* National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Finalist * Great American Novels are still being published in 2024 and here is one of them.
--Molly Young, New York Times
In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of Black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.
In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others--along with original, previously unreleased essays--Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.
* Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist * Daring... In What We Tried to Bury Grows Here, almost two dozen narrators vie to convey the danger and uncertainty of life in a country where tomorrow you never knew who would throw you against the wall for the actions of today. We hear from priests and soldiers, mothers and children, prisoners and refugees. Amid the inevitable violence and horror, there are the equally inevitable heroes and villains, but for everyone the world has acquired 'an evil stink.' Mariana knows her compatriots have no choice but to fight on, yet she also knows that 'the war will make us unrecognizable to our former selves.'
--Alida Becker, The New York Times
Krilanovich's work will make you believe that new ways of storytelling are still emerging from the margins.
--Rachel Syme, NPR
A girl with drug-induced ESP and an eerie connection to Patty Reed (a young member of the Donner Party who credited her survival to her relationship with a hidden wooden doll), searches for her disappeared foster sister along The Highway That Eats People, stalked by a conflation of Twin Peaks' Bob and the Green River Killer, known as Dactyl.
The New Classics series aims to celebrate the enduring cultural impact that publications have made by refreshing these evergreen titles with cover designs and new introductions or afterwords by acclaimed writers and artists that speak to the resonance and relevance of these works.
Scott McClanahan is one of those rare writers who achieves Kafka's credo that a book should be the axe that shatters the icy soul of our interior. Crapalachia, with its tongue-in-cheek title, is anything but refuse and detritus. In fact, it's a broken and half-sung ode to place and people and history, a personal reclamation of falsehoods cast on rural communities in West Virginia.
--Ocean Vuong, LitHubCrapalachia: A Biography of a Place is a portrait of Scott McClanahan's formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Peopled by colorful characters and their stories, Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana. Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan's stories to bind us closer to one another.
The New Classics series aims to celebrate the enduring cultural impact that publications have made by refreshing these evergreen titles with cover designs and new introductions by acclaimed writers and artists that speak to the resonance and relevance of these works.
*2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
*Longlisted for The Crook's Corner Book Prize
*Longlisted for the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
*Shortlisted for the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for Fiction
*A Best Book of 2018 --Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed News, Entropy, LitReactor, LitHub
*35 Over 35 Award 2018
*One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall --Vulture, Harper's BAZAAR, BuzzFeed News, Publishers Weekly, The Millions, Bustle, Fast Company
It's 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother Marianne dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs, 14-year-old Mae had fallen into one of her trances, often a result of feeling too closely attuned to her mother's dark moods. After Marianne is unwillingly admitted to a mental hospital, Edie and Mae are forced to move from their childhood home in Louisiana to New York to live with their estranged father, Dennis, a former civil rights activist and literary figure on the other side of success.
The girls, grieving and homesick, are at first wary of their father's affection, but soon Mae and Edie's close relationship begins to fall apart--Edie remains fiercely loyal to Marianne, convinced that Dennis is responsible for her mother's downfall, while Mae, suffocated by her striking resemblances to her mother, feels pulled toward their father. The girls move in increasingly opposing and destructive directions as they struggle to cope with outsized pain, and as the history of Dennis and Marianne's romantic past clicks into focus, the family fractures further.
Moving through a selection of first-person accounts and written with a sinister sense of humor, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish powerfully captures the quiet torment of two sisters craving the attention of a parent they can't, and shouldn't, have to themselves. In this captivating debut, Katya Apekina disquietingly crooks the lines between fact and fantasy, between escape and freedom, and between love and obsession.
The structure, characters and storyline are all refreshingly original, and the writing is nothing short of gorgeous. It's a stunningly accomplished book, and Apekina isn't afraid to grab her readers by the hand and take them to some very dark and very beautiful places.
--Michael Schaub, NPR
* 2018 12 best books to give this holiday season --TODAY (Elizabeth Acevedo)
* A Best Book of 2017 --Rolling Stone (2018), NPR, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, CBC, Stereogum, National Post, Entropy, Heavy, Book Riot, Chicago Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review, Michigan Daily
* American Booksellers Association (ABA) 'December 2017 Indie Next List Great Reads'
* Midwest Indie Bestseller
In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of Black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.
In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others--along with original, previously unreleased essays--Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.An inventive work of metafiction that grapples with the horrific realities of Mexico's drug wars and the families left grieving without bodies to bury.
--Kristen Martin, NPR: Books We Love 2024
*Winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards for Novel
*The Believer Book Awards, 2019: Editors' Longlists in Fiction
*The Northern California 'Golden Poppy' Book Awards 2019, Fiction longlist
*2020 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Longlist
*A Best Book of 2019 --Vulture, Entropy, Buzzfeed, Thrillist
Etter brilliantly, viciously lays bare what it means to be a woman in the world, what it means to hurt, to need, to want, so much it consumes everything. --Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist
I loved every page of this gorgeous, grotesque, heartbreaking novel. --Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties
A surreal exploration of one woman's life and death against a landscape of meat, office desks, and bad men.
The Book of X tells the tale of Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted in the shape of a knot. From childhood with her parents on the family meat farm, to a desk job in the city, to finally experiencing love, she grapples with her body, men, and society, all the while imagining a softer world than the one she is in. Twining the drama of the everyday -- school-age crushes, paying bills, the sickness of parents -- with the surreal -- rivers of thighs, men for sale, and fields of throats -- Cassie's realities alternate to create a blurred, fantastic world of haunting beauty.
* 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize, Longlist.
* ABA Indie Next List pick for March 2022.
* 2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards, Winner.
* Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, Shortlist.
* A Best Book of 2022 --Glamour, NYLON, Glamour, Refinery29 UK, Harpers BAZAAR UK
* A Most Anticipated Book --Lit Hub, The Millions
New Animal is a poignant, darkly comedic look at human connection from a biting and original new voice in Ella Baxter.
Amelia Aurelia is approaching thirty and her closest relationships -- other than her mother -- are through her dating apps. She works at the family mortuary business as a cosmetic mortician with her eccentric step-father and older brother, whose throuple's current preoccupation is with what type of snake to adopt. When Amelia's affectionate mother passes away without warning, she is left without anchor. Fleeing the funeral, she seeks solace with her birth-father in Tasmania and stumbles into the local BDSM community, where her riotous attempts to belong are met with confusion, shock, and empathy.
Hilarious and heartfelt, New Animal reveals hard-won truths as Amelia struggles to find her place in the world without her mother, with the help of her two well-intentioned fathers and adventures at the kink club.
* An ABA December 2023 Indie Next List pick.
From the award-winning author of A Questionable Shape and White Dialogues, a brilliant, anxious, and hilarious new collection.
A man lends his phone to a stranger in the mall, setting off an uncanny series of Unknown calls that come to haunt his relationship with jealousy and dread. A well-meaning locavore tries to butcher his backyard chickens humanely, only to find himself absorbed into the absurd violence of the pecking order. A student applying for a philosophy fellowship struggles to project himself into the thoughts of his hypothetical judges, becoming increasingly possessed and overpowered by the problem of other minds. And in The Postcard, a private detective is hired to investigate a posthumous message that a widower has seemingly received from his dead wife, leading him into a foggy landscape of lost memories, shifting identities, and strange doublings.
Cerebral and eerie, captivating and profound, these twelve stories expertly guide us through the paranoia and obsession of everyday horrors, not least the horrors of overthinking what other people might be thinking. With all of Sims's trademark virtuosity, innovation, and wit, Other Minds and Other Stories continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Additional reading:
For Necessary Fiction, Other Minds and Other Stories author Bennett Sims contributes to the Research Notes series, where authors describe their process for a recent book: Necessary Fiction's Research Notes by Bennett Sims November 17, 2023
For Electric Literature, Other Minds and Other Stories author Bennett Sims recommends 10 Books About Nonhuman Consciousness November 14, 2023
Read an excerpt:
BOMB Magazine hosts an excerpt of the short story Medusa from Bennett Sims' Other Minds and Other Stories: MEDUSA by BENNETT SIMS
Literary Hub hosts an excerpt of the short story Other Minds from Bennett Sims' Other Minds and Other Stories: OTHER MINDS by BENNETT SIMS
Menagerie Magazine hosts an excerpt of the short story The New Violence from Bennett Sims' Other Minds and Other Stories: THE NEW VIOLENCE by BENNETT SIMS
Ploughshares hosts an excerpt of the short story Pecking Order from Bennett Sims' Other Minds and Other Stories: PECKING ORDER by BENNETT SIMS
Bennett Sims delivers a disquisition on the idea of the zombie, combining low and high culture in a firework display of extended metaphors, obscure vocabulary and intellectual sparks. With a heavy debt to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and vigorous nods to Nabokov, Heidegger, Tarkovsky, Shklovsky, Levinas and Proust, to mention a few, the book is ambitious and thought-provoking.
--Jane Housham, The Guardian
Mazoch discovers an unreturned movie envelope, smashed windows, and a pool of blood in his father's house: the man has gone missing. So he creates a list of his father's haunts and asks Vermaelen to help track him down. However, hurricane season looms over Baton Rouge, threatening to wipe out any undead not already contained and eliminate all hope of ever finding Mazoch's father.
Bennett Sims turns typical zombie fare on its head to deliver a wise and philosophical rumination on the nature of memory and loss.
The New Classics series aims to celebrate the enduring cultural impact that publications have made by refreshing these evergreen titles with cover designs and new introductions by acclaimed writers and artists that speak to the resonance and relevance of these works.
Favorite Books of the Year (2015) --Bustle, O, The Oprah Magazine
Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2015 --The Washington PostBreathtaking. [Dibbell has] delivered a debut novel on par with some of the best speculative fiction of the past 30 years; The Only Ones deserves to be shelved alongside Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring, and P. D. James' The Children of Men. It's that good, and that important, and that heartbreakingly beautiful.
--Jason Heller, NPRInez wanders a post-pandemic world, strangely immune to disease, making her living by volunteering as a test subject. She is hired to provide genetic material to a grief-stricken, affluent mother, who lost all four of her daughters within four short weeks. This experimental genetic work is policed by a hazy network of governmental Ethics committees, and threatened by the Knights of Life, religious zealots who raze the rural farms where much of this experimentation is done.
When the mother backs out at the last minute, Inez is left responsible for the product, which in this case is a baby girl, Ani. Inez must protect Ani, who is a scientific breakthrough, keeping her alive, dodging authorities and religious fanatics, and trying to provide Ani with the chilldhood tha Inez never had, which means a stable home and an education.
With a stylish voice, The Only Ones is a time-old story, tender and iconic, about how much we love our children, however they come, as well as a sly commentary on class, politics, and the complexities of reproductive technology.
The New Classics series aims to celebrate the enduring cultural impact that publications have made by refreshing these evergreen titles with cover designs and new introductions by acclaimed writers and artists that speak to the resonance and relevance of these works.
* Chicago Tribune Fall literary preview: books you need to read now
* Vulture The Best and Biggest Books to Read This Fall
* The Guardian A best book of 2019
After moving with his wife and two children to a smallholding in Ireland, Paul Kingsnorth expects to find contentment. It is the goal he has sought -- to nest, to find home -- after years of rootlessness as an environmental activist and author. Instead he finds that his tools as a writer are failing him, calling into question his foundational beliefs about language and setting him at odds with culture itself.
Informed by his experiences with indigenous peoples, the writings of D.H. Lawrence and Annie Dillard, and the day-to-day travails of farming his own land, Savage Gods asks: what does it mean to belong? What sacrifices must be made in order to truly inhabit a life? And can words ever paint the truth of the world -- or are they part of the great lie which is killing it?
* Winner of the Sator New Works Award.
* New York Public Library's Best Books of 2022
* Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of 2022
* 2022 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, Longlist.
* A Most Anticipated Book --Lambda Literary, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Tor.com, The Chicago Review of Books, LGBTQReads, Ms. Magazine, The Mary Sue
My Volcano is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a menagerie of characters, as they each undergo personal eruptions, while the Earth itself is constantly shifting. Parable, myth, science-fiction, eco-horror, My Volcano is a radical work of literary art, emerging as a subversive, intoxicating artistic statement by John Elizabeth Stintzi.
On June 2, 2016, a protrusion of rock growing from the Central Park Reservoir is spotted by a jogger. Three weeks later, when it finally stops growing, it's nearly two-and-a-half miles tall, and has been determined to be an active volcano.
As the volcano grows and then looms over New York, an eight-year-old boy in Mexico City finds himself transported 500 years into the past, where he witnesses the fall of the Aztec Empire; a Nigerian scholar in Tokyo studies a folktale about a woman of fire who descends a mountain and destroys an entire village; a white trans writer in Jersey City struggles to write a sci-fi novel about a thriving civilization on an impossible planet; a nurse tends to Syrian refugees in Greece while grappling with the trauma of living through the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan; a nomadic farmer in Mongolia is stung by a bee, magically transforming him into a green, thorned, flowering creature that aspires to connect every living thing into its consciousness.
With its riveting and audacious vision, My Volcano is a tapestry on fire, a distorted and cinematic new work from the fiercely talented John Elizabeth Stintzi.
* 2022 Young Lions Fiction Award, Winner.
* A BookBrowse 20 Best Books of 2022
* VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, Longlist.
* An ABA Indie Next List pick for November 2021.
* A Best Book of 2021 --New York Public Library, Cosmopolitan, Independent Book Review
* October 2021 Must-Reads --Debutiful, The Chicago Review of Books, The Millions
In 1913, a Russian ballet incited a riot in Paris at the new Théâtre de Champs-Elysées. Only a Russian could do that, says Aleksandr Ivanovich. Only a Russian could make the whole world go mad.
A century later, in November 2013, thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to protest then-President Yanukovych's failure to sign a referendum with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with President Vladimir Putin and Russia. The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over a hundred civilians.
I Will Die in a Foreign Land follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the Euromaidan protests. Katya is an Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael's Monastery; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife's death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, who climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano.
As Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr's lives become intertwined, they each seek their own solace during an especially tumultuous and violent period. The story is also told by a chorus of voices that incorporates folklore and narrates a turbulent Slavic history.
While unfolding an especially moving story of quiet beauty and love in a time of terror, I Will Die in a Foreign Land is an ambitious, intimate, and haunting portrait of human perseverance and empathy.
Kalani Pickhart's timely debut novel, I Will Die In a Foreign Land, is about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution which provided a pretense for Russia to annex Crimea. The story follows the experiences of several characters whose lives intersect as the country's political situation deteriorates. There's a Ukrainian-American doctor, an old KGB spy, a former mine worker, and others, and these episodes are interspersed with folk songs, news reports and historical notes. The effect--kaleidoscopic but never confusing--provides an intimate sense of a country convulsing, mourning, and somehow surviving.
--CBS News, The Book Report: Recommendations from Washington Post critic Ron Charles
(Watch the full video on CBS News, February 6, 2022).
* Most Anticipated Books of 2023 -- LitHub
* Page One feature at Poets & Writers
* 12 Must-Read Books of January 2023 -- Chicago Review of Books
* Must-Read Paperbacks to Kick Off 2023 -- Book Riot
* 30 Indie Books to Look Out for in 2023 --Independent Book Review
Provocative, poignant, and resoundingly hilarious, The Red-Headed Pilgrim is the tragicomic tale of an anxious red-head and his sordid pursuit of enlightenment and pleasure (not necessarily in that order).
On a sunny day in a business park near Portland, Oregon, 42-year-old web developer Kevin Maloney is in the throes of an existential crisis that finds him shoeless in a field of Queen Anne's lace, reflecting on the tumultuous events that brought him to this moment. Growing up in the suburbs, young Kevin suffered a psychological break that ripped me from my humdrum existence mainlining high fructose corn syrup and episodes of The Golden Girls. Thus begins a journey of hard-earned insights and sexual awakening that takes Kevin from angst-ridden Beaverton to the beaches of San Diego, a frontier-themed roadside attraction in Helena, Montana, and a hermetic shack on an organic lettuce farm. Everything changes when Kevin falls in love with Wendy. After a chance tarot reading lands them on the frigid coast of Maine, their lives are unsettled by the birth of their daughter, Zoë, whose sudden presence is oftentimes terrifying, frequently disturbing, and yet--miraculously--always wondrous. The Red-Headed Pilgrim is an irresistible novel of misadventure and new beginnings, of wanderlust and bad decisions, of parenthood and divorce, and of the heartfelt truths we unearth when we least expect it.READ AN EXCERPT:
Hansel & Gretel excerpted from The Red-Headed Pilgrim, on Fence.
* Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, Shortlist
* 2022 Stella Prize, Longlist
A Best Book of the Year --The Guardian
A Most Anticipated book of 2022 --Entertainment Weekly
With an unforgettable voice and exuberant wit, She Is Haunted is a masterful debut exploring issues of identity, connection, and loss, told with remarkable grace and assurance by Chinese/American/Australian author, Paige Clark.
In stories charged by the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, grief, exes, and the profundities of friendship, She Is Haunted features injured ballerinas, cloned dogs, and competitive call centers in settings as far ranging as future and present Australia, New York City's Chinatown, and suburban California. A mother cuts her daughter's hair because her own hair begins falling out; a woman attempts to physically transform into her dead husband so that she does not have to grieve; a woman undergoes brain surgery in order to live more comfortably in extreme temperatures.
Braiding the real and the surreal, both playfully witty and deeply insightful, these stories show us characters striving to make sense of the grand themes of family, love, death, and our changing world. She Is Haunted flags Paige Clark as a wondrous and wise new literary talent.
* An American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Pick!
Haunting, gorgeously descriptive, and spellbinding, At the Edge of the Woods is a magnificent and assured debut novel that delivers all the resonance and significance of an instant classic.
Laura lives alone in a cabin deep within the Italian Alps, making her living translating medical documents and tutoring the children of affluent locals. She spends her days climbing the mountains outside her door and exploring the woods, and when she must venture into the small, conservative town for supplies, she's met with curious stares and wariness. Laura begins seeing a bartender, who alerts her to the villagers' uncertainties. Then late one night there is a knock on the door, and on the other side stands someone from her past who has finally found her. In beguiling, lyrical prose, the mystery surrounding why Laura has absconded to this remote corner of the Alps comes into focus, while the villagers grow leery of the woman in the cabin and of her increasingly odd behavior. A few decide to take matters into their own hands, to free themselves from the malevolent forces of the strega who lives amongst them.
With its dexterity and appreciation for the natural world, its slow-burn tension and thematic considerations of illness, femininity and alienation, At the Edge of the Woods calls to mind the work of Richard Powers, Claire-Louise Bennett and Shirley Jackson, while revealing Kathryn Bromwich as a spectacular and singular talent.
ADDITIONAL READING:
Orion Magazine: Beware the Woods: 10 Memorable Forests from Literature June 2023
Orion Magazine features recommended reading from author Kathryn Bromwich, author of At the Edge of the Woods!
AUTHOR READING:
Damian Barr's Literary Salon August 23, 2023
Podcast Episode: Book of the Week: At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich
With a deft hand and slow-burn tension, At the Edge of the Woods is a captivating novel for anyone who enjoyed Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller or Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm. On this episode of Damian Barr's Literary Salon, listen to an excerpt of the novel, read by author Kathryn Bromwich.
SELECT INTERVIEWS:
Writer's Bone Podcast: Episode 607: Kathryn Bromwich & Hannah Mary McKinnon Aug 31, 2023
Daniel Ford speaks with author Kathryn Bromwich about the books and authors that she loves, the writing of her debut novel At the Edge of the Woods and how she was inspired to write it, living with long covid, and so much more.
Across the Pond podcast: Kathryn Bromwich, At the Edge of the Woods Jun 27, 2023
Hosts Lori Feathers and Sam Jordison speak with author Kathryn Bromwich in the Across the Pond podcast, about her new novel At the Edge of the Woods. Plus, enjoy listening to an author reading!
AIR MAIL Interview by Lily Meyer with Kathryn Bromwich June 3, 2023
How a bout of long COVID during the height of the pandemic gave way to a London editor's debut novel
In the earliest days of the pandemic, Kathryn Bromwich, the writer and editor for London's Observer newspaper, found herself shivering indoors. She and her fiancé both had COVID--which, in both of their cases, turned into long COVID...
An Indies Introduce Q&A with Kathryn Bromwich May 24, 2023
Kathryn Bromwich's novel, At the Edge of the Woods, was chosen as a Summer/Fall 2023 Indies Introduce selection. Mallory Melton--of BookPeople in Austin, Texas--served on the panel that selected Bromwich's debut for Indies Introduce and spoke with Kathryn about her debut novel, her influences, why she was drawn to the book's themes of climate crisis, class, infertility, and traditional femininity, how her journalism writing and her writing of fiction intersect, and more!
Bookin' Podcast: Kathryn Bromwich May 1, 2023
This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Kathryn Bromwich, who discusses her new novel At the Edge of the Woods... Topics of conversation include Richard Powers' The Overstory, wilderness narratives that captivate our imaginations, a female protagonist living off the grid, how one's mind works first thing in the morning, a mountain as a sentient being, practicing one's smile in the mirror, guilt over not attending church, and much more. Bookin' Podcast is sponsored by indie bookstore Explore Booksellers.
Q&A with author Kathryn Bromwich Oct 11, 2022
Two Dollar Radio editor Eric Obenauf spoke with the At the Edge of the Woods novelist Kathryn Bromwich about her debut novel, the concept of traditional femininity, nature writing and our climate emergency, her personal experience with long Covid, what she loves about her job as a commissioning editor on The Observer newspaper in London, and so much more!
* 2021 Vermont Book Award, Winner.
* 2021 New England Book Awards, Finalist.
* A3C Reads: March 2023 Book of the Month.
A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 --Elle, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture
The Hare is an affecting portrait of Rosie Monroe, of her resilience and personal transformation under the pin of the male gaze.
Raised to be obedient by a stern grandmother in a blue-collar town in Massachusetts, Rosie accepts a scholarship to art school in New York City in the 1980s. One morning at a museum, she meets a worldly man twenty years her senior, with access to the upper crust of New England society. Bennett is dashing, knows that polo refers only to ponies, teaches her which direction to spoon soup, and tells of exotic escapades with Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson. Soon, Rosie is living with him on a swanky estate on Connecticut's Gold Coast, naively in sway to his moral ambivalence. A daughter--Miranda--is born, just as his current con goes awry forcing them to abscond in the middle of the night to the untamed wilderness of northern Vermont.
Almost immediately, Bennett abandons them in an uninsulated cabin without a car or cash for weeks at a time, so he can tend a teaching job that may or may not exist at an elite college. Rosie is forced to care for her young daughter alone, and to tackle the stubborn intricacies of the wood stove, snowshoe into town, hunt for wild game, and forage in the forest. As Rosie and Miranda's life gradually begins to normalize, Bennett's schemes turn malevolent, and Rosie must at last confront his twisted deceptions. Her actions have far-reaching and perilous consequences.
An astounding new literary thriller from a celebrated author at the height of her storytelling prowess, The Hare bravely considers a woman's inherent sense of obligation--sexual and emotional--to the male hierarchy, and deserves to be part of our conversation as we reckon with #MeToo and the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Rosie Monroe emerges as an authentic, tarnished feminist heroine.