New Books In Literature

Today I talked to Michelle Brafman about her novel Swimming with Ghosts (Keylight Books, 2023). Until her unemployed husband Charlie volunteers to step in as team coach, professional organizer Gillian Cloud has also controlled the neighborhood swim club and its team. She’s a beautiful, much-admired part of the community, but Gillian is living behind a façade, refusing to accept the truth about her father’s alcoholism and philandering, suppressing any unpleasantness in order to present her well-known positivity. Her best friend Kristy learns the truth about her own hidden addictions, which surface in a dangerous way and require the support of a former mentor. It’s the summer of 2012, and after the ghosts of family addictions appear, and a real derecho destroys the clubhouse and destroys the power grid for several days, both Gillian and Kristy need to come to terms with their past trauma. Michelle Brafman is the author of Bertrand Court: Stories and the novel Washing the Dead. Her essays and short fiction have

According to Merriam-Webster, noir is “crime fiction featuring hard-boiled, cynical characters and bleak, sleazy settings.” The Cambridge Dictionary says noir shows “the world as being unpleasant, strange, or cruel.” Nick Harkaway new novel Titanium Noir (Knopf, 2023) has all that but with a twist—rather than the fedora-wearing detective hired by a woman who just as soon stab you in the back and love you, the first-person narrator is P.I. Cal Sounder, hired by the police to help investigate the murder of a 7’8”, 91-year-old man who by all rights could have lived several more centuries. Sounder’s specialty is investigating crimes against Titans, the one percenters among one percenters, whose access to an exclusive medical treatment known as Titanium 7 enlarges both their bodies and their lifespans. The story is set hundreds of years in the future, when such miracle treatments become possible, but the book also sends roots into the past. The murder weapon, for instance, is a .22 Derringer, a small handgun not t

n this episode (originally aired by our partner Novel Dialogue) John and his Brandeis colleague Eugene Sheppard speak with Joshua Cohen about The Netanyahus. Is the 2021 novel a Pulitzer-winning bravura story of the world’s worst job interview? Or is it a searing indictment of ethno-nationalist Zionism–and the strange act of pretense whereby American Jewish writers and thinkers in postwar America pretended that Israel and its more extreme ethno-nationalist strains didn’t concern them? Cohen dramatizes the return of that repressed by imagining the family of the Benzion Netanyahu (actual medieval Spanish historian and father of Israel’s past and present Prime Minister Bibi) landing itself on a would-be assimilated American Jewish family ripped straight from the pages of a Philip Roth or Bernard Malamud novel. With John and Eugene, Joshua dissects the legacy of earlier American Jewish writers like Cynthia Ozick, and offers finer details of how Ze’ev Jabotinksy‘s bellicose views would ultimately take hold in Isra

T. Kingfisher’s newest novel Thornhedge (Tor, 2023) is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty that follows Toadling, the person in charge of keeping the fair maiden asleep inside her tower and the thorns surrounding that tower strong. Kingfisher discusses the joys of retellings, her love of plants, and the ways in which a story can be simultaneously murderous and gentle. A. E. Lanier is a short fiction writer and educator living in Central Texas. More about her work can be found at aelanier.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Linda Nemec Foster has published twelve collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk (finalist for the Ohio Book Award in Poetry), Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book) which was created with co-author Anne-Marie Oomen and artist Meridith Ridl. Her work appears in magazines and journals such as The Georgia Review, Nimrod, New American Writing, North American Review, Verse Daily, Paterson Literary Review, Witness, and the 2022 Best Small Fictions Anthology. She has received over 30 nominations for the Pushcart Prize and awards from the Arts Foundation of Michigan, National Writer’s Voice, Dyer-Ives Foundation, The Poetry Center (New Jersey), Fish Anthology (Ireland), and the Academy of American Poets. In 2021 her poetry book, The Blue Divide, was published by New Issues Press and received a featured review in Publishers Weekly.  A new collection of prose poetry, Bone Country (Cornerstone Press), was published in 2023 after being honored as a finalist in seve

Today I talked to Elizabeth Graver about her new novel Kantika (Metropolitan Books, 2023). Rebecca Cohen and her family live in Istanbul, until they lose all their wealth and are forced to leave. It’s also no longer safe for Jews, and many are trying to find a place to go. Rebecca’s father, once a successful businessman, now cleans a synagogue in Barcelona. Rebecca finds work as a seamstress and marries a man who is barely at home. He later dies, leaving her with two young sons to raise on her own, but she’s already started her own business. A second marriage is arranged, but she has to get to Havana to meet her potential husband, and he has to lie to get back to the states faster than the usual bureaucracy allows. Finally, married and in her new home, she’s challenged with helping her disabled stepdaughter, learning yet another new language, and building a new life. Rebecca was a tenacious heroine whose story has been lovingly fictionalized by her granddaughter, author Elizabeth Graver. Elizabeth Graver’s fo

Today I talked to Arin Greenwood about her new book Your Robot Dog Will Die (Soho, 2019). When a global genetic experiment goes awry and canines stop wagging their tails, mass hysteria ensues and the species is systematically euthanized. But soon, Mechanical Tail comes to the rescue. The company creates replacements for “man’s best friend” and studies them on Dog Island, where 17-year-old Nano Miller was born and raised. Nano’s life has become a cycle of annual heartbreak. Every spring, she is given the latest robot dog model to test, only to have it torn from her arms a year later. But one day she makes a discovery that upends everything she’s taken for granted: a living puppy that miraculously wags its tail. And there is no way she’s letting this dog go. Arin Greenwood is an animal writer and former lawyer living in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband, Ray, and their beloved pets. Arin was animal welfare editor for The Huffington Post. Her stories about dogs, cats, and other critters have appeared in

Today I interview Cecilia Gentili about her new book, Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist (LittlePuss Press, 2022). In this poignant and powerful and sometimes wickedly hilarious book, Gentili looks back at her childhood in a small town in Argentina and at the people who shaped her life, in ways that are by turns joyous and painful. What emerges, as we read her intimate letters, is the portrait of a person—both then and now—fully and beautifully committed to embracing one’s self, with all our splendor and all our faltas. Enjoy my conversation with the singular Cecilia Gentili. Eric LeMay is on the creative writing faculty at Ohio University. He is the author of five books, most recently Remember Me. He can be reached at eric@ericlemay.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

With this sharp and witty debut collection, author Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, pre-occupied by nostalgia for past relationships--with friends, roommates, siblings--while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In "That Is Shocking," a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In "Cinnamon Baseball Coyote" and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan, and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents. Throughout, in stories both lyrical and haunting, young women search for ways to break free from the expectations of others and find a way to be in the world. Written with crystalline prose and sly hu

Today I talked to Leanne Kale Sparks about her new book Every Missing Girl (Crooked Lane Books, 2023). The stunning landscape of Colorado's Rocky Mountains are among our greatest natural treasures. But there are deadly secrets lurking in the craggy heights, and FBI Special Agent Kendall Beck and Denver Homicide Detective Adam Taylor team up to investigate a kidnapping. When Taylor's niece, Frankie, suddenly vanishes at a local hockey rink, it's clear that there's a predator on the loose--and now, the case has turned personal. One discovery after another leads Beck and Taylor closer to the truth, as they close in on the devastating truth about the fates of the missing girls--and the many who came before them. Will they be able to find Frankie before it's too late? In this thrilling story, Leanne Kale Sparks weaves the threads of this harrowing drama and builds the intensity to a fever pitch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://ne

In Amy Grace Loyd’s new novel, The Pain of Pleasure (Roundabout Press 2023), nearly everyone suffers some kind of intense pain. Some find their way to the Doctor, formerly a respected neurologist but now director of a headache clinic in the basement of what was once a Brooklyn church. He experiments with different treatments for a wide variety of migraine sufferers but can’t stop obsessing over Sarah, the patient who suddenly broke off contact with the clinic and disappeared, leaving only a journal that describes her affair with a married man. The Doctor’s salary and the clinic’s costs are underwritten by a wealthy patron, Adele Watson, who, because she believes the doctor was in love with Sarah, is also obsessed. Mrs. Watson hires Ruth, a nurse with her own troubled back story, to spy on the Doctor. And the fragile balance between patient health and trust in The Doctor starts to crumble when a hurricane sweeps through New York, upending or destroying whatever is in its path. Amy Grace Loyd is an editor, teac

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad. In this episode, you’ll hear our interview with Alejandro Varela about his books The Town of Babylon and The People Who Report More Stress, both published by Astra House. The Town of Babylon was a finalist for the National Book Award, and The People Who Report More Stress is sure to earn similar accolades. We discussed stress as a silent killer in Latinx communities; the challenges of interethnic and interracial relationships; whether it’s possible to partner with someone who doesn’t share your politics; suburbs and cities; the meanings of Latinx literature as a genre; and so much more. Varela is a writer based in New York City. He has a background in public health, which is evident in his writing. His writing has appeared in the Point Magazine, Georgia Review, Boston Review, Harper’s, The Offing, and oth

Matt Donovan speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his prose poem “Guy with a Gun,” which appeared in The Common’s fall issue. Matt talks about the conversation that inspired the poem—an encounter with a Sandy Hook parent that highlights the complex gray area around guns and gun ownership. He also discusses how his poetry collection about the issue of guns in the US evolved from a nonfiction book proposal, his aims in undertaking the project, and his job running The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College. Matt Donovan is the author of three collections of poetry, and a book of lyric essays. His latest collection, The Dug-Up Gun Museum, came out last year from BOA Editions. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, a Creative Capital Grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature. He serves as director of The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College. ­­Read Matt’s poems in The Common here.  Read more from Matt here. The Common is a print and onli

When Tenzin Dickie was growing up in exile in India, she didn’t have access to works by Tibetan writers. Now, as an editor and translator, she is working to create and elevate the stories she wished she had had as a young writer. Her new book, The Penguin Book of Modern Tibetan Essays (Vintage Books, 2023), offers a comprehensive introduction to modern Tibetan nonfiction, featuring essays from twenty-two Tibetan writers from around the world. Taken as a whole, the collection provides an intimate and powerful portrait of modern Tibetan life and what it means to live in exile. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Dickie to discuss the history of the Tibetan essay, why she views exile as a kind of bardo, and how modern Tibetan writers are continually recreating the Tibetan nation. Tricycle Talks is a monthly podcast featuring prominent voices from within and beyond the Buddhist fold. Listen to more episodes here. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review provides a uni

Today I talked to CK Westbrook about The Collision (4 Horsemen Publications, 2022), volume 2 of the "The Impact Trilogy." As the world continues to reel from the shooting, Kate must race to save humanity from more horrific violence. After escaping an angry, dangerous mob, Kate Stellute and her neighbor Sinclair set out on a journey to stop Rex––and his kind—from unleashing more pain on the remaining population. The sinister otherworldly being has already made hundreds of millions of people turn their guns on themselves and amidst the suffering and death, no one can predict what he will do next. Kate knows she and Sinclair are up against an impossible deadline to stop Rex's mission before it's too late. Relying on the biophysicist's late wife’s mysterious research to determine what caused the alien's wrath, Kate and Sinclair join forces with NASA, a rogue Space Force agent, and two billionaire space bros. Together they'll attempt to implement an improbable and risky plan. The unlikely team may just be the plan

Steve Fox is the winner of the Rick Bass Montana Prize for Fiction, The Great Midwest Writing Contest, the Jade Ring Award, and a Midwestern Gothic Summer Flash Contest. His fiction has appeared in New Ohio Review, Orca, a Literary Journal, Midwest Review, Midwestern Gothic, Wisconsin People & Ideas, Whitefish Review, and others. He holds a Master of Arts in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has lived and worked in four continents. Steve now resides in his home state of Wisconsin with his wife, Stephanie, three boys, and one dog. The seventeen unrelenting stories in Steve Fox's debut story collection, Sometimes Creek (Cornerstone Press, 2023), traverse a sub-zero trail of plausible magic and grit from a kaleidoscope of broken ice at a hockey rink in Wisconsin that coils through haunted rivers and around dangling legs of jamón serrano in sweltering Spanish bars and back again to a place where Kafka and Carver meet up on the page. Fox's clean prose takes you by the hand and weaves a tapestry

Today I talked to Jeri Westerson about her book The Isolated Séance (Severn House, 2023). It’s 1895, and Tim Badger, who is quite familiar with the inside of a jail cell, and his intuitive friend Ben Watson, who is Black in a society that is weary of difference, are unlikely detectives. But Tim was once one of the Baker Street Irregular urchins who ran errands and spied for the great Sherlock Holmes, and the two young men are trying to be detectives. They’re struggling with their new detective agency when a potential client staggers in. Thomas Brent is being sought by police after his boss Horace Quinn is murdered during a séance in a closed room in his own house. The only other people in the room in addition to the dead man and his valet, Thomas, were the housekeeper, the maid, and the gypsy woman who led the séance. Thomas Brent hires Badger and Watson, who take turns telling the story. They get into a bit of trouble and occasionally find a clue, but Sherlock Holmes, Badger’s old boss, clearly wants them to

Today I talked to Jennifer Savran Kelly her new book Endpapers (Algonquin Books, 2023). Dawn Levit has reached a crossroads in life. What seemed like a stable relationship with a gay roommate is becoming ever more complicated; frayed family ties will not mend soon, if they ever do; and half the time Dawn can’t even decide on waking up in the morning whether to dress as a woman, a man, or some combination of both. A job restoring old books for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York brings tactile and professional satisfaction, but it cannot compensate for the artistic inspiration that appears to have deserted Dawn just when it’s needed most. When by chance Dawn discovers, in the endpapers of a water-damaged book, a love letter in German from one woman to another, the urge to identify the writer holds out the possibility of distraction from day-to-day problems. The book dates from the 1950s, making it difficult but not impossible to investigate the circumstances that caused the letter to be written, then hi

Rachel Mennies embraces the public/private duality of writing letters in her latest collection of poems. Told through a time-honored epistolary narrative, The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021) chronicles the relationship between a woman speaker and Naomi, the woman she loves. Set mostly over the span of a single year encompassing the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, their love story unfolds via correspondence, capturing the letters the speaker sends to Naomi—and occasionally Naomi’s responses, as filtered through the speaker’s retelling. These letter-poems form a braid, first from the use of found texts, next from the speaker’s personal observations about her bisexuality, Judaism, and mental illness, and lastly from her testimonies of past experiences. As the speaker discovers she has fallen in love with Naomi, her letters reveal the struggles, joys, and erasures she endures as she becomes reacquainted with her own body following a long period of anxiety and suicidal ideation, working to recover

What happens when you come of age in mid-life? Why is so challenging to figure out your own past? Can you find the permission to be weird? (And can you be happy if you don’t?) Memoirist and English professor Hannah Pittard joins us to explore: If the personal is ever too personal. What is a collective memory. The imperfect way we perceive our own experiences. Taking risks in writing and in life. The memoir We Are Too Many. Today’s book is: We Are Too Many, a memoir about a marriage-ending affair between award-winning author Hannah Pittard’s husband and her best friend. An innovative and genre-bending look at a marriage and friendship gone wrong, Professor Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of conversations that are fast-paced, intimate, and reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. She takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with—from the depths of female rage to the ways we outgrow certain people. We Are Too