New Books In Literature

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press, 2020) is a collection of linked short stories, which Luis Alberto Urrea called “a world-class collection.” The book won the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story and the International Latino book Award for Best Collection of Short Stories. Troncoso fills these 13 linked stories with the struggles and triumphs of Mexican/American immigrants or their children who’ve settled in the United States. In a nod to philosophical perspectivism, the view that perception changes according o the viewer’s interpretation, Troncoso presents characters who return again and again, in different situations, from different perspectives. Sergio Troncoso is an American author of short stories, essays, and novels. He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, immigration, philosophy in literature, families, fatherhood, and crossing cultural, religious, and psychological borders. Currently president of the Texas Institute of Letters, Tronosco is a Fulbright scholar a

At first, Miles Furling plays football to fit in. By eighth grade he realizes that he is both gay and a football player. After an unsuccessful attempt at honesty, he hides who he is and puts all his energy into being a successful high school linebacker. Now it’s the early 2000’s, and Miles earns a full football scholarship to King College, which is known as having the worst Division One football program and one of the best academic programs In the country. When he arrives for the recruiting visit, Miles is shocked to hear one of the country’s top recruits, the brilliant Reshawn McCoy, taking what looks like an illegal bribe. Nobody knows why he chose King, but Reshawn, who is assigned as Miles’s roommate, refuses to talk about it. Turns out he’s also struggling to be something he’s not and focuses on his research about the school’s slave-owning founders. The decisions they make will change both their lives. Corey Sobel is a graduate of Duke University, where he was a scholarship football player and received t

In Freedom Knows My Name (Xavier Review Press, 2020), Kelly Harris-DeBerry creates the world anew from scraps of memories and rhythm. She bounces between the pages, as well as the accompanying audio version of the poems, with confidence. Kalamu Ya Salaam writes in the introduction “The poet’s task is to turn words into song, utter incantations that heal, inspire, be more than ordinary talk” and Harris-DeBerry has a voice that encompasses each other those tasks. It is strong and it is unwavering. Whether she is on the page or in readers’ ears, Harris-DeBerry’s poetry is a bounty of culture, womanhood, home, and possibility. In an age where everything can be, and is, commodified for profit and the cool factor yet the actual Black artists producing the work can be undervalued, Harris-DeBerry’s poetry honors and respects the legacies of Southern migration, the Midwest, and Blackness. Kelly Harris-DeBerry received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. She has received fellowships f

Today I interview Carly Israel about her bold new memoir, Seconds and Inches (Jaded Ibis Press). In the opening sentence of her introduction, Israel writes, “My last name, Israel, means one who wrestles with God. And wrestling is all I know.” And that description gives us a sense of Israel’s book. It’s not a mere recollection, but a reckoning, one in which Israel wrestles not only with her own life, but also with the past she inherited, one full of intergenerational trauma as well as intergenerational gifts. Israel also wrestles for a future she hopes to make for herself and her young sons, one full of grace and gratitude. “You have to find a gift in every hard thing.” That’s advice that Israel once received. And her book, in which she wrestles with the pain and grief and beauty of life, is her gift to us. Eric LeMay is on the creative writing faculty at Ohio University. His work ranges from food writing to electronic literature. He is the author of three books, most recently In Praise of Nothing: Essay, Memo

“But creative writers are valuable allies and their evidence is to be prized highly for they are apt to know a whole host of things between heaven and earth of which our philosophy has not yet let us dream.” Freud (1907) Jessica Gross is a valuable ally. An intuitive reader of Freud her debut novel--Hysteria (Unnamed Press, 2020)--embraces Oedipal conflict, unconscious fantasy, and voracious sexuality. The narrator, a young woman living in current day Brooklyn, discovers Freud tending bar at a neighborhood haunt “perfect for making trouble” which she does and which Freud sees. He also sees her for a session on the couch. An analysand herself, Gross renders the treatment with such emotional precision that “delusion and dream” slip away and we eavesdrop on a highly relatable woman confronting overlapping desires. Throughout the novel, Gross’ generosity with her narrator is a sensitive illustration of “say everything” the fundamental request of analysis. It is a gift for anyone who has never had the experience n

Most people think of Edgar Degas as a French painter of ballerinas. But few have heard that his mother came from New Orleans or that he spent five months in that city between October 1872 and February 1873. That five-month period proved crucial to Degas’s career, moving him from the status of a relative unknown dabbling in the not-quite-respectable world of the Paris Opera into an artist of renown. And although he went back to painting ballerinas—many of his most famous works date from 1873 and later—it was his study of his brothers, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, that won him the critical acclaim that pushed him into the next stage of his career. In Estelle (She Writes Press, 2020), Linda Stewart Henley takes this vital transition as her starting point for a dual-time story in which a young woman named Anne Gautier, twenty-two years old and fresh out of college, inherits an old house on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans in 1970. While overseeing renovations and dealing with protestors opposed to urban renewal

Silviana Wood is a legend of Chicano theatre. Through her involvement with Teatro Libertad, Teatro Chicano, and El Teatro Nacional de Atzlán she has created plays where working class Chicanos are center stage. Despite her insistence that she is “a storyteller, not an activist,” her plays reflect her deep connection to the Movimiento Chicano. They are also funny, imaginative, and heartbreaking, sometimes all in the same scene. Her book Barrio Dreams (University of Arizona Press 2016) collects five of her plays. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. His plays have been produced, developed, or presented at IRT, Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, Roundabout Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Naked Theatre Company, Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and The Trunk Space. He is currently working on a series of 50 plays about the 50 U

Cass Raines left the Chicago Police force after a morally bankrupt cop nearly got her killed. Now she runs her own Private Detective agency. When her old CPD friend and partner, Ben Mickerson asks Cass to join him for a side gig, she’s happy to do it. Then she meets the client – the wealthy, powerful owner of a fast-growing media empire. Vonda Allen is loved by the public but hated by her employees and also by whoever is sending her death threats. Cass isn’t thrilled about babysitting a heartless diva, but when two of Vonda’s staff members are murdered, the case gets serious. Then, at one of Vonda’s book signings, a mysterious fan stabs Ben. Although Vonda fires her, Cass is worried that Ben won’t pull through. Now, there’s no way she’s going to sit this one out even though that same morally bankrupt cop and his friend are trying to trip her up. She’s hell bent on figuring out Vonda’s secrets and determined to get answers before anyone else, including Vonda, dies. Tracy Clark is the author of the highly accla

Ann Dávila Cardinal writes stories that thrill you. She writes about lives that face challenge and find a way through, despite the horror that chases them. She writes about Puerto Rico and trauma and belonging somewhere. I can honestly say I have enjoyed every word in Five Midnights (Tor Teen, 2019) and Category Five (Tor Teen, 2020), her two recently released young adult novels that follow Lupe and Javier as they face apparitions, ghosts, and shape-shifting monsters—as well as their own flesh and blood—until they eventually find themselves. Listen in as we chat about these two magnificent books, about her own life as a self-proclaimed Gringa-Rican, and about what’s next for her as a novelist. Ellee Achten is a writer and editor exploring issues of home, health, memory, and attachment. She writes everything from magazine features to lyrical memoir to sci-fi novels. She is currently working on many projects, including a collection of essays about the traumatic connection between the body and mind. She can be r

Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness (Harper, 2020) is a poignant portrait of a mother and daughter fleeing the polluted cities of a near-future dystopia for a hand-to-mouth existence in the country’s last undeveloped tract. It’s also one of the unusual works of speculative fiction that’s been embraced by the world of high literature by (just this week) reaching the final round of the prestigious Booker Prize. Although Cook has lived mostly in cities, she loves spending time in nature and wrote some of The New Wilderness while trekking across the high desert of Oregon. “There is something about the expansiveness of lands that are empty that make my imagination feel a lot freer than it usually does in a city,” she says. For Cook’s protagonist Bea, the Wilderness State offers the only hope for saving the life of her 5-year-old daughter, Agnes. But as Agnes’ lungs heal from the city’s smog, her relationship with her mother grows strained, suffering rifts that might be typical for a mother and daughter but are magnifi

While Arthur Nakai is attending a wake for a man he considered a brother with whom he served in the U.S. Marines, he receives a call from an old friend whose sons have just been murdered. Arthur soon finds himself involved in the multi-billion-dollar world of the oil and gas industry. He faces an old adversary from when he was a member of the Shadow Wolves, an elite tactical unit within US Customs and Border Protection. Now that same adversary runs a heavily armed group of sociopathic men who are paid to keep the oil rigs and gas wells secure from protesters. Can’t let anything stop big business from getting access to all that reservation land – so what if fracking poisons Native Americans’ water supply and further fractures their community? Death Waits in the Dark (Blackstone Publishing) is Book 2 in The Arthur Nakai Mysteries. Mark Edward Langley was instilled with a love for the American West by his father. After many visits, his connection to the land and its people became irrevocable, but he was appalled

Premee Mohamed's Beneath the Rising (Solaris, 2020) is simultaneously a far-flung horror story and an exploration of an intimate relationship. At the heart of this novel, full of threatening monsters and ancient terrors, is the accommodation one makes with the exploitation of others, when it serves a higher goal. Scientist and child prodigy, Joanna (Johnnie) Chambers, embarks on a quest to save the world with her loyal best friend Nick. The story is told through Nick’s perspective—he is at totally devoted to Johnnie and yet, resentful of her. Nick yearns for Johnnie, not just romantically, but also because she is a symbol of privilege. He is angry that he, as an economically struggling Indo-Caribbean, is not granted the same respect that wealthy, white Johnnie gets. Her life of privilege, like her love, seem unattainable for someone like Nick. However, when all hell breaks loose after one of Johnnie’s experiments unleashes horror on this world, Nick finds himself on a long strange journey with Johnnie to save

Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon King, is an abusive man who endured a terrible childhood. Her best friend, Layla, has always tried to protect Ruby from Lebanon even though her own father and Ruby’s father have been close friends since childhood. And their mothers were friends before them. In this moving debut novel, Saving Ruby King (Park Row Books), Catherine Adel West gives each character a voice, but the voice that binds all of their lives together is that of the Calvary Hope Christian Church, objective witness to the complex ties between Ruby’s grandmother and her two friends, between Ruby’s father and Layla’s father, and between Ruby and Layla. In precise, lyrical writing, West delves into each of their secrets while exploring intergenerational trauma, racial injustice in Chicago, and the power of friendship. Catherine Adel West was born and raised in Chicago, IL where she currently resides. S

Mordantly funny and deeply moving, The Hilltop about life in a West Bank settlement has been hailed as “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and “The Great Israeli Novel [in which] Gavron stakes his claim to be Israel’s Jonathan Franzen” (Tablet). On a rocky hilltop stands Ma’aleh Hermesh C, a fledgling outpost of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. According to government records it doesn’t exist; according to the military it must be defended. On this contested land, Othniel Assis—under the wary gaze of the Palestinians in the neighboring village—lives on his farm with his ever-expanding family. As Othniel cheerfully manipulates government agencies, more settlers arrive, and a hodge-podge of shipping containers and mobile homes takes root. One steadfast resident is Gabi Kupper, a former kibbutz dweller who savors the delicate routines of life on the settlement. When Gabi’s prodigal brother, Roni, arrives penniless on his doorstep with a bizarre plan to sell the “artisanal” olive oil from the Palestinian

Yehoshua November's second poetry collection, Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books), movingly examines the harmonies and dissonances involved in practicing an ancient religious tradition in contemporary America. November's beautiful and profound meditations on work and family life, and the intersections of the sacred and the secular, invite the reader--regardless of background--to imaginatively inhabit a life of religious devotion in the midst of our society's commotion. Yehoshua November's first poetry collection, God's Optimism, won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. His books are Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (English/Hebrew and The Male Body in Jewish Lithu

Over the past ten years, Chantal Bilodeau has made a name for herself a playwright singularly dedicated to writing plays about the issue of climate change. These are not dry docu-dramas, but deeply human depictions of life in the far north, where climate change is a daily reality. Forward (Tanlonbooks 2018) is the latest work in her Artic Cycle, and it follows the story of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen in two temporalities: a story moving forward through Nansen’s life, and a counter-narrative moving backwards from the present until Nansen’s time. This play both depicts the life of this larger-than-life figure and explores the ripple effects of his story through 120 years of Norwegian history. This play will be of interest to anyone looking for emotional, human-scale approaches to the overwhelming reality of climate change. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts.

In this well-written mystery, The Black Cage: A Milo Rigg Mystery (Severn House Publishers), it’s bitter winter in Chicago, and disgraced crime reporter Milo Rigg wakes up every night dreaming that his wife is calling to him from a black cage. He can’t reach or save her - she was killed by a random bullet two years before. Consumed with grief, he tried to expose a botched murder investigation, but the case nearly destroyed Milo's reputation along with his career. He was sent by paper’s struggling editor to the far suburbs, to write human interest stories. But now there are more murders, and he thinks the cases might be linked, so Milo is back asking questions. Everywhere he turns, it seems like someone is lying or covering up the truth. And he’s not sleeping well, because of the black cage. He just has to figure out what it’s trying to tell him. Jack Fredrickson lives with his wife, Susan, west of Chicago. He is the author of seven Dek Elstrom PI mysteries, the first of which, A Safe Place for Dying, was nomi

Writers and readers of science fiction love stories about artificial intelligence, robots, and mechanical beings whose sentience mirrors, matches or exceeds that of humans. The stories stay fresh for the reasons stories about humans do—sentience confers individuality, which provides endless permutations for character and plot. Madeline Ashby’s trilogy, The Machine Dynasty, explores the limits of sentience, the meaning of free will, and what it means to look, act, and feel like a human but be denied basic human rights. Published in July, the third book, ReV (Angry Robot, 2020), shows readers the results of a final face-off between self-replicating humanoid robots and humans. That the robots, known as vN, want their freedom, is natural. What isn’t natural is the failsafe programmed into their consciousnesses that requires them to aid humans in distress or danger—or self-destruct. With the failsafe in place, humans use and abuse the vN as they please—as mates, sex objects, laborers. “The failsafe became a way to

Most modern Americans can identify the names Wallace Simpson and Gloria Vanderbilt. But Simpson was not the first divorced American to win the heart of Great Britain’s future if short-reigned King Edward VIII, known to his family as David. This debut novel explores the life and loves of Thelma Morgan, whose twin sister Gloria married Reggie Vanderbilt and became the mother of the well-known fashion designer. After the ending of what these days we would call a “starter marriage,” Thelma accepts a proposal of Viscount Duke Furness, who takes her to his country estate and introduces her to his children. He also, in due course, introduces her to David and, when she and the prince fall for each other, steps aside and chooses not to contest their affair. The reality that Lord Furness has not himself practiced fidelity is one of the factors driving Thelma away from him. Meanwhile, Gloria and Reggie have taken refuge from the twins’ mother in France, where they are raising their daughter, Little Gloria. Reggie dies p

Writers often evoke the famous que sais-je (“What do I know?”) of Michel de Montaigne, father of the literary essay. Montaigne was known for his deeply exploratory writing about the many overlapping and often conflicting aspects of selfhood. His Essais in the 16th century laid the foundation for the genre by focusing on questions—some ephemeral, some perennial—about things such as disability, death, education, friendship, religion, and thumbs. Today, essayists continue to write from this ancient tradition, but for a new century. The big topics in today’s discourse about who we are include questions about gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, citizenship, political affiliation, and more. Enter the inimitable Melissa Faliveno. In her debut essay collection, Tomboyland: Essays (Topple Books & Little A), author Melissa Faliveno examines a vast array of intersecting (and intersectional!) human experiences. These thoughtful essays explore Faliveno’s relationship to scores of personal identities, including her midw