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2012
James Baldwin’s writings cut to the quick of the American Dream’s many contradictions with rare lyricism and precision. Literary scholar Boggs promises in this major reevaluation of Baldwin’s life to illuminate how his personal relationships with artists, collaborators, and lovers shaped his outlook. I can’t wait to dig in. —Marc Greenawalt, reviews editor
Brosi grew up in an Appalachian back-to-land commune, where the squabbling adults around him included circus performers. In loping, loose-lined portraits, Brosi depicts himself as a child speaking in scribbles, representing a speech impediment that attracted bullies young and old. Only his flawed mother listens closely enough to understand him—and in a series of unsparingly told moments, it’s the care she gave him that shines through the fractures. I loved this unexpectedly tender work, in all its weird specificity and woundedness. —Meg Lemke, reviews editor
Spanning centuries and continents, this epic and utterly transporting fantasy traces the lives of three female vampires, each from a different era, slowly revealing the ways in which their stories are violently and sensually connected. It’s Schwab’s most ambitious—and most explicitly queer—novel yet. I was swept away. —Phoebe Cramer, reviews editor
As escapist reading goes, this episodic, 1880s-set weird-West odyssey from Durbin ain’t sunny. Durbin, a specialist in pulp-inflected, horror-adjacent storytelling, is fascinated by darker worlds edging into ours, and protagonist Ovid Vesper, a Union soldier shaken to the soul by the slaughter (and a glimpse of the uncanny) at the Battle of Antietam, inhabits an America even more fractured than our own. But at least Ovid—and, by extension, readers—can exorcise some grief and anxiety by hunting down tentacled beasts. —Alan Scherstuhl, BookLife reviews editor
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Mottley’s Nightcrawling was a devastating debut I couldn’t stop recommending, and I have the feeling The Girls Who Grew Big will be the same. The novel centers on a group of teenage mothers, exiled from their communities, who come together to support one another during a huge turning point in all of their lives. I’m excited to see how Mottley challenges conceptions around young motherhood, agency, and society’s demands on girls with compassion and care. —Iyana Jones, assistant editor, children’s books
Hardcastle breathtakingly explores the life of the same girl in two different realities: one where she embraces her queer identity and one where she denies it. Both versions experience heartwarming triumphs and gut-wrenching tragedy, while similarities echo through their lives. This mirroring effect creates a poignant tension as their story lines come together in familiar and unpredictable ways. Lyrical language elevates the storytelling, transforming it into something immersive and visceral. —TreVaughn Malik Roach-Carter, digital editorial assistant
I’ve been a fan of Peter Geye’s literary fiction set in 1900s northern Minnesota ever since I read his 2014 novel, The Lighthouse Road. He just captures so brilliantly the complexities of human relationships set against a dramatic backdrop of Lake Superior. I especially appreciate the nuanced portrayals of Geye’s female protagonists: despite the isolation and social restraints placed on them in this harsh land, they still manage to live life on their own terms. —Claire Kirch, Midwest correspondent
As a massive fan of Lacey’s ambitious alternate-history novel Biography of X, I couldn’t be more thrilled that she’s following it up with something similarly audacious: a half-fictional, half-memoiristic meditation on her own breakup. Leave it to Lacey to put a tantalizing asterisk on her first foray into autobiography. —Conner Reed, reviews editor
Nothing goes better together than summer and ice cream. I’ve tried over the years to make it myself—and failed. Now New York City sugar impresario Morgenstern promises to explain how to make some of his most memorable flavors, including French Fry and Olive Oil Chocolate Eggplant. They sound weird, but they have that wow factor. I’m down to try them, but I won’t be mixing flavors. Honestly, I cannot think of a more delicious way to make a bunch of messy mistakes. —Ed Nawotka, senior news and international editor
Does a novel set in a near-future, half-drowned Florida sound uplifting? How about one in which the main character is a septuagenarian with a grim cancer prognosis and 24 hours to go before she dies by physician-assisted suicide? And yet: Flahive manages the seemingly impossible by having Hannah, her protagonist, throw the mother of all goodbye parties at the utopian queer retirement community she calls home. You won’t want to miss it. —Carolyn Juris, features editor
Romm finds a fascinating new angle on Plato in this elegant study. Drawing on Plato’s letters (usually dismissed as fake by philosophers but deemed legitimate by historians), Romm reveals a Plato who was personally and politically entangled with the tyrannical ruling family of Syracuse. It’s a gritty, real-politick depiction of Plato that challenges the reverence that, according to Romm, built up for the thinker over the course of the 20th century. —Dana Snitzky, reviews editor
The reasons this cookbook seems imperative at this moment in history, when empathy is given such short shrift on sociopolitical stages both national and international, are countless. Allow me to share one: the imperiled countries highlighted here feel very far away from most Americans, and there’s nearly nothing that brings one closer to another than sharing a meal. Cuisine, after all, can open hearts and minds alike. Haven’t you seen Ratatouille? —John Maher, news director
Please Kill Me did it for punk; Our Band Could Be Your Life did it for indie rock. Now music journalist Ayers has compiled an oral history of Phish and the other jam bands that soundtracked my high school and college years. You might just catch me reading it in a parking lot somewhere along the East Coast this summer, because here’s a secret I’m happy to share: 40 years after the boys from Burlington, Vt., got together, they might just be better than ever. —David Adams, adult reviews director
I’ve learned from Walter’s superb stories and novels to follow him wherever he takes me, whether through a woman’s disastrous one-night stand with a movie star (“Famous Actor”) or two brothers’ quest for glory in early 1900s Spokane (The Cold Millions). Usually the destination is out west, as in his latest, about a man on a mission to save his grandchildren from a right-wing militia. I’m saving this one for a day of no distractions. —David Varno, reviews editor
Trigiani delights with another of her heartwarming, heartbreaking stories of Italian Americans with all their characteristic foibles and gifts for reinvention. (Believe me, I can relate.) Follow recently divorced Jess Capodimonte, a skilled worker in Uncle Louie’s marble company in Lake Como, N.J., as she takes herself off to the real Lake Como with a one-way ticket, where she finds herself, family secrets, and, of course, love. This is Italy, after all! —Louisa Ermelino, contributing editor
I grew up in the early aughts, so Britney Spears’s rise to fame—and fall from grace—is indelibly imprinted in my brain via an increasingly hyperbolic series of tabloid headlines. Here, Weiss, a journalist who covered the pop star during her prime, peeks beneath those narratives to paint a sharply observed portrait of how the media used Spears to feed a public simultaneously hungering for a girlish innocent and an unhinged force of destruction, shedding fascinating light on American celebrity culture past and present. —Miriam Grossman, reviews editor
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