for the truth, they are forced to ask themselves if Frank's obsession with an alien war, against all logic, might have a basis in fact.Nina Allan's new novel is a work of the greatest imaginative power, an investigation of the human need to make connections, to find causes and effects, however fantastic. Conquest is the story of a disappearance, and of the mystery that follows.Trade ReviewThe most experimental work yet from a boldly adventurous novelist... it both demands and rewards a more ruminative reading * Locus Magazine *Allan challengingly evokes a world of paranoia and delusion * Financial Times * The finest author currently writing regardless of genre... (Conquest) is both beautifully written and formally experimental... a haunting, thought-provoking speculative masterpiece, a riveting demonstration of an artist in masterful control of her material. * Fantasy Hive *In this outstanding, beautifully controlled novel, Allen explores the smudged edges of fear and paranoia, belief and credulity, where she finds a sweet spot shimmering with truth and a strange beauty. * Daily Mail *Formally inventive and utterly readable * Herald *In its themes of misinformation, potential microbiological Trojan horses and conspiracy, Conquest can also be read in total as a joyously fantastical and elaborate Covid-19 allegory; if so, it is surely the best book yet to emerge from the pandemic. * Guardian *A truly bold and inventive piece of work. It deserves to make Nina Allan famous. * TLS *This is one of the best books I've read this year. * Bookphase *A powerful exploration into the human need to make connections. * Scots Magazine *Bamboozingly brilliant * TLS, Book of the Year *Absorbing . . . her best novel yet. * Guardian (Five of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2023) *

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Book SynopsisThe heartbreaking new novel from the author of An Orphan''s Wish.Having recently arrived in England, abandoned by her father and brother, Isabella is left to look after her dying mother in an abandoned house. When the worst happens, she suddenly finds herself alone in a strange country, forced to seek out help from strangers in the nearby town.Sarah doesn''t know what to do with the poor little girl she''s found, orphaned and afraid, except bring her back to Hilda House where they can stay together. But when she discovers the girl''s connection to Wolsingham, Sarah knows she''ll do whatever it takes to keep Isabella safe from the tragedy of her family''s past.As the lives of the townspeople become increasingly entwined, will they find a way to come together? Or will they fall apart under the past that haunts them all?

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Book SynopsisThe mayor of Barcelona is being blackmailed.A sex tape from her student days - one she never knew existed. The price: 300,000 euros and her immediate resignation.A political chameleon who swept to power on a populist wave, she has her enemies. Nor can she trust those closest to her. Both her ex-husband and her deputy would profit from her fall.Melchor Marín, living a quiet life in Terra Alta, is tempted back to Barcelona to work the case. But what seemed a simple matter has its roots in far more serious and disturbing crimes.With the mayor on the verge of capitulation, a shock revelation changes everything - not least the course of Melchor''s life. At long last, his heart''s dark desire is in his grasp. Praise for Even the Darkest NightA gem of a book, easily the best I''ve read this year M W CravenA wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories A N WilsonThe first in wh

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Book SynopsisA tender and thoughtful exploration of the painful irony of being alive and our attempts to make sense of the past as well as the present KATHARINA VOLCKMER, author of The AppointmentA reflection on identity, rootlessness and violence - Fonseca''s most ambitious, most complex and most accomplished novel to date JAVIER CERCAS, author of Soldiers of SalamisA beautifully knotted novel which unfolds with every traced layer of its deeply affecting narrative alongside a meditation on memory, mystery and vanishing. Sebaldian in its turns, Austral is a novel of profound questions GUY GUNARATNE, author of Mister, MisterA dazzling novel about the traces we leave, the traces we erase and the traces we seek to rebuild.In this innovative novel three losses and three quests are pursued. English writer Aliza Abravanel tries, in a battle with aphasia, to finish her book. A last indigenous speaker is confronted with the

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Book Synopsis ''A totally gorgeous read'' BETH O''LEARY, author of THE FLATSHARE''Perfectly observed and brilliantly funny, I adored it'' EMMA HUGHESTWO BEST FRIENDS. ONE HUGE CRUSH. A YEAR THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING . . . El Evans is stuck in a dead-end job, hopelessly in unrequited love with her best friend, Ray, and in need of a major life change.After a New Year''s resolution to ''Be More Wild'', El is soon in possession of one (small) tattoo, one (bad) hangover and memories of one (very disappointing) threesome . . . but she''s trying and surely it can only get better?So when a plan is hatched for El, Ray and their two closest friends - newly heartbroken Will and Instagram darling Jamie - to ditch the big city and move out to a ramshackle house in the middle of the English countryside, El can hardly say no. This is her big chance for a fresh start, the perfect wild thing.But living in close proximity to the love of yo

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Book SynopsisA rich and powerful exploration of desire, sin and redemption, by one of our best chroniclers of faith in the 21st century.I enjoyed it enormously. The story is so interesting, the theme so important and pertinent, and the fluency and lightness of touch so engaging to read. PHILIP PULLMANA novel that probes any number of aggressive varieties of moralism, while testing the reader''s own moral alertness for rigour, realism and generosity. An engrossing, three-dimensional, grown-up narrative. ROWAN WILLIAMSAn irresistibly readable, thoughtful and characteristically witty examination of the quandaries and compromises faced by the Church of England in an era of decline . . . I loved this book for its lightness of touch about serious subjects and for dialogue that glitters like clashing rapiers. MIRANDA SEYMOURAs a woman in the early 1980s, Clarissa Phipps is unable to pursue her priestly vocation. Instead, she joins th

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Book Synopsis ''A really thrilling and totally original story of Greek mythology that I can''t recommend highly enough'' JENNIFER SAINT Before Gods and mortals, there were The Fates . . . You''ve heard the legends: three sisters born out of Nyx''s darkness, destined to weave the lives, and deaths, of humankind for eternity.But immortality is a heavy burden, and Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are captivated by the gloriously human lives of the mortals below, especially those of the great warrior Atalanta and her ill-fated lover, Meleager.However, being a Goddess of Fate doesn''t make you a master of it. Will these three sisters find a way to free the couple, and themselves, from their destinies? Or will they be bound by Fate forever?READERS LOVE THE FATES''An absolutely stunning read!'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ READER REVIEW''Out of everything I have ever read, I honestly

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Book Synopsis''Exactly the kind of rom com I love to read'' SOPHIE COUSENS''Stole my heart and ran away with it'' AMY LEA''Sizzling opposites-attract chemistry'' SARAH HOGLEFake medium. True love?Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn may be a fraud, but she''s a benevolent one. So when her client asks her to help a friend who''s struggling to sell his apparently haunted goat farm, who''s Gretchen to say no?It turns out said farmer isn''t quite as Gretchen imagined. Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced by Gretchen. And things get even worse for Gretchen when she finds herself face to face with Everett: a very real, very chatty ghost.Everett wants Gretchen to help save Charlie from the family curse that''s left him haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s. Now Gretchen has one month to win over the sceptical farmer. And as they grow closer, Gretchen realises the only way to pull off the greatest con of her life mig

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Book SynopsisNo body. No crime? Twenty years ago, Mari vanished while backpacking through Thailand with her boyfriend, Luke. He was accused of murder, but has always insisted he's innocent. Besides, her body was never found. Now, he's finally ready to talk. And filmmaker Cassidy Chambers wants to be the one to uncover what really happened, back then, in the dark of the jungle. But as she delves deeper into the past, Cassidy begins to fear what lies ahead, and the secrets buried along the way.READERS LOVE EMILY FREUD'Couldn't put it down!' 5* reader review'I can't wait for Emily's next book' 5* reader review'I was sucked into this story straightaway' 5* reader review'Immersive, thrilling and intriguing' 5* reader review

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Book Synopsis''VERY funny'' Jennie Godfrey''Smart, twisty, and original'' Heat''Terrific'' J. M. Hall''Superb'' Glamour ''Wildly original'' Elly Griffiths''Delightfully refreshing'' Daily MailFRANCES ALWAYS SAID SHE''D BE MURDERED. SHE WAS RIGHT. In 1965, Frances Adams was told by a fortune teller that one day she''d be murdered. Frances spent the next sixty years trying to prevent the crime that would be her eventual demise. Of course, no one took her seriously - until she was dead. For Frances, being the village busybody was a form of insurance. She''d spent a lifetime compiling dirt on every person she met, just in case they might turn out to be her killer. In the heart of her sprawling country estate lies an eccentric library of detective work, where the right person could step in and use her findings to solve her murder. When her great-niec

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Book SynopsisTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERTen years ago, a tragic accident tore through a community.Ever since, the nine survivors - just teenagers at the time - have met on the anniversary to remember those they lost. They made a promise to keep each other safe from harm. For Cassidy, always the outsider at school, this group has felt almost like friendship.But this year, their reunion is overshadowed by death and the disappearance of one of their own. As the week unravels, Cassidy begins to fear something darker than survivors'' guilt has bound them together. Was their pact to protect one another a promise, or a threat? PRAISE FOR MEGAN MIRANDA''A twisty, compulsive read'' RUTH WARE''Dark and gripping'' 5* READER REVIEW''Will leave you on the edge of your seat'' GLAMOUR''A first-class thriller'' 5* READER REVIEW''Twisty and tense'' RILEY SAGER''Suspenseful, riveting'' 5* READER REVIEW''Miranda is a master of misdirection and sudden plot twists'' BOOKLIST

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Book Synopsis''I enjoyed it SO much!'' MARIAN KEYES''With glorious characters and a dreamy setting, I couldn''t have loved this book more'' THE SUN, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ REVIEWBack to the city of dreams . . . Paris has always held a piece of Jess''s heart, ever since she spent a magical summer there over twenty years ago. So when a writing job offers her the chance to return, she''s delighted, especially as her subject is iconic artist Adelaide Fox. Now approaching eighty, Adelaide wants to tell her life story - and what a life it has been, full of scandal, success, betrayal and passion.But Adelaide is keeping secrets from her, Jess is sure. And she soon realises she will have to confront her own past in the city. Can Jess find out the truth - even if it means changing both of their lives for ever? ''Escapist, romantic and a little bit scandalous, this is Lucy Diamond at her page-tur

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Book Synopsis''I will read anything Poorna Bell writes!'' Taylor Jenkins Reid''Gorgeous, affirming, an exploration of why and how we nurture'' Pandora Sykes____________________________It might not be the stuff of dreams, but Padma and Wallace have spent ten years building a relationship that feels . . . fine. Until Wallace gives Padma an ultimatum about starting a family she''s not sure she even wants.Padma''s fifteen-year-old niece Myra is reaching her own crisis point. When she falls in with the wrong crowd and her life ends up in danger, it''s the final straw for her parents.Now Padma will spend the summer with her niece - in a ramshackle, ivy-clad house on the Kent clifftops - running a DIY rehab of sorts.Will this be a pressure too far for her and Wallace? And how will she spend six weeks with a niece who, thanks to her sister, she barely knows?It''s the last place they want to be.But this could just be the summer that

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Book SynopsisElaine Feeney is an acclaimed novelist and poet from the west of Ireland. Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O'Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. Feeney has published the poetry collections Where's Katie?, The Radio Was Gospel, Rise and All the Good Things You Deserve, and lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

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Book SynopsisOre Agbaje-Williams is a British-Nigerian writer from London who has written for gal-dem, Glamour and Wasafiri. She is an editor and wrote the novel in NaNoWriMo during lockdown. It was originally submitted to editors under a pseudonym.

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Book SynopsisFunny, merciless, brilliant . . . I loved it' CURTIS SITTENFELDSeamus, Fyodor, Ivan, Noah and Fatima are running out of time to decide on their futures, in the new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of Real Life.In a university town, a circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection while they try to work out what they want, and who they are.As they test their own desires in a series of relationships, these young men and women ask themselves and each other: what is the right thing to stake a life on? Work, love, money, dance, poetry? And what does true connection look like, in an age of precarity?A constellation of characters shines in [this] campus-set tale of aspiring artists' Financial TimesIntimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth's promise' Oprah DailyElegant and razor-sharp' EMMA CLINE* A Daily Telegraph

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Book Synopsis''The tension never wavers'' GuardianSultry and engrossing Take it to the beach and savour every page' ObserverSummer''s almost over and Alex is no longer welcome...Alex is a young woman teetering on the edge. Behind on her rent and with nothing to keep her in New York she agrees to spend August by the beach, in the lavish house of the older man she's been seeing.After one misstep at a dinner party she's dismissed with a ride to the station and a ticket back to the city. But Alex decides to stay on the island, charming her way into the lives of the dazzlingly wealthy set who live there and leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Just how long can she keep going before she's found out?A delicious, dark-sided novel' GuardianEerily captivating' Elle Compulsively readable' Independent

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Book SynopsisI used to have this line I saved and brought out for grant applications and writers festivals - that having been Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina and Esther Greenwood all my life, my writing was an opportunity for the reader to have to be me.Irreverent, witty and wise, But the Girl is a coming-of-age story about not wanting to leave your family behindGirl was born on the very day her parents and grandmother immigrated from Malaysia to Australia. The story goes that her mother held on tight to her pelvic muscles in an effort to gift her the privilege of an Australian passport. But it''s hard to be the embodiment of all your family''s hopes and dreams, especially in a country that''s hostile to your very existence.When Girl receives a scholarship to travel to the UK, she is finally free for the first time. In London and then Scotland she is meant to be working on a PhD on Sylvia Plath and writing a postcolonial novel. But Girl can''t stop thinking

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Book SynopsisYOUR HAPPIEST MEMORY IS THEIR DEADLIEST WEAPONProphet is a blast' Sunday TimesBrilliant. Hypnotically enthralling I loved it' CHRIS WHITAKER***A mysterious eventAn all-American diner appears overnight in a remote British field. More and more objects materialise: toys, fairground rides, pets and other treasured mementos of the past.A weapon like no otherThe deaths quickly follow. A devastating weapon Prophet is bringing these memories to life, then stifling innocent people with their own joy. But nobody knows who created it, or why.A fight for the futureSunil Rao and Adam Rubenstein are tasked with investigating this strange new reality. After a troubled past together, they are drawn closer than ever to defend what they both hold most dear***A fast-paced techno-thrillerimmense fun' GuardianA thrilling dystopian novel' TIM

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Book SynopsisIt's the end of summer in Atlanta, and fifth-grade classmates Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison will discover that back-to-school means facing everyday challenges in a new world of safety lessons, terrified parents, and constant fear. Because it was the summer during which Atlanta's African-American children were vanishing.The moving story of their struggle to grow up and survive shimmers with the piercing, ineffable quality of childhood, as it captures all the hurts and little wins, the all-too-sudden changes, and the merciless, outside forces that can sweep the young into adulthood and forever shape their lives.

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Book SynopsisI wanted to lose myself in the small town of Pelion, Maine. To forget everything I had left behind. The sound of rain. The blood. The coldness of a gun against my skin. For six months, each breath has been a reminder that I survived--and my dad didn't. I'm almost safe again. But the moment I meet Archer Hale, my entire world tilts on its axis . . . and never rights itself again.Until I trespass into his strange, silent, and isolated world, Archer communicates with no one. Yet in his whiskey-coloured eyes, something intangible happens between us. There's so much more to him than just his beauty, his presence, or the ways his hands communicate with me. On me. But this town is mired in secrets and betrayals, and Archer is the explosive centre of it all.So much passion. And so much hurt. But it's only in Archer's silence that we might just find what we need to heal . . . and live.Includes an exclusive extended epilogue from Archer's POV!A Goodread's "Top Romance Novel of All Time"A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller

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Book SynopsisA treasured necklace that could unlock a family mystery. But why has it been hidden away for sixty years?With her thirtieth birthday on the horizon, Anna Kotze has accepted that there are some family secrets she’ll never know. While her mother’s Zimbabwean roots are woven into her life, all her father will say is that he was adopted. But when she finds an engraved necklace hidden among his things, a surprise piece of the puzzle finally falls into place: her father wasn’t just adopted—he was abandoned.The only clue to her grandmother’s identity is the inscription, ‘Indira’, Anna’s own middle name. But who was her namesake and where is she now?Anna knows she must do whatever it takes to find answers. But when clues finally begin to emerge between the thunderstorms of Zimbabwe and the monsoons of India, she realises the necklace could take her deeper than she imagined. Is she ready for what she might find? And

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE RELIT 2022 NOVEL AWARDA joy ride set on a crash course with the past.Audrey Cole has always loved to drive. Anytime, anywhere, any car: a questionable rustbucket, a family sedan, the SUV she was paid to drive around the oil fields. From the second she learned to drive, she’s always found a way to hit the road.Years ago, when she abandoned her oil field job, she found herself chauffeuring around the Lever Men, a B-list band relegated to playing empty dive bars in far-flung towns. That’s how she found herself at the Crash Palace, an isolated lodge outside the big city where people pay to party in the wilderness.And now, one night, while her young daughter is asleep at home, Audrey is struck by that old urge and finds herself testing the doors of parked cars in her neighbourhood. Before she knows it, she’s headed north in the dead of winter to the now abandoned Crash Palace in a stolen car, unable to stop herself from confronting her pastThe Crash Palace is a funny, moving, and surprising novel by the author of the Amazon First Novel Award–nominated The Milk Chicken Bomb. Audrey is unlike any character you’ve met before, and you'll love being along for the ride.Trade Review"Wedderburn’s engaging tale will hot-wire readers’ brains, making Audrey’s wanderlust palpable and contagious." – Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"Wedderburn’s novel The Milk Chicken Bomb, received a nod for the Amazon First Novel Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin literary award; this second novel — featuring a memorable character named Audrey Cole who goes on a road trip to The Crash Palace, where people pay to party in the wilderness — promises to be just as quirky." – Toronto Star“Wedderburn’s prose has an alluringly musical style [...] Wedderburn leaves it up to us to devise our stories and figure out our own answers, adding to the book’s overall charm and mystique.” – Quill & Quire"The Crash Palace reads like a greatest hits album of Alberta in the 2000s." – Bruce Cinnamon, Alberta Views

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Book SynopsisLibraries are magical places. But what if they’re even more magical than we know? In Cyrille Martinez’s library, the books are alive: not just their ideas or their stories, but the books themselves. Meet the Angry Young Book, who has strong opinions about who reads what and why. He’s tired of people reading bestsellers, so he places himself on the desks of those who might appreciate him. Meet the Old Historian who mysteriously vanished from the stacks. Meet the Blue Librarian, the Mauve Librarian, the Yellow Librarian, and spend a day with the Red Librarian trying to banish coffee cups and laptops. Then one day there are no empty desks anywhere in the Great Library. A great horde of student workers has descended, and they will scan every single book in the library: the much-borrowed, the neglected, the popular, the obscure. What will happen to the library then? Will it still be necessary? The Dark Library is a theoretical fiction, a meditation on what libraries mean in our digital world. Has the act of reading changed? What is a reader? A book? Martinez, a librarian himself, has written a love letter to the urban forest of the dark, wild library, where ideas and stories roam free.Trade Review"The caustic and often hilarious story of the misadventures of a library, all the concerns and issues facing the professions … The fantastic with a hint of irony of Cyrille Martinez’s writing is reminiscent of Marcel Aymé." –Livres Hebdo"A poignant and shrewd commentary on changing readership demands, The Dark Library also shows an appreciation for those readers, and the librarians who serve them, too.” –Booklist"Over a documentary base that it itself worth reading, he composes a passionate fiction, almost fantastic, showing the defeat of the printed word by the digital." –L’Humanité"French writer and librarian Martinez explores the purpose of libraries amid sweeping societal changes in this whimsical novel. ... satire with wit and quirky characters. This will delight fans of absurdist fiction." –Publishers Weekly"Martinez, a librarian himself, has written a love letter to the urban forest of the dark, wild library, where ideas and stories roam free." –Malvern Books

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Book SynopsisCBC BOOKS - CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023Peter Greenaway meets Angela Carter: a Gothic tale of secrets and revenge When the curtain rises on Malmaison, it reveals a once-enchanting estate, quietly falling into darkness and ruin, and at the heart of it, a father, one of a long line of fathers who have flourished at the expense of those around them. The silence seems peaceful, but lurking under it is a deep malevolence, scores of ugly and violent secrets kept by cast-off mistresses and abandoned daughters. Ever-greedy, the father brings in Aliénor, a woman who promises to make the lands give even more of themselves; the plants will flourish, the animals will multiply, each feast will be more sumptuous than the last. The father thinks the stage is set to satisfy his every desire, but Aliénor will bring a new script, one in which the hunters are hunted and a new reign will begin.Trade Review"There’s a timeless quality to Sing, Nightingale: a gothic, poetic work about decaying patriarchal secrets and their antidote – hidden in a rural French estate. This feminist revenge tale, with a smattering of magic realism, is beautifully constructed. Perfect for lovers of Angela Carter or Cécile Coulon to delve into on dark nights." – Zoe Grams, Quill & Quire 'Books of the Year 2023'“In dense, almost lyrical prose, Poitras (and her translator Rhonda Mullins) bring readers into a world that’s like a gothic fairy tale, weaving a story of death and decay, of secrets and illusions and a place where blood flows into the dirt.” – Roz Milner, Broken Pencil“Poitras’s prose is precise and evocative.” – Marcie McCauley, Event"Arguably, all books aim to transport readers to another world, but not all books can do this as self-reflexively and immersively as Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras (translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins)." – Hollay Ghadery, CAROUSEL Magazine“I’m not sure I’ve read a book quite so fecund, so bursting with life (and sex) as Sing, Nightingale by Quebec writer Marie Helene Poitras (superbly translated from the Québécois by Rhonda Mullins) … Along with the sumptuous prose, the musical interludes and the moments of metafiction, Sing, Nightingale is a passionate, full-throated deconstruction of the patriarchy that is well worth your time.” – Ian Mond, Locus Magazine“A tale that is both beautiful and cruel, like only fairy tales can be. One that is deep and rich in what is found within and between the lines, like only fairy tales can be. […] This is already quite an achievement, and then Marie Hélène Poitras adds […] a sensuality that stretches out in every direction. […] A novel that is beautiful in content and form, to be read and discussed.” – Sonia Sarfati, Sélection Reader’s Digest“Marie Hélène writes both the marvelous and the contemptable, the magical and the horrific. She writes about the question of origins and the silence offered up as an answer.” – Natalia Wysocka, Le Devoir“Marie Hélène Poitras offers readers yet another surprise by taking us where we least expected to go: into an enchanted, sinister forest like the woods of fairy tales… and the nursery rhymes that have left children quaking for centuries, without truly understanding their deep, dark meaning.” – Chantal Guy, La Presse“Poitras (Griffintown) delivers a gloomy and lyrical fairy tale set in and around Noirax, a fictional French village…This is a feast for lovers of gothic lit." – Publishers Weekly"Fans of dark, fairy-talelike worlds will enjoy Sing, Nightingale tremendously." – Leah von Essen, Booklist“Sing, Nightingale is, by design, a disconcerting book: At times it seems to take place in the distant past, but mentions of modern technology crop up throughout. The text is peppered with quotations from playfully cruel French nursery rhymes. And Poitras constantly describes food in a way that is both sumptuous and unsettling. . . The overall effect is one of decadence laced with a creeping sense of horror." – Charlie Jane Anders, The Washington Post“An enticing visitor spells doom—or a new beginning—for a distinguished but troubled family line in Marie Hélène Poitras’s novel…Sing, Nightingale is a twisted, haunting tale of jealousy, murder, and vengeance in the countryside.” – Foreword Reviews"Poitras’ work serves as a tuning fork; we feel its vibrations within us. We recognize the frequency, buried deeply in our psyches. It is a story that is immediately familiar, yet utterly unique, unfolding with the ineffable logic of a dream, of a memory of events which we have not yet experienced." – Robert J. Wiersema, The Toronto Star"Poitras’ prose is rich, steeped in the senses, suffused with painting, perfume, and culinary decadence." – Dean Garlick, Montreal Review of Books

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Book SynopsisA trans woman sets out to exploit a group of wealthy roommates, only to fall under the spell of their glamorous, hedonistic lifestyle in tech-bubble San Francisco. Years after fleeing San Francisco and getting sober, Jhanvi has made a life for herself working at a grocery co-op and saving for her surgeries. But when her friend (and sometimes more) Henry mentions that he and his techie festival-goer friends spent $100,000 to transform a warehouse basement into a sex dungeon, Jhanvi starts wondering if there’s a way to exploit these gullible idiots. She returns to San Francisco, hatching a plan to marry Henry for his company’s generous healthcare benefits. Jhanvi enters a world of beautiful, decadent fire-eaters and their lavish sex parties. But as her pretensions to cynicism and control start to fade, she develops a Gatsbyesque attraction to these happy young people and their bold claims of unconditional love. But do any of her privi

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Book SynopsisA vibrant debut short story collection depicting the disillusionment that comes with being young and queer in Puerto Rico.The visceral, wildly imaginative stories in Bad Seed flick through working-class scenes of contemporary Puerto Rico, where friends and lovers melt into and defy their surroundings—night clubs, ruined streets, cramped rooms with cockroaches moving in the walls. A horny high schooler spends his summer break in front of the TV; a queer love triangle unravels on the emblematic theater steps of the University of Puerto Rico; a group of friends get high and watch San Juan burn from atop a clocktower; an HIV positive college student works the night shift at a local bathhouse. At turns playful and heartbreaking, Bad Seed is the long overdue English-language debut of one of Puerto Rico’s most exciting up-and-coming writers.  

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Book Synopsis"I see him now! Somewhere out there in that gloaming that we call the Past that Time forgot--his ratty beard and frizzy hair, his hearty grease sandwiches, his rusted bicycle clips. An unlikely hero, your good faces seem to say..."And so we meet our hero Serge "Blue" Gavotte, a modern-day Candide who quits his job, mounts a piano atop a broken-down pushcart and sets off with wife and child on a visionary quest across contemporary America in search of the "Perfect Musical Phrase." From the dismal plains of the Midwest to the technicolor sunsets of the Southwest, Blue refuses to let financial troubles, lecherous professors or the burdensome weight of his piano prevent him from reaching his final goal.A work of art masquerading as artifice, "Blue Pastoral" is a madhouse production whose hilarious cast of styles and forms includes everything from Rabelaisian lists to Swiftian satires to parodies of such pastoral modes as the eclogue, the idyll, and the elegy.Trade Review"A wild and crazy book, lavishly inventive, full of surprises, sometimes exasperating, often exhilerating." -- New York Times Book Review "Blue Pastoral is bedazzling. Its language--and what else is literature but language--dips and dances. Read it." -- New Statesman "Sections are brilliant and wicked and they show how much of a stern dazzler Sorrentino can be." -- Kirkus

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Book SynopsisIn this contemporary retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Estonian writer Mati Unt offers a playful yet unsettling mixture of fact and fiction, combining pieces of Estonian political history—in particular the figure of Lydia Koidula (1843-1886), widely regarded as the first Estonian woman to express an Estonian longing for independence—with portraits of life in contemporary Estonia, all set against a backdrop of vampirism and the Gothic novel.Trade Reviewa disturbing and comic tale of obsession, politics and the vagaries of literature.' -Sam Munson, New York Post

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Book Synopsis"Fiercely satirical. . . . Yamashita presents [an] intricate plot with mordant wit." —New York Times Book Review "A stunner. . . . An exquisite mystery novel. But this is a novel of dystopia and apocalypse; the mystery concerns the tragic flaws of human nature." —Library Journal (starred review) "Brilliant. . . . An ingenious interpretation of social woes." —Booklist (starred review) "Yamashita handles her eccentrics and the setting of their adventures with panache. David Foster Wallace meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez." —Publishers Weekly Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway. Hemmed in by wildfires, it's a symphony conducted from an overpass, grandiose, comic, and as diverse as the city itself. Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.

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Book SynopsisTrue crime, memoir, and ghost story, Mean is the bold and hilarious tale of Myriam Gurba’s coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Gurba takes on sexual violence, small towns, and race, turning what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously. We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would cut off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being mean to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being mean is more exhilarating. Being mean isn't for everybody. Being mean is best practiced by those who understand it as an art form. These virtuosos live closer to the divine than the rest of humanity. They're queers. Myriam Gurba is a queer spoken-word performer, visual artist, and writer from Santa Maria, California. She's the author of Dahlia Season (2007, Manic D) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Wish You Were Me (2011, Future Tense Books), and Painting Their Portraits in Winter (2015, Manic D). She has toured with Sister Spit and her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. She lives in Long Beach, where she teaches social studies to eighth-graders.Trade ReviewFinalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Nonfiction Finalist for the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Nylon, “Our Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2017” Book Riot, “The Best Genre Bending Fiction of 2017” NBC, “8 Great Latino Books of 2017” BuzzFeed, “The 19 Best Nonfiction Books Of 2017” Autostraddle, “The Top 10 Queer and Feminist Books of 2017” Remezcla, “These Were the Best Books From Latin American & Latino Authors in 2017” The Riveter, “The Riveter’s Top Ten Books of 2017” "Mean calls for a fat, fluorescent trigger warning start to finish — and I say this admiringly. Gurba likes the feel of radioactive substances on her bare hands." —The New York Times “Gurba is something of a connoisseur of cruelty. She doesn’t pull her punches, but her jabs are calibrated with a perfect balance of rage and satire.” —The New York Times "[Gurba's] dark humor isn’t used for shock value alone, offering instead a striking image of deflection and coping in the face of real pain and terror." —Publishers Weekly "With its icy wit, edgy wedding of lyricism and prose, and unflinching look at personal and public demons, Gurba’s introspective memoir is brave and significant." —Kirkus “Mean demands our attention not only as a painfully timely story, but also as an artful memoir…. a powerful, vital book about damage and the ghostly afterlives of abuse.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “With unconstrained, inventive, stop-you-in-your-tracks writing, Gurba asserts that there is glee, freedom, and, perhaps most of all, truth in meanness.” —Booklist “Gurba seems intent on tearing down walls and shaking readers out of complacency; her writing pulls our attention to human cruelty, suffering, and then, resilience. We are better off for it.” —BuzzFeed "[Gurba's skill] here is apparent in the way she demonstrates her own gradual maturing through her developing thoughts and sense of self." —Literary Hub “This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously.” —The Rumpus “[Gurba’s] politicized consciousness comes not only through her college education, but also through the stories of the women who don’t survive the violence that women of color encounter on journeys similar to hers. This is a startling and edgy book from start to finish.” —NBCNews “She tackles everything from sexual violence to racism with humour and directness.” —ELLE UK “[Mean is] gorgeously written—beautiful, forthright, honest, and just a little bit mean, and I loved every minute of it. Gurba’s is a voice we need to be listening to right now.” —Book Riot "Gurba’s 'queer art of being mean' is a triumph of deadpan humor in a timely and thrilling voice. Stop everything and read this brave and tender book." —O, The Oprah Magazine “Throughout the book, [Gurba] handles the telling of one tragedy after another with great care and sharp humor, so there is redemption and levity even in dark moments.” —Buzzfeed, “21 Books Queer Women (And Everybody Else) Should Read This Pride Month” “Gurba explores the stark reality of her suffering as she creates solidarity with other victimized women. Her story is a powerful one, and her voice is certainly one that earns readers’ attention.” —BUST “Mean will make you LOL and break your heart.” —The Millions “Gurba uses the tragedies, both small and large, she sees around her to illuminate the realities of systemic racism and misogyny, and the ways in which we can try to escape what society would like to tell us is our fate.” —Nylon “Gurba throws her past styles and concerns into a blast furnace and casts Mean, a pair of brass knuckles disguised as a book, a personal narrative that takes on sexual assault and its aftermath, rape culture, racism, queerness, family, and coming of age, laced through with a cool knowing and cooler humor, a literary voice like none other.” —Publishers Weekly "[Mean] is a book that commands you, pushing and pulling you with the author’s expert language and voice, haunting you long after the pages have ended." —Atticus Review “The book is a study in the utility and limits of niceness, especially when it comes to being a nice girl—and the political power of being mean.” —Pacific Standard “Don’t let its slim profile fool you, this memoir bursts with vitality and humor (however mordant), all while dealing with issues of gender politics, sexual assault, PTSD, and Gurba’s experience growing up as a queer, mixed race Chicana in California in the ’80s.” —Nylon "Through her unpredictable style, Gurba offers a welcomed antidote to the formula of the contemporary novel." —W Magazine "Gurba tackles hard subjects and ugly adolescent intimacies in short sentences you’ll have no choice but to read out loud to strangers and repeat to yourself, quietly, later." —Kenyon Review "Hauntingly, beautiful, and refreshingly blunt, Gurba’s “Mean” is an open door through which she invites you to experience her life, in all its beauty and struggle. I suggest you walk through it." —Harvard Crimson “The difficulty and the joy of reading Mean is diving deep into the murky "Molack" waters with Myriam Gurba.” —Bust “Not one to mince words, this Lambda Literary finalist [Myriam Gurba] nevertheless aims to entertain as she tackles racism, homophobia, and sexual violence in this amusing genre-defying celebration of strategic offensiveness.” —Logo “[Gurba’s] voice is irreverent, lyrical, and sharply observant, even as her book offers dark commentary on what it means to be a woman in American society.” —Library Journal “Honest and darkly funny, the book is riddled with moments that will have you nodding, cringing, and crying right along with the author.” —Harper’s Bazaar “...as [Gurba] veers from biting vignettes to poignant verse and back again, she shows reverence for both saints and bitches, arguing that nastiness can be more than just a defense mechanism. In a cruel world, it sometimes offers us the catharsis we need to keep going.” —OUT Magazine “Gurba’s experience as a spoken word poet shines through in her colloquial quips and clever turns of phrase. It’s not an easy feat to inject wit into such a heavy subject matter, but Gurba does so with tact.” —Lambda Literary Review “[Gurba] breathes fire and Spanglish, batters you with her biting humor then buries you in truths you cannot look away from… This is how memoirs should always be written – with fierceness, brutal honesty and a wry smile cutting through it all.” —Brightest Young Things "Bruised but exuberant, Gurba's brash voice eschews any sanctimonious overtones... With this unashamed, raw perspective, Gurba views her life as a means to demonstrate how a person can be reduced to a mere body, nothing more than an object of desire." —BOMB “Read Mean for its humor and stimulating structure. Read Gurba for her unique perspective and literary stylings.” —PANK “In vivid and unflinching prose, Gurba looks at sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia, and speaks out for women who aren’t afraid to be feisty and angry and mean.” —Bustle “Mean is pure Gurba: brazen, ballsy, and grinning. But Gurba’s first memoir is also poised to be a breakout book—a work that, like Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, will likely catapult its author out of the small world of experimental-ish short fiction and into a much larger readership.” —4Columns “...[Mean] sets itself up as a challenge — to empathize, to tell the truth and to stay awake to the violence done to women (and minorities) every day, and the various ways in which our society works to erase their dignities and identities, not to mention their bodies.” —Star Tribune “Gurba's artistic sensibility is so fresh, her wit and observational skills so acute, that she defies all expected tropes and story structure.” —Dallas Morning News “For its unapologetic examination of trauma, for its witty take on the beloved idols of pop, and for its contributions to the genre of memoir, Mean is a must-read… Gurba’s voice is strong, irreverent, vulnerable, and smart all at the same time, a much needed perspective at a time when white gentility dominates the national conversation on seuxal harassment and what it means to be accountable.” —Mask Magazine “Gurba’s prose is dark and sparse, potent yet playful. She combines different registers and rhythms, and weaves together threads of different kinds of privilege, whiteness, sexual assault, and trauma.” —The Rumpus “Through wit and in-your-face brilliance, Gurba tells a story that is both deeply personal and bitingly critical of modern life. Along the way, she also gives us a masterclass in what intersectionality is all about.” —Shondaland “This book is testament, translation, smackdown, and also it’s hella funny.” —Vol. 1 Brooklyn “Mean is a memoir, but it’s a unique one: it’s poetic, forceful, angry, and, yes, a little bit mean, in the best way possible...one of the most moving and inventive memoirs I’ve read in a long time.” —Book Riot “[Mean] charts [Gurba’s] coming-of-age as a mixed-raced, queer Chicana and delves into the dark recesses of feminism, racism, sexual violence and PTSD with fierce humor where you’d least expect it.” —The Orange County Register “To say this book exudes confidence is an understatement.” —ELLE “Gurba manages to simultaneously inhabit the innocence and audacity of a child's point of view and the nuanced and scathing humor of an adult awareness. She invokes petty meanness and indicts systemic cruelty. She exploits the often-paradoxical distance between the experience of trauma and the body's reactions to create a fractured narrative that teases the line between disclosure and revelation.” —Truthout “[Gurba] has written a memoir that is just a little bit different—or maybe a lot—an in-your-face account of the young life of a mixed-race Chicana who identifies as queer, who has known prejudice, the anguish of her own sexual assault and an unshakable haunting by others she knows have been victims.” —Kansas City Star "If you like memoirs (hell, even if you don’t), this one will knock your socks off." —Hello Giggles “[Mean] is not a triumphant story of survival, rather it’s a defiant, hybrid text that refuses to let anyone off the hook and resists the falsity of closure.” —Iowa Review “Gurba’s memoir is a deft fusion of true crime, ghost story and memoir… Gurba freely admits to having a gleefully gruesome sense of humor. She uses this quality liberally in her story of the ghost who haunts Gurba as she’s trying to make sense of her own trauma and life as a mixed-race queer Chicana.” —Kansas City Star "Gurba’s writing feels devastating and holy and hilarious all at once." —Autostraddle “The complexity of [Gurba’s] voice contributes to the appeal of her memoir, which is compelling, suspenseful, both knowable as the girl next door and mysterious...This memoir is remarkable for its unflinching candor, for its humor in the face of tragedy and absurdity, and for its adventurous style.” —Shelf Awareness Pro “Myriam Gurba’s witty, trenchant, and all too relevant account of a culture in which sexual violence exists as a frightening daily reality and is often confronted alone.” —Adroit Journal “Gurba has a special skill for capturing the sly friendships of young children, and the way so much adolescent intimacy derives from a shared conspiracy.” —Bookforum “Mean... takes on the ‘what are you’ question and applies it to every aspect of life.” —Electric Literature “Mean turns a bright spotlight on the sexual violence that women endure and what it means to live life after trauma.” —Them “Gurba has constructed a coming-of-age memoir full of gut punches and belly laughs, culminating in trauma, but never victimization.” —NewPages “Gurba bookends this book with two sexual assaults and in their retelling manages to offer something close to the catharsis we all so desperately need. When I finished the last page, I couldn't help but reverently whisper aloud, ‘Damn.’” —Heauxs "Mean tackles the most serious of topics—sexual assault, racism, homophobia—with a voice that revels in the grim humor of survival." —Catapult Community, "Staff Picks" “I am such a gigantic fan of Myriam Gurba. Her voice is an alchemy of queer magic, feminist wildness, and intersectional explosion. She’s a gigantic inspiration to my work and the sexiest, smartest literary discovery in Los Angeles. She’s totally ready to wake up the world.” —Jill Soloway “Casually frank and grimly funny, the stealth power of this book mesmerizes. Mean excavates one female’s personal history with America’s rape culture, zooming through suburbia, race, friendship, desire, education, family, pop culture—essentially taking on the world—with prose both controlled and popping with singular detail. There is no writer like Myriam Gurba, and Mean is perfection.” —Michelle Tea “‘The post-traumatic mind has an advanced set of art skills,’ Myriam Gurba writes. Mean tackles the profane and the sacred by sticking one hand into your chest and grabbing hold of your heart muscle while the other hand tickle fights your brain, complete with serious noogies. Aligned with female saints and feminist artists and writers, Gurba vividly offers stories both familiar and unfamiliar in a heartbreaking and riotously funny collection that, like Gurba, is hybrid in its form. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book that covers the territories of class, racism, sexual assault, eating disorders, and more that made me LOL with its ferocious intellect and biting humor. There is just no other voice like hers, and Mean is a testament to that fact. I want Myriam Gurba to translate the world.” —Wendy Ortiz

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Book SynopsisPart sweeping evocation of Earth’s rhythms, part literary archive, part post-human novel, The Nature Book collages descriptions of the natural world into a singular symphonic paean to the planet.What does our nature writing say about us, and more urgently, what would it say without us? Tom Comitta investigates these questions and more in The Nature Book, a “literary supercut” that arranges writing about the natural world from three hundred works of fiction into a provocative re-envisioning of the novel. With fiction’s traditional background of flora and fauna brought to the fore, people and their structures disappear, giving center stage to animals, landforms, and weather patterns—honored in their own right rather than for their ambient role in human drama. The Nature Book challenges the confines of anthropocentrism with sublime artistic vision, traversing mountains, forests, oceans, and space to shift our attention toward the magnificently complex and interconnected world around us.Trade ReviewPraise for The Nature BookIndependent Book Review, "Best Books We Read in 2023"“Symphonic, both in its structure—four movements, the third of which is the most distinct and the last of which references the first and goes out in a brilliant burst—and in the way language echoes, builds, works its accretive magic. . . . Seeing the world like this, without us, traversed in a way we could never traverse it in our human bodies, is a powerful and exhilarating experience.” —Cara Blue Adams, The New Yorker“A marvel of textual collation on a par with Christian Marclay’s supercut film ‘The Clock.’ It’s remarkable how coherently the narrative reads, despite its countless patchwork pieces, a testament not only to Comitta’s diligence but to the likeminded ways that novelists have tended to write about natural phenomena like snowfall or sunrise.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal“A meditative, lush narrative on the relationship between time and nature. . . . Like Proust, Comitta centers you in the reading experience, not just demanding your labor of comprehension at the languorous, long sentence level, but also requiring your attention and patience. . . . You’ll be hard-pressed to find another book with as verdant an archive of beautiful descriptive sentences as the one contained in The Nature Book.” —Darina Sikmashvili, Los Angeles Review of Books“With long asides alongside neat rhymes, with ponderous thoughts on the nature of time near light scenes showing time’s mysterious passing, with ‘a great nest of angry snakes’ and still green apple trees, Comitta has created something a lot like an ecosystem.” —Madeleine Crum, The Baffler“An epic journey—visual, textural and musical—that illustrates the vastness of our environment and its representation in literature.” —Joseph Holt, Star Tribune“Their authorial vision weaves together a wild variety of styles with a steady eye on the land, sky, and water, as well as on the plants and animals living in each. Comitta approaches assembly with a conceptual rigor, but they do not sacrifice polish or readability. The novel flows beautifully. . . . An optimistic critique of the form, made entirely of the form.” —Crow Jonah Norlander, BOMB Magazine“A magnum opus about the planet using only found text. . . . A dynamic and singular reading experience.” —Kirkus, starred review“In this seamless anthology, we forget that the experience of reading about nature is mediated by human voices and, when suspended in the text, succumb to the magical illusion that we are perceiving the world in itself.” —Will Chancellor, The Brooklyn Rail“In their mind-bending compendium of just the nature parts from 300 novels, Comitta asks what makes narrative, what merits attention, and whether humans have any business in this literary world at all. This is the novel to read conspicuously in your garden so the plants know you’re on their side. It’s only a matter of time before the weeds shall inherit the earth.” —Katy Simpson Smith, Electric Literature“An immersive exhibition of nature writing. . . . [The Nature Book] pulls the reader along with gorgeous language and animal protagonists worth rooting for.” —Publishers Weekly“Here it is at last, and what a bloody relief to at last have it: The Novel Without Us. Using the suprasensory medium of the human vessel Tom Comitta, the trees and sky and earth have accessed the hyperobject or hyperartifact known as ‘literature’ in order to be heard from, across time and space. This is a novel to dwarf all others.” —Jonathan Lethem“Tom Comitta’s original novel—composed of descriptions of animals, plants, weather, water, earth, time and space from canonical English-language works—is a feat of conceptual art, biblical in tone and panoramic in scope. The absence of human life in The Nature Book is a relief and a delight, yet Comitta’s devotion to the ‘ancillary’ builds a subtle and uncomfortable portrait of human consciousness: its judgments and observations, its habit of projecting itself into the minds of animals, and its tendency to see the natural world in terms of how it resembles, serves, or threatens the human one.” —Kathryn Scanlan“In The Nature Book, language denuded from its original context serves its own surprising ends. An astounding project.” —Jarett Kobek

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Book SynopsisOver the course of one fateful day, Trisha Donahue begins to reclaim her courage and discovers secrets in a familiar place. A surprising, quietly dramatic adventure story infused with Ellen Cooney’s warm humor and wisdom. After years of skilled work and dedication, Trisha Donahue is denied a well-earned promotion by her company’s male executives, who give it instead to an underqualified man. Devastated, forty-four-year-old Trisha begins to reckon with the demands that exhaust her, the injustices that confront her, and the ways she has betrayed herself “just to fit in” with coworkers who resent and belittle her abilities. But at the Rose & Emerald—a unique rural restaurant Trisha has loved since childhood—her company’s annual Banquet Day sets in motion a surprising adventure, revealing unexpected allies, hidden passageways, and an interstellar secret. Encouraged by a vivid cast of characters, from sympathetic coworkers to the mysterious employees of the fabled Rose & Emerald, Trisha makes a decision that will change her professional and personal life forever. From acclaimed author Ellen Cooney, A Cowardly Woman No More is a lively, luminous novel about a wife, mom, and career woman who brings herself first nervously, then more and more bravely, through a monumental transformation.Trade ReviewPraise for A Cowardly Woman No More Publishers Weekly, "Best Books of 2023"“This elegant and off-kilter upending of the office novel sings.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The book unspools, with grace, humor, and perceptive depth, over the course of a single ordinary, extraordinary day. It is, in part, an office novel, and Cooney nails the soul-dulling absurdity of certain working lives. And it is, in part, a much stranger and more magical thing. . . . Cooney’s great skill as we press against the limits of the real is that we are with her in every moment; her language is unshowy, matter-of-fact, human, and she is also open—and opens us—to the inexplicable, the wild magic, the stuff we can’t make sense of all the way.” —Nina MacLaughin, The Boston Globe“Cooney is remarkably adept at capturing minute inner crises within an individual and the imperfect but real connections between people. . . . A shining exploration of human frailty and endurance.” —Kirkus“The novel’s memorable effects derive from Trisha’s voice, attitude and values. . . . For Trisha, not being ‘a cowardly woman’ involves something more than specifying her displeasures. The engaging directness of her narrative—its spokenness, sharpness of vision and recall, and willingness to place an exclamation point at the end of a sentence when she amazes herself—comprises her bravery.” —Ron Slate, On the Seawall“A Cowardly Woman No More is a feminist novel, but it’s more than a Me Too tale on gender equity and equality. It asks us to look closely at ourselves and wonder if we’ve let daily living take the joy out of life. . . . Trisha speaks from one woman’s soul to another.” —Lorraine Kleinwaks, Enchanted Prose“A truly lovely read, funny at times, poignant, and an interesting portrait of a type of person I’m sure we all have met, or maybe actually are.” —Davida Chazan, TCL Review“I have been a fan of Ellen Cooney’s for years, and she is in undeniably brilliant form once again here. Masterfully told, full of surprise, built from unforgettable sentences that sing, whisper, or shout, A Cowardly Woman No More is utterly compelling from its first fiery comet of a page to its last.” —Laird Hunt Selected praise for One Night Two Souls Went Walking NPR, “Favorite Books of 2020”Newsweek, “Must-Read Fall Books”Kirkus, “Best Fiction of 2020”Bustle, “Best Books of Fall 2020”The Millions, “Most Anticipated: Fall 2020” “Shimmering, remarkable. . . . A triumph of a novel, and one that arrives at the perfect time.” —Michael Schaub, NPR “Cooney's warm and hopeful novel is a salve for these times.” —Juliana Rose Pignataro, Newsweek “Wise and warm. . . . This is a quiet book, steady, gentle, present, one that grapples with the matter-of-fact here and now, and wades, with bravery and wonder, into the mysteries that make us human.” —Nina MacLaughlin, The Boston Globe “The perfect novel to combat pandemic angst. ” —Kirkus, starred review “Cooney’s novel expands the concept of what’s possible, imagining hope where there is none and pointing always toward the light.” —Mari Carlson, BookPage, starred review “Takes place over the course of a night shift at an urban medical center whose cavernous immensity—‘steel and glass and stone, lights muted in the deep surround of the dark’—gives it the feel of a modern-day cathedral. . . . The word ‘soul’ is a frequent presence in this novel, a kind of familiar spirit.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “Now, more than ever, we need to be reminded that hope prevails—and this novel does exactly that.” —Carolyn Quimby, The Millions

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Book SynopsisSon is real. Son was saved from a life he cannot remember. Son is a human in a mythical world of ghosts. This is what Father tells him. Son has lived his entire life inside the mansion. He is a good child. He reads, practices piano, studies, and watches ghosts tend the farmland through a window in the attic. When Father decides it is time for Son to venture outside, Son’s desire to please Father overpowers his fear, and he must contend with questions he never wanted to face. What are the relentlessly grinning ghosts hiding? Has a ghost taken control of Father? What answers or horrors lie in the forest? And who will stop the mysterious encroaching shadows? Nghiem Tran’s debut inverts the haunted house tale, shaping it into a moving exploration of loss, coming of age in a collapsing world, and the battle between isolation and assimilation.Trade ReviewPraise for We're Safe When We're AloneNPR, "2023 Best Books (Books We Love)""This hypnotic and richly allusive novella can be read as a concentric poem that hints at both hope and inevitable endings." —Thúy Ðinh, NPR“Sentences function like arrows that land in the reader’s brain or stomach or heart, leaving the reader with piercing insights that reverberate long after the book ends.” —Melissa Reddish, Necessary Fiction“Haunting, mournful, and thought-provoking. Tran’s debut novella expresses the anxieties and fears that come with love, trust, loss, and the unknown.” —Sammy Loree, Chicago Review of Books“A spare and haunted tale of loneliness in a surreal world.” —Kirkus“Tran flips ghost story conventions upside down.” —David Lewis, Barrelhouse“Nghiem Tran’s first novella is a marvel: a moving, lyrical piece of prose that happens to be an unputdownable page-turner. He has created a magical world—in the mode of Gabriel García Márquez or Maxine Hong Kingston—that’s astonishingly real. Read it and feel yourself transformed, maybe even saved.” —Mary Karr“The exquisite We're Safe When We're Alone is a haunting and mesmerizing debut. Part parable, part fairy tale, and part nightmare, it all seems distilled out of the deepest longing. Nghiem Tran is a powerful new voice.” —Dana Spiotta

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Book SynopsisIncarcerated for his subversive connection to the old, living world, a prisoner makes the most of his isolation in this captivating allegorical tale about tyranny, conviction, and the enduring power of imagination. Upon setting out for a morning walk with his knobby stick in hand, a young man is arrested by a robot called the Plotinus and abandoned in a cell where one beam of sunlight beckons through an air duct. Rapping his knuckles against the vent to relay his tale of woe in code, he recalls his lost love and their group’s forbidden activities; his readings in philosophy and the sciences; and sweet memories of freedom’s small pleasures. As the captive confronts his increasingly dire circumstances with rigorous optimism, the appearance of fantastical visitors and miraculous objects in his cell further blurs the line between hallucination and dystopian reality. Told with uncanny warmth and intellectual brio, The Plotinus is Rikki Ducornet’s most unforgettable story yet.Trade ReviewPraise for The Plotinus “Dashingly absurd. . . . Ducornet’s latest is replete with figures that represent mankind in all its vainglorious hubris to great comedic effect while echoing the familiar sorrow of humanity’s severance from, and ultimate destruction of, the natural world that gives us both our meaning and our memories. It is a surreal novel that, nonetheless, feels disconcertingly real. . . . An inscrutable wonder of a book that rewards a reader’s attention with its own returned gaze.” —Kirkus, starred review“When all the beauty left in a denuded world is concentrated in the delicate body of a visiting hornet, what else is there for a narrator (or for us) to do but love her. So The Plotinus shows us. This book is elegant, hilarious, ominous, and transcendent.” —Rae Armantrout“So new, so strange. . . . It enthralled me.” —Forrest GanderPraise for Trafik: “In a future where all that's left of Earth are the records of random trivia, a human-ish astronaut and her robot companion decide to abandon their mission. . . . On this journey, the two will confront the biggest questions about existence, identity, and experience: What makes a human? Where does consciousness reside? It could all become very serious, if Ducornet weren't so skilled in absurdity.” —Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed “Illustrative of the dream logic of surrealist novels, Nadja, Hopscotch, or Leonora Carrington’s Hearing Trumpet. All in all, the result is essential Ducornet, obscure and extravagant. This space operetta shouts like Ubu Roi. Ducornet delivers a fascinating addition to her incredible practice. A Jupiter fuse against the void.” —Joseph Houlihan, Chicago Review of Books “A winsome space picaresque in which surreality piles upon surreality. . . . A longtime master of the extraordinary sentence, Ducornet has outdone herself here, blending SF’s penchant for invented jargon with her own queer linguistic egalitarianism. . . . in a primordial soup of possibility. This slender book captivates with its ferocious curiosity, quick wit, and ultimately tender generosity. Carried along by the bumptious rollick of its language, this tale is full of sound and fury, signifying literally everything.”—Kirkus, starred review "Ducornet dazzles with this whirlwind jaunt through a far-future universe, told in jargon-studded prose that turns gonzo science into gleeful lyricism. . . . Ducornet remains a fantastic stylist." —Publishers Weekly “I loved this mind-bending little trek across the universe. Thoroughly delightful, poignant, funny, and sweet, like if Italo Calvino wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in a series of pointed vignettes, it’s the perfect amount of quarantine-relatable loneliness and existential spiraling, combined with escapism and optimism. It’s like watching a dream come true." —Rachel S., Harvard Bookstore for Buzzfeed “A highly literate science fiction quest narrative, a 21st-century version of Calvino's Cosmicomics. . . . Trafik is a compact singularity that explodes in a Big Bang of creativity. —James Crossley, Madison Books “A perfectly strange and surreal book, dreamlike and fun.” —Sarah Cassavant, Subtext Books “Surrealism meets space opera in Trafik, Rikki Ducornet’s startlingly original look at a post-human and non-human pairing wandering through space while obsessed with the scattered fragments of a world they never knew. At once funny and absurd, Trafik peers at our own time through the lens of the future to reveal what we should regret losing and what would be better gone.” —Brian Evenson Praise for Brightfellow: “Ms. Ducornet’s novel about a man who ‘cannot fathom the bottomless secret of his own existence’ casts a lingering spell.” —The New York Times “In tracing the shape of what is left behind, Ducornet lends dignity to the universal plight of vanished illusions.” —Los Angeles Times “Bursting with vivid imagery, beautiful language, heartbreaking characters. . . . Ducornet’s tale is unique and captivating.” —Booklist “A portrait of a surreal community that defies easy categorization. . . . An endless delight at the sentence level.” —Kirkus “Ducornet has written the oddest of varsity novels, one that anchors its charming caprice, philosophical fancy, and thriller-like pace to the psychological horror that lurks just beyond childhood innocence.” —Publishers Weekly Selected praise for Rikki Ducornet: “Ducornet is a novelist of ambition and scope.” —The New York Times “Linguistically explosive. . . . One of the most interesting American writers around.” —The Nation “Pick up a book by the award-winning Ducornet, and you know it will be startling, elegant, and perfectly formed.” —Library Journal “Ducornet is a writer of extraordinary power, in whose books ‘rigor and imagination’ (her watchwords) perform with the grace and daring of high-wire acrobats.” —BOMB “Ducornet’s is a world of surfaces so rich and textured that notions of meaning and interpretation are subsumed under a lush and seductive prose that eventually inhabits readers’ minds.” —The Millions “Ducornet is a mad maestro of words.” —Seattle Weekly “Rikki Ducornet is a magic sensualist, a writer’s writer, a master of language, a unique voice.” —Amy Tan

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Book SynopsisIt is 2027. August Helm is thirty years old. A biochemist working in a lab at the University of Chicago, he is swept off his feet by the beautiful and entirely self-assured Amanda Clark. Animated by August’s consuming desire, their relationship quickly becomes intimate. But when he stumbles across a liaison between the director of his lab and a much younger student, his position is eliminated and his world upended.August sets out to visit his parents in Words, an unincorporated village in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. Here, he reconnects with several characters from his past: Ivan Bookchester, who now advocates for “new ways of living” in an age of decline; Hanh, formerly known as Jewelweed, who tends her orchard and wild ginseng, keenly attuned to new patterns of migration resulting from climate change and habitat destruction; and Lester Mortal, the aging veteran and fierce pacifist who long ago rescued her from Vietnam. Together, the old friends fall back into a familiar closeness.But much as things initially seem unchanged in the Driftless, when August is hired to look after Tom and April Lux’s home in Forest Gate, he finds himself in the midst of an entirely different social set, made up of wealthy homeowners who are mostly resented by the poorer surrounding communities, and distanced in turn by their fear of the locals. August soon falls head over heels for April, and different versions of his self collide: one in which the past is still present in tensions and dreams, another in which he understands his desire as genetically determined and chemically induced, and then a vaguely hoped-for future with April. When Lester is diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, Ivan comes clean on a ghastly past episode, and April makes a shocking revelation, a series of events ensues that will change all involved forever. As approachable as it is profound in exploring the human condition and our shared need for community, this is a story for our times.Trade ReviewPraise for Painting Beyond Walls“An impressive and beautiful novel . . . Painting Beyond Walls joins Driftless and Jewelweed to shape the second half of an impressive career. Characters from his earlier novels appear prominently in this book, as does its setting, the Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin. . . . In his first book, The Last Fair Deal Going Down, Rhodes created a city beneath Des Moines, a sub-city. Before he enters it, the protagonist tells his sister, ‘I’ll write you a giant novel . . . a book that is the inside of me, a great, sprawling ironclad prodigy of emotion.’ David Rhodes, a Midwestern treasure, has now written six such novels.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune“Terrific . . . Fans of Rhodes will appreciate the return to fictional Words, Wisconsin, and the familiar cast of characters that populate the unincorporated village. They’ll recognize Rhodes’ voice, as singular and lyrical as ever, and his distinct style; often waxing profound for page after luxurious page before suddenly punching out a hilarious one-liner. Rhodes continues to explore the human condition in profound but unpretentious ways.”—Madison Magazine“David Rhodes, a Wisconsin resident, takes characters from his widely-praised novel Driftless and Jewelweed and imagines them into the future in Painting Beyond the Walls. In doing so, he reinvents the ‘Midwestern pastoral’ genre, confronting questions of science, technology, power, evolution and the effects of a rapidly changing society on a rural area.”—Pioneer Press“Rhodes’ novels about the small, modest town of Words, Wisconsin, are in accord with the place-anchored, morally and spiritually inquisitive fiction of Kent Haruf and Marilynne Robinson even as this fourth installment, set in the very near future, takes a surprising turn. . . . Rhodes is rhapsodic in his descriptions and compassionate and wise in his observations, while his endearing, caring characters speak in peculiarly formal, even academic dialogue and the audacious plot veers into speculative territory and postulates . . . thought-provoking hope.”—Booklist, starred review"A thought-provoking meditation on human relationships at the cellular level as well as our relationship to Earth, the cosmos, and life itself. . . . Rhodes has a knack for writing acute psychological realism; these characters live and breathe, and by the time the novel ends we feel like we know them. Additionally, several story arcs reveal a humanistic, righteous indignation regarding the violence toward women so endemic to Western civilization, and characters frequently engage in thought-provoking discussions of everything from cellular science to sexual politics and world economies. The epilogue recalls Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles, albeit much more optimistic. Although elements of the novel are adjacent to the near-future sci-fi writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, Rhodes is primarily concerned with the timeless human phenomena of love, loss, origins, family, and community."—Kirkus Reviews“In his new novel, David Rhodes returns to the Midwest with this tale set in the near-future about humanity’s relationship with each other, with nature, and with the self. Written in lyrical and melancholy prose, Rhodes once again proves why he is one of our best writers writing about our physical and metaphysical connection with each other and our environment.”—Bennard Fajardo, Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC“David Rhodes’s prose is as captivating as ever in Painting Beyond Walls. Not only are his characters masterfully drawn, but the obvious joy of language is a thrill to read. His words are so easy to get lost in that there is almost a disconnect when closing the book—one needs a few seconds to reattune to reality after spending time in Rhodes’s world. It helps that his vision of the near future is extremely believable and though one doesn’t necessarily want to be going through some of what he puts his characters through, there is no doubt that his world-building is spectacular.”—Jesse Hassinger, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA“A new novel by David Rhodes is a cause for celebration! . . . ­In Painting Beyond Walls, Rhodes deftly explores the importance of community and connectedness; the human condition, particularly the presence of evil in the world; and how wealth can be used to better the world. And, interestingly in this time when many deny the validity and importance of science in human life, he tackles that issue head on. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that the problems our world currently faces, such as climate change and overpopulation, find remedy in the world of this book through science . . . the complex characters, beautiful descriptions and a view of the future will challenge your understanding of science and where we are headed as a species. And then, like me, you may want to reread Driftless and Jewelweed to be reminded of the backstory of Painting Beyond Walls. Welcome back, David Rhodes!”—Sally Wizik Wills, Beagle and Wolf Books & Binder, Park Rapids, MN“Gus is a young research scientist who was raised in the Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin and has spent ten years away in college and working for research labs in Chicago. In a short period of time, he finds out that his job is discontinued, his love relationship is over, and his lease is ending. With all of his possessions in the trunk of a rental car, he returns to Wisconsin in the hopes of planning a new future. Gus is plagued by sexual desires that don't lead to satisfying relationships. He's trying to find answers by studying cell behavior to explain why he doesn't feel whole. He connects with old childhood friends and mentors, adapts a different philosophy, and then one day he discovers his perfect mate. But there's a price to pay if they'll be together, and you'll never see it coming. A cast of memorable characters are presented at a pleasant pace, interspersed with extra details to keep you immersed in the numerous directions that the novel takes. It speaks to family, friendship, community, and an endearing description of what mature love relationships can be. Rhodes was diagnosed with stage-four cancer in the midst of writing this book. The extra time it took to write it, along with the quality of the prose, made for an intriguing and satisfying read. A master storyteller."—Todd Miller, Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI“David Rhodes is a writer who has helped sustain the appeal of literary fiction due to his unique style and lyrical narration. His characters are so believable they become members of our own community; we share their hopes and fears, their pain, and their joy. His previous novels (at least five) revealed a gift for understanding human nature well beyond his years and this latest book set a few years into our future (2027) is sterling. If you’re a follower of Rhodes’ career, you’ll be delighted to know he has returned with a new story set in the Midwest. If you are not familiar with his work, this is a great way to get acquainted. You’ll be glad you did.”—Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA“David Rhodes has a beautiful, almost mesmerizing way with words. The story unfolds at a human pace; with characters that are complex and compelling. I don’t know if August got into my head or Rhodes put me into August’s head; either way, I felt at one with August as he navigated his way through romances and friendships and the inevitable changes that have come to the small rural hometown to which he’s returned after ten years in Chicago. . . . I’d gladly recommend this book to readers looking for immersive literary fiction! David Rhodes is a master storyteller.”—Pat Rudebusch, Orinda Books, Orinda, CAPraise for David Rhodes“‘A new, hitherto unknown novelist swam into my ken,’ Floyd Dell wrote in his autobiography more than forty years ago, about a time back further still when Sherwood Anderson pressed a manuscript into his hands. American readers can now enjoy a similar shock of recognition by picking up David Rhodes.”—New York Times Book Review“One of the best eyes in recent fiction belongs to the novelist David Rhodes. Rhodes’ eye, like any fine novelist’s, is accurate both about literal detail and about metaphorical equivalencies. The most important point, however, is that nothing in Rhodes’ vision is secondhand.”—John Gardner, from On Becoming a Novelist“A brilliant writer.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer“Wildly imaginative.”—Saturday Review“Rhodes writes with both symphonic grandeur and down-to-earth humility.”—BooklistPraise for Jewelweed“A generous ode to the spirit’s indefatigable longing for love.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune“A master of nuance, Rhodes picks up on those ‘inaudible rhythms’ that drive human actions.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel“Emits frequent solar flares of surprise and wonder.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer“An impressive and emotionally gratifying novel.”—Library Journal“A rhapsodic, many-faceted novel of profound dilemmas, survival, and gratitude.”—BooklistPraise for Driftless“The best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years.”—Chicago Tribune“A profound and enduring paean to rural America. Radiant in its prose and deep in its quiet understanding of human needs.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel“Each of these stories glimmers.”—New Yorker“Moves at a stately pace as it offers deep philosophy and meditative asides about life in Words, Wisconsin, in the Driftless zone -- which is to say, about life on earth.”—NPR, “All Things Considered”“A symphonic paean to the stillness that can be found in certain areas of the Midwest. The writing in Driftless is beautiful and surprising throughout, and it’s this poetic pointillism that originally made Rhodes famous.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune“Few books have the power to transport the way Driftless does, and it’s Rhodes’s eye for detail that we have to thank for it.”—Time Out Chicago“A fast-moving story about small town life with characters that seem to have walked off the pages of Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology.”—Wall Street Journal“Encompassing and incisive, comedic and profound, Driftless is a radiant novel of community and courage.”—Booklist, 2008 Editor’s Choice (starred)“A wry and generous book. Driftless shares a rhythm with the farming community it documents, and its reflective pace is well-suited to characters who are far more comfortable with hard work than words.”—Christian Science Monitor, Best Novels of 2008“Rhodes’ first novel in over 30 years is set in a rural area of Wisconsin so remote and forgotten that it’s left off the map. Most of the residents have chosen to be isolated from the world around them and one another. Nevertheless, their concerns—the meaning of spirituality, family, love, and desire—are global and universal. The characters and their struggles come vibrantly alive.”—Library Journal (starred)Table of ContentsOrientation Familiarity Trouble Going Back Remembering Jet Lag The Saws Working Wood The Glass Eye The Home Place Going In Settling In The Flat Worm Dogs Play Shampoo Insects Whittling Car Jacking Player Piano Divine Madness Visitors Violated Hot Biscuits Femicide Snow Links and Linkage Living Bookends The Service Gene Circling We Grew Up Together Climax Epilogue Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisBold, passionate, and more urgent than ever, Debra Magpie Earling’s powerful classic novel is reborn in this new edition.On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans.Since childhood, Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife, feared not only for his rough-and-tumble ways, but also for the preternatural gifts of his bloodline. Baptiste’s rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman: a man caught between worlds, torn between his duty as a tribal officer and his fascination with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner. The white real estate mogul can offer Louise her wildest dreams of freedom, but at what cost?As tensions mount, Louise finds herself trying to outrun the bitter clutches of winter and the will of powerful men, facing choices that will alter her life—and end another’s—forever.Trade ReviewWinner of the American Book Award, the Reading the West Book Award, and the Western Writers of American Spur Award for Best Novel of the West “Perma Red has no equal. You will be mesmerized by the poetically intimate prose, the realistically graphic details of life on a Montana Indian reservation, and the humor, love and pain you’ll experience through these richly drawn, honest characters. As another of Montana’s greatest writers, James Welch, put it: Perma Red ‘borders on mythic . . . a wonder-filled gift to all.’”—Mark Gibbons, NPR“Boldly drawn and passionate.”—Louise Erdrich, author of The Sentence“Transcendent, powerful, and has a gravity all its own.”—Jamie Ford, Today.com “Spare, tough-minded and big hearted.”—USA Today“[Perma Red has] beautiful language, complex characters, a legitimate and earned sense of where you are in the story. It’s also a gnarly, unflinching look at violence against women. The writing is lovely, emotionally resonant and filled to the brim with depthand pathos for the Flathead and the people who live there. But it’s a novel ofpain and sorrow first and foremost, and it’s a pain and sorrow that looks a lot like it has for the last half millenia.”—Thomas Plank, Missoulian “Dreamy and lyrical, frequently achieving a shimmering beauty.”—The Oregonian “A fever of a story, keenly fighting for air and answers.”—San Francisco Chronicle “It’s not just erotic desire that [Earling] does so well. . . . Louise’s world is one in which all the senses are always on hyper-alert. . . . This young girl’s struggle to save her own life makes for a novel that has you on hyper-alert as you read: alive, alive to the world it conjures.”—Alan Cheuse, NPR “Haunting and memorable . . . Earling’s deliberate pacing gives an otherworldly feel to the grim circumstances of the time, and makes real the hypnotic effect of this slim, green-eyed woman on the men around her.”—Seattle Times “Beautifully written . . . Establishes Earling as the literary heir to great American Indian writers such as James Welch and Louise Erdrich.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A new writer comes straight at us out of the West, bypassing the conscious mind in describing her world of Indian reservations, so that we almost smell that world before we understand it. . . . [Earling’s] writing is the most physical I have read in a long time. . . . Verbs and adjectives dance in new configurations. All this and plot too.”—Los Angeles Times “What a story! Vivid and startling, this heartbreaking novel tells the story of Louise White Elk, a wild and unattainable girl growing to womanhood on the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana. Beautiful but crushed by poverty and the sorrow inflicted by the clash of cultures, harsh circumstance, and the friction between love and power, Louise is pursued by several men. A wealthy white land speculator and a rodeo cowboy tempt her. The tribal policeman who tries repeatedly to save her cannot subdue his tainted motives. But it is the violent, unpredictable Baptiste Yellowknife, with his connection to the old ways, who holds great power over her. Though she uses each to help her find her way, no one and nothing is simple here. These complex characters and the rough beauty of the Flathead Reservation will stay with you long after you close the cover.”—Keelin Kane, Next Chapter Books, St. Paul, MN"From the very first sentence of Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling, Louise White Elk’s struggle is unrelenting, swallowing readers into a story that shocks, and somehow, brims with complicated, raw hope."—Maggie Doherty, Flathead Beacon"I was captivated by Louise While Elk as she struggles to retain her Indigenous identity and ways while trying to break free from all the barriers and biases against women and Native peoples in 1940s Montana.”—Jennifer Wood, East City Bookshop, Washington, DC “Louise White Elk grows up on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Her experiences are defined by the lack of opportunities, and it’s a rough ride filled with many challenges. What are the best choices when none of them are good? It’s great that Milkweed is bringing back this twenty-year-old novel in a new edition. It’s just as timely as when it was written.”—Todd Miller, Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI“Earling is a talent to treasure. . . . Beauty lies in [her] writing. Her words are spare, like the landscape and the bleak hearts of those who judge and torment Louise. Her words are sharp, biting, like the snakes that slither through the tale. Her words are honed to bare Louise's wounds.”—Billings Gazette “A haunting tale of persecution, brutality and prejudice . . . paint[ing] a powerful picture of man’s inhumanity to man—one as dark and uncaring as Montana’s midnight landscapes.”—Texas Observer “Superb . . . A love story of uncommon depth and power, a love story that is as painful as it is transcendent, a love story in which the lovers . . . are unwilling to diminish themselves in the act of joining together but are equally unable to turn away.”—Booklist“This is a book I’ve read again and again, and each time I do, Earling’s words are a treasured and welcomed power.”—Sasha LaPointe, Publishers Weekly, “10 Books by Native Authors That Left Their Mark on Me” “Poignant . . . Earling offers first-rate characterizations, and she does an equally fine job portraying tribal life in the Flatland Nation.”—Publishers Weekly “Perma Red is a startlingly spiritual novel of the lives and loves and heartbreak on a Montana Indian reservation. The characters, especially the strangely destructive lovers, Louise and Baptiste, are so sharply drawn that they will bring tears to your eyes. And the landscape, the richly detailed backdrop against which these characters play out their roles, adds a dimension that borders on mythic. Debra Magpie Earling is a truly gifted writer, and Perma Red is a wonder-filled gift to all of us.”—James Welch, author of Fools Crow “In the deep wells of compassion for her people, and with her stunning eye for the rituals of their existence, Earling reminds us that the greatest writing is always about matters of the human heart.”—Larry Brown, author of Joe “Perma Red is a terrific novel, tough-minded, gritty, and powerful . . . rich with stories of such elemental truth that they have the resonance of sacred songs, the lingering effect of legends. I haven’t read a novel that affected me this much since I first encountered Leslie Silko’s Ceremony.”—James Crumley, author of The Last Good Kiss “With Perma Red, Debra Magpie Earling finally steps forward after two decades and delivers a book as permanently beautiful as the Montana landscape itself. I find it hard, if not impossible, to shake Earling’s book from my mind. To paraphrase another Big Sky writer, Norman Maclean, I am haunted by words.”—David Abrams, author of Fobbit

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Book SynopsisThis harrowing and extraordinary story, based on a true event, is part of a series of tales illuminating the microcosm of all humanity contained in a typical Chinese “worker village.” Here, an exploited young factory worker has nothing to live for beyond a frail chance of a pay raise. When it never happens, he feels trapped between his family and official greed, indifference, and corruption. He then loses a ten-yuan note in a grain shop and turns desperately manic. While burgling the home of his sister, he is caught and accused by his little niece. Horrorstruck, he performs the action that will seal his fate forever . . .Trade Review"Only the Cat Knows is a crushing depiction of everyday life in Mao-era China. It teaches us of a world many of us have not had to live through and provides insight into modern China."—Audrey Fong, Soapberry Review"Meng skillfully depicts the narrator’s unraveling through his paranoia about [a] cat [that witnesses his crime]. The book takes on an Edgar Allan Poe-like quality with its darkness and desperation..."—Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books

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Book SynopsisEighteen-year-old Sonya Hudson has been gripped by phobia since she was thirteen. What would make navigating the world so difficult for this budding visual artist? When the story opens, she lives with her mother and her sister in a suburb in New York in the late 1970s. The narrative carries us back through her childhood, where she struggles with the family’s frequent moving and with her parents’ increasingly fraught marriage. Lingering at the periphery of her consciousness is the shadow of a damaged boy she knew when she was very young. Reverence for the natural world provides comfort, as does her fierce attachment to her sister and her parents’ poignant guidance. But it is the intimacy with another young woman that ultimately offers a path to healing. In language soaring with poetic incantation, From the Longing Orchard shows us the ways in which a young woman and those she loves all must contend with a longing of some kind and how they seek from each other, and sometimes find, the needed balm.

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Book SynopsisA rollicking, picaresque novel about family and perseverance set during America's forgotten war of 1812.Young Henry Phipps is on a quest to realize his dying mother's last wish: to be buried at sea, surrounded by her family. Not an easy task considering Henry's ne'er-do-well father is in debtor's prison and his comically earnest older brother is busy fighting the red coats on the battlefields of Maryland. But Henry's stubborn determination knows no bounds. As he dodges the cannon fire of clashing armies and picks among the ruins of a burning capital he meets looters, British defectors, renegade slaves, a pregnant maiden in distress, and scoundrels of all types. Mad Boy is at once an antic adventure and a thoroughly convincing work of historical fiction that recreates a young nation's first truly international conflict and a key moment in the history of the emancipation of African-American slaves.Entertaining, atmospheric, and touching, Mad Boy will transport readers with its cast of vivid characters, its masterful storytelling, and its poignant tale of a young man burdened by an outsized undertaking.Nick Arvin is an immensely gifted writer, and he has given us a thrilling, soulful book.David Wroblewdki, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle on The ReconstructionistThis compact, intense first novelevokes the nightmare into which soldiers are suddenly thrown.The New York Times Review of Books on Articles of WarThis brilliant musket blast of a novelin which the lucky reader will encounter falling cows, repurposed pickle barrels, fascinating schemes and fabulous schemersis alive with humor, heat and heart. Mad Boy is a tremendous accomplishment. Nick Arvin is the real thing.Laird Hunt, author of The Evening Road

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