A Small Press Book We Love: Duplex by Kathryn Davis
Small presses have had a rough year, but as the literary world continues to conglomerate, we at Literary Hub think they’re more important than ever. Which is why, every (work) day in March—which just so happens to be National Small Press Month—a Lit Hub staff member will be recommending a small press book that they love.
The only rule of this game is that there are no rules, except that the books we recommend must have been published, at some time, and in some place, by a small press. What does it mean to be a small press? Unfortunately there is no exact definition or cutoff. All of the presses mentioned here are considered to be small presses by the recommending editors, and for our purposes, that’s going to be good enough. All of the books mentioned here are considered to be great by the recommending editors, too. If one intrigues you, consider picking it up at your local bookstore, or ordering through Bookshop.org, or even directly from the publisher.
Today, we’re recommending:
Duplex by Kathryn Davis
published by Graywolf Press (2013)
Graywolf is one of the most beloved small presses in the literary landscape, not least because they publish knockout after knockout. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but I love to recommend Kathryn Davis’s beautiful, bonkers novel Duplex, which is dear to my heart for many reasons, but first and foremost for its reminder that despite the supposed conventions of genre and form and the marketplace, novels (and novelists) can actually do anything they want.
In this book, Davis writes sharp, clean sentences and dreamy complex ones. She writes about teenage girls and robots and the myths that both divert from and create our everyday experience and motherhood and the nature of time and a sorcerer called Body-without-Soul, also known as Walter. It is all deeply familiar and absolutely brand new, in a way I have never encountered before or since. Davis can show you the sidewalk and make it fascinating. Imagine if Leonora Carrington rewrote The Virgin Suicides—though honestly, if that description appeals to you, you’ve probably already read this novel. Also congratulations, you are the right kind of person. But I actually think that everyone who reads this book takes something slightly different away from it: such is its complexity and subtlety, such is its mystery. It’s not the easiest trip to take, but it is a deeply rewarding one.
–Emily Temple, Managing Edditor
