Tash Aw! A biography of Tim O’Brien! Lesbian hotlines! 22 new books out today.
May is nearing its end, and this has been a month that once again will be remembered most, perhaps, for its political and socioeconomic horrors, for its ever-larger steps towards American fascism. In these frightening, flummoxing times, art soothes, clarifies, and reveals, and to that end, I bring to you twenty-two new books to consider checking out in fiction and nonfiction.
In a time when LGBTQ—and especially trans—rights are under severe attack, you’ll find a slew of exciting queer stories in fiction and nonfiction. You’ll find a striking new biography of a literary veteran, Tim O’Brien, from Alex Vernon, new stories from Etgar Keret, Darrow Farr with a novel inspired by Patty Hearst, new fiction from Tash Aw, and much, much more.
I hope these exciting new options keep you company as June approaches.
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Paula Bomer, The Stalker
(Soho Press)
“Brilliant, disturbing, and hilarious….For all the obvious comparisons to Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley or Bret Easton Ellis’s Patrick Bateman, Doughty also serves as a male counterpart of Ottessa Moshfegh’s narrator in My Year of Rest and Relaxation: a blond narcissist who stares out onto a vanished Manhattan skyline through a cloud of drugs, desperation, and delusion. The final pages, as in Moshfegh’s work, will move readers with their unlikely and ultimately transcendent beauty.”
–Vogue
Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories
(Riverhead)
“A bemusing clutch of comic vignettes alert to contemporary anxieties. For veteran Israeli writer Keret, technology doesn’t simplify our lives so much as amplify our foibles….In its strongest moments, what resonates most aren’t Keret’s high-concept predicaments, but the determination of characters to preserve their humanity despite them. Wry, affectionate, tart storytelling with Keret’s trademark comic kick.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Darrow Farr, The Bombshell
(Pamela Dorman Books)
“A lush, cinematic and propulsive novel filled with sex, violence, glamor and a true revolutionary spirit. It’s a towering literary achievement. The Bombshell is certain to be the debut of the year, a true must-read.”
–Adam Johnson
Tommy Dorfman, Maybe This Will Save Me
(Hanover Square Press)
“A stunning memoir of art, addiction, and transformation….Tommy Dorfman has written a fascinating, innovative twist on memoir, a book that breaks new forms to produce flashing vignettes of insight while compiling a moving document on the process of becoming.”
–Torrey Peters
Alex Vernon, Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien
(St. Martin’s Press)
“Tim O’Brien is one of the essential writers of his generation. More than any other records we have, his fiction documents the fissures that defined America in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. They are also models of the highest art. In this magnificent new biography, Alex Vernon tells O’Brien’s story with sympathy and an understanding of the nuances—historical, cultural, political, and personal—that made O’Brien the writer he became.”
–Tracy Daugherty
Chyana Marie Sage, Soft as Bones: A Memoir
(House of Anansi Press)
“[Sage] toggles effortlessly between the roles of diarist, poet, and journalist, linking her personal history to a pattern of intergenerational violence, all without snuffing out hope for healing. Readers will be as inspired as they are horrified.”
–Publishers Weekly
Tash Aw, The South
(FSG)
“Like Chekhov’s Russia, Aw’s Malaysia is both a universally resonant vision of a timeless and placeless lost world, and a historically precise portrait of a country undergoing rapid modernization….[Aw] emerg[es] as a Proustian chronicler of momentary bodily and mental experience writing on a compressed, exquisite scale…blending the timeless and the historical to reinvent what an epic can be.”
–Lara Feigel
Nicola Dinan, Disappoint Me
(Dial Press)
“Disappoint Me is a mature and assured novel. I admired Nicola Dinan’s work in elaborating the growing pains of a trans experience muddled by race, class, and changing public attitudes.”
–Mendez
Michael Farris Smith, Lay Your Armor Down
(Little Brown)
“Lay Your Armor Down is a prophetic, propulsive tale that is sure to leave its lasting mark on the Southern gothic cannon. Smith is at his best in these pages, his signature prose rendering a work as dark and beautiful as a summer storm. This novel is a masterclass in storytelling, with characters that are uniquely unforgettable, and an ending that’s well worth the journey.”
–Scott Blackburn
Elizabeth Lovatt, Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line
(Legacy Lit)
“Elizabeth Lovatt uncovers an unbeatably cool archive. Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a fun, informative, heartfelt and passionate book of lesbian history that shows how across generations, lesbians have found their way to one another.”
–BookPage
Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature
(Spiegel and Grau)
“Just as nature resists easy categorization, so does this gem of a book. It is a heartfelt memoir. It is a lyrical feat of science writing. Perhaps above all else, it is a love letter to the messy, wondrous, complicated, binary-defying nature of the natural world–and, within it, us. I loved it.”
–Ed Yong
Eli Erwick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950
(Beacon Press)
“We are so lucky to have a gifted storyteller unearth these lost tales of our trans and nonbinary forebears, and weave them all together into this heartwarming, uplifting book. Before Gender shows that history can be both entertaining and impactful while addressing the most pressing issues for trans people today.”
–Kate Bornstein
José Eduardo Agalusa, The Living and the Rest (trans. Daniel Hahn)
(Archipelago)
“In José Eduardo Agualusa’s clever and appealing The Living and the Rest…disaster yields to the same contest of wills, domesticated intrigues, and creative urges going on around the world amid talk about book tours, festivals, workshops, residencies, panels, publishers, agents, how to become more visible on the Internet.”
–Tom Wilhelmus
Rita Halász, Deep Breath (trans. Kris Herbert)
(Catapult)
“Rita Halász is the Elena Ferrante of Budapest, with a heartbreaking humor entirely her own. I loved this novel.”
–Jessi Jezewska Stevens
Rochelle Dowden-Lord, Lush
(Bloomsbury)
“What a pleasure to sink into this gorgeous, sensual debut. Rochelle Dowden-Lord’s witty, sparkling prose brims with the fullness of life. Never has a novel been more deserving of its title!”
–Antonia Angress
Jay Winik, 1861: The Lost Peace
(Grand Central Publishing)
“A fascinating look at some of the less familiar history in the days leading up to the Civil War.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Dave Hage, Josephine Marcotty, Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie
(Random House)
“Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty chronicle an environmental crisis most Americans are unaware of: the ongoing destruction of the country’s great prairies. Sea of Grass is eloquent both on the complexity of this amazing ecosystem and its fragility.”
–Elizabeth Kolbert
Jordan Thomas, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
(Riverhead)
“In this engrossing work on wildfires and the environment, Thomas skillfully weaves together how historical events, genocide, politics, and the logging industry have all contributed to climate change, creating megafires throughout the American West.”
–Library Journal
Fatma Qandil, Empty Cages (trans. Adam Talib)
(Hoopoe)
“Empty Cages is a beautiful, lingering novel. Fatma’s own approach to her story seems like a dare to challenge her detachment. At every turn, she downplays her defiance of cultural taboos. She smokes, drinks, rejects marriage as destiny, and pursues poetry–not in rebellion, but in quiet insistence on her own path.”
–Foreword Reviews
Jessica Stanley, Consider Yourself Kissed
(Riverhead)
“Jessica Stanley’s principal subject is romance, which she renders—in all its mess and glory—masterfully. But the real delight in Consider Yourself Kissed is how the novel confidently thinks about love more broadly.”
–Rumaan Alam
Harrison Browne, Rachel Browne, Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes
(Beacon Press)
“This well-researched, trenchantly argued, and compassionately written book is a must-read for those invested in the fight against transphobia. Deftly combining memoir-style profiles of trans athletes with political analysis, the authors clearly and adeptly dismantle both the patriarchal, transphobic basis of anti-trans policies and our preconceived notions about gender, ability, and sport. A strong argument for dismantling gender segregation in sports.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“At last – a new account for our times of Thomas Müntzer, theologian and revolutionary. Drummond brings Müntzer and his world vividly to life. He shows us just why Müntzer hated Luther, and how he came to take up arms. What did it mean to be a revolutionary in sixteenth-century Germany?—Drummond shows us. You will be gripped and inspired by this exciting story—I couldn’t put it down.”
–Lyndal Roper
