Time to look forward instead of back!
Suddenly it’s 2023—a year that has loomed large for me since I sold my debut novel in July of 2021. 2023 seemed impossibly far away and, yet, here we are. It is hard for me to believe that my book will be in the world in less than three months—the pub date for Beyond That, the Sea is March 21—and that I’ll have the opportunity to read from it and to talk to people about it and to celebrate its existence. To have people read a thing I made. I am excited and anxious and humbled—truly all the feelings. I hope I’ll be able to see some of you in the coming months—check out my website for updated events as pub date nears.
But there are so many amazing books that will be out soon—it’s going to be a great year for reading. I’ve put together a short list of twelve books that I’m looking forward to in the coming months. A mix of types and genres: novels, short stories, memoir, essays. There are quite a few debuts on this list, and there are new works by favorite authors, too. As many of you know, pre-orders are important, so please do so if these catch your eye. The books are listed by publication date with my brief thoughts; the publisher’s description for each book lies below.
Jamila Minnicks, Moonrise Over New Jessup, January 10
(Fascinating story about an all-Black town during the mid 20th century. Debut.)Adina Talve-Goodman, Your Hearts, Your Scars, January 24
(A collection of essays by a beautiful person and writer gone far too soon. My heart.)Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful, March 14
(Ann’s stunning fourth novel! A man falls in love with a woman whose family is everything to her.)Jinwoo Chong, Flux, March 21
(My pub day mate! Genre-bending novel with beautiful and insightful prose. Debut.)Gina Chung, Sea Change, March 28
(An octopus who saves a 30-something woman? How can it not be amazing? Debut.)Eliza Minot, In the Orchard, April 25
(Eliza’s third novel! Gorgeous prose, a day—and also the life—of a young mother.)Greg Marshall, Leg, June 13
(A memoir about growing up in more than one closet. Hilarious and heartbreaking. Debut.)Claudia Cravens, Lucky Red, June 20
(A new kind of western tale. I can’t wait to meet gunslinger Bridget. Debut.)Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy, July 11
(A missing sister, a psychic, set in LA with a poet’s prose. I’m all in. Debut.)Jamel Brinkley, Witness, August 1
(My favorite contemporary writer. His second stellar collection of stories.)Nick Fuller Googins, The Great Transition, August 15
(A climate change novel in the near-future with strong and insightful prose. Debut.)John Manuel Arias, Where There Was Fire, September 19
(An epic story about a Costa Rican family haunted by their past. Poet’s prose! Debut.)
Jamila Minnicks, Moonrise Over New Jessup, January 10
Winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a thought-provoking and enchanting debut about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama.
It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion—or worse—from the home they both hold dear. But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup’s political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.
Jamila Minnicks’s debut novel is both a celebration of Black joy and a timely examination of the opposing viewpoints that attended desegregation in America. Readers of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Robert Jones, Jr.’s The Prophets will love Moonrise Over New Jessup.
Adina Talve-Goodman, Your Hearts, Your Scars, January 24
Adina Talve-Goodman was born with a congenital heart condition and survived multiple operations over the course of her childhood, including a heart transplant at age nineteen. In these seven essays, she tells the story of her chronic illness and her youthful search for love and meaning, never forgetting that her adult life is tied to the loss of another person—the donor of her transplanted heart.
Whether writing about the experience of taking her old heart home from the hospital (and passing it around the Thanksgiving table), a summer camp for young transplant patients, or a memorable night on the town, Talve-Goodman’s writing is filled with curiosity, humor, and compassion. Published posthumously, Your Hearts, Your Scars is the work of a writer wise beyond her years, a moving reflection on chance and gratitude, and a testament to hope and kindness.
Your Hearts, Your Scars is edited by Sarika Talve-Goodman and Hannah Tinti, with a foreword by Jo Firestone.
Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful, March 14
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?
An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.
Jinwoo Chong, Flux, March 21
A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel—and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes . . .
Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.
So begins Jinwoo Chong’s dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic ’80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse.
Flux is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.
Gina Chung, Sea Change, March 28
A novel about a woman tossed overboard by heartbreak and loss, who has to find her way back to stable shores with the help of a giant Pacific octopus.
Ro is stuck. She’s just entered her thirties, she’s estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at a mall aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeno). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro’s only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro’s last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager.
When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction. Wading through memories of her youth, Ro has one last chance to come to terms with her childhood trauma, recommit to those around her, and find her place in an ever-changing world.
Eliza Minot, In the Orchard, April 25
A novel about womanhood, modern family, and the interior landscape of maternal life, as seen through the life of a young wife and mother on a single day.
At night, Maisie Moore dreams that her life is perfect: the looming mortgages and credit card debt have magically vanished, and she can raise her four children, including newborn Esme, on an undulating current of maternal bliss, by turns oceanic and overwhelming, but awash in awe and wonder. Then she jolts awake and, after checking that her husband and baby are asleep beside her, remembers the real-world money problems to be resolved amid the long days of grocery shopping, gymnastics practices, and soccer games. From this moment, Eliza Minot draws readers into the psyche of the perceptive and warmhearted Maisie, who yearns to understand the world around her and overflows with fierce love for her growing family.
Unfolding over the course of a single day in which Maisie and her husband take their children to pick apples, In the Orchard is luminous, masterfully crafted, revelatory—a shining exploration of motherhood, childhood, and love.
Greg Marshall, Leg, June 13
A hilarious and poignant memoir grappling with family, disability, and coming of age in two closets—as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy.
Greg Marshall’s early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the nineties) and you’ll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he’s crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings. Fast forward the tape and you’ll find Marshall happily settled into his life as a gay man only to discover he’s been living in another closet his whole life: he has cerebral palsy. Here, in the hot mess of it all, lies Greg Marshall’s wellspring of wit and wisdom.
Leg is an extraordinarily funny and insightful memoir from a daring new voice. Packed with outrageous stories of a singular childhood, it is also a unique examination of what it means to transform when there are parts of yourself you can’t change, a moving portrait of a family in crisis, and a tale of resilience of spirit. In Marshall’s deft hands, we see a story both personal and universal—of being young and wanting the world, even when the world doesn’t feel like yours to want.
Claudia Cravens, Lucky Red, June 20
The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.
A vibrant and cinematic debut set in the American West about a scrappy orphan finds friendship, romance, and her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger.
It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She’s exhausted from caring for her ne’er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he’s killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”
Then Spartan Lee, the legendary female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen’s tenuous peace and safety. Desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.
A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.
Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy, July 11
Rachel Kushner meets David Lynch in this fever dream of an LA novel about a young woman who commits a drunken act of violence just before her sister vanishes without a trace.
On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears.
Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator’s spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics.
With prose pulsing like a neon sign, Ruth Madievsky’s All-Night Pharmacy is an intoxicating portrait of a young woman consumed with unease over how a person should be. As she attempts sobriety and sexual embodiment, she must decide whether to search for her estranged sister, or allow her to remain a relic of the past.
Jamel Brinkley, Witness, August 1
From a National Book Award finalist, Witness is an elegant, insistent narrative of actions taken and not taken.
What does it mean to take action? To bear witness? What does it cost?
In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters—from children to grandmothers to ghosts—live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect, to remember, to stand up for, and to really see each other, they often fall short, and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape not only their own futures but the legacies and prospects of their families and their city.
In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief, the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust—doctors, employers, siblings—too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.
With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully, seamlessly crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.
Nick Fuller Googins, The Great Transition, August 15
For fans of Station Eleven and The Ministry for the Future, this richly imaginative, immersive, and “profound” (Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point) novel is the electrifying story of a family in crisis that unfolds against the backdrop of our near future.
Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi’s mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect, and Emi’s illusions of utopia are shattered. A determined Emi and her father, Larch, journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis. But they aren’t the only ones looking for Kristina.
Thirty years earlier, Larch first came to New York with a team of volunteers to save the city from rising waters and torrential storms. Kristina was on the frontlines of a different battle, fighting massive wildfires that ravaged the western United States. They became part of a movement that changed the world—The Great Transition—forging a new society and finding each other in process.
Alternating between Emi’s desperate search for her mother and a meticulously rendered, heart-stopping account of her parents’ experiences during The Great Transition, this novel beautifully shows how our actions today determine our fate tomorrow. A triumphant debut, The Great Transition is a breathtaking rendering of our near future, told through the story of one family trying to protect each other and the place we all call home.
John Manuel Arias, Where There Was Fire, September 19
A lush and lyrical debut novel about a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias.
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.
Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption.
Ooooooh Nick! I deeply recognize shades of this work from what I’ve seen exchanging shorts mid- & post-MFA. This is cool :)