News

News

VERY COLD PEOPLE by Sarah Manguso received a stunning review from The Guardian. Reviewer Johanna Thomas-Corr raves: “When I finished VERY COLD PEOPLE, I felt my whole body unclench. In the process of reading this creepy coming-of-age tale, I seemed to have trapped a nerve in my shoulder – it’s that tense...VERY COLD PEOPLE is so different from anything else I’ve read that it feels a bit fatuous to compare it to other works of fiction. We often talk about writers getting under the skin of their characters, but Manguso has a forensic interest in hair follicles, rashes, effluvia and infected cuts…It’s a masterclass in unease. I must confess that I was relieved when the novel was over but it was so skillful, so strange and so unique that I suspect it will stay with me for a very long time.” Hogarth published the novel February 8, 2022.

Lucy Corin's THE SWANK HOTEL received a rave review from The Millions. They write: “[I]f Corin’s early books are high-concept experiments (or collections of high-concept experiments) that transcend their concepts, her latest, THE SWANK HOTEL is—in scope, formal ambition, and linguistic sorcery—something else entirely…It’s monumental in the way of fractals: inward looking, but infinite. And in addition to being a scathing, often hilarious critique of consumerism, SWANK might also be the most precise and illuminating novel about psychosis and (attempted) suicide since Mrs. Dalloway…Corin toggles amongst psyches with Woolfian delicacy, complexity, and dexterity.” Graywolf Press published the novel on October 5, 2021.

Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s GOD has been shortlisted for the UK’s 2022 Wolfson History Prize. The judges praise the book as “[o]riginal and courageous,” adding: “This ambitious yet readable discussion of the physicality of God enhances our understanding of the history of monotheistic religions and Western culture.” The winner will be announced on June 22. Knopf published the book on January 25, 2022.

The Nation published the titular poem from Maggie Millner’s forthcoming debut collection COUPLETS online and in the magazine’s May issue. Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish the collection on February 7, 2023.

Delia Ephron’s memoir LEFT ON TENTH will make its debut on The New York Times Bestseller list for the week of May 1. The book will debut at number 4 on both the Hardcover Nonfiction and the Combined Print & E-book Nonfiction lists. Little, Brown and Company published the book on April 12, 2022.

The New York Times Book Review featured Samantha Hunt’s nonfiction debut, THE UNWRITTEN BOOK, on its shortlist “Mourning Songs for Lives, and Art, That Could Have Been.” Reviewer Kat Chow writes: “Samantha Hunt’s memoir is a provocative meditation on family and haunting….The reader’s mind reels, in an experience similar to the unfurling of memory and its excavation.” The Washington Post also lauded the book, with reviewer Jake Cline praising: “THE UNWRITTEN BOOK is a memoir and essay collection that finds beauty in impermanence…Hunt gazes into [the] darkness, but she never stops looking for the cracks... It’s a measure of Hunt’s generosity — to the reader, but also to herself — that her answers to [her] questions evolve throughout the book.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on April 5, 2022.

Nada Alic’s short story “Daddy’s Girl,” from her forthcoming collection BAD THOUGHTS, was published as the cover story for This is Badland magazine’s “To Be Free” issue. The magazine praises the short story as “witty, dark, vulnerable, sharp-edged, [and] weird.” Vintage will publish BAD THOUGHTS on July 12, 2022.

James Spooner’s THE HIGH DESERT received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer raves: “Spooner, the filmmaker behind the Afro-Punk documentary and festivals, debuts with a graphic memoir as abrasive and revelatory as his chosen music…[T]his grabbing, angsty coming-of-age tale offers a sidewalk view of a creative subculture. It’s also a poignant ode to the power of music to fill voids left by family and circumstance, with provocations thrumming on race and identity that sound out like a smashed guitar.” Harper will publish the book on May 17, 2022.

Samantha Hunt’s highly-anticipated nonfiction debut THE UNWRITTEN BOOK received a flurry of outstanding press following its publication. In a rave review for the Los Angeles Times, WHAT MY MOTHER AND I DON’T TALK ABOUT author Michele Filgate writes: “To attempt to categorize THE UNWRITTEN BOOK is to diminish the effect of reading it. Hunt studied geology, and her fascination with the bedrock of the natural world overlaps with her elemental love of storytelling…THE UNWRITTEN BOOK is by turns mesmerizing, philosophical and funny.” The New York Times ran a profile on Hunt titled “A Novelist Revisits Her ‘Haunted’ Childhood Home,” in which Hunt shared: “My father liked puzzle books and tricks and games…so he would be happy to think that something strange happened with his work.” Esquire featured the book on its list of “The Best Books of Spring 2022,” praising Hunt as “[o]ne of our most gifted practitioners of the short story” and the book itself as “[e]erie, profound, and daring…a book only the inimitable Hunt could write.” Lastly, Hunt sat down for an interview with BOMB Magazine about her writing process. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published the book on April 5, 2022.

Tanaïs sat down for an interview with Harper’s Bazaar about their nonfiction debut, IN SENSORIUM. Reviewer Mathangi Subramanian writes: “In times like these, writers like Tanaïs matter more. Whether it’s through authoring critically acclaimed queer fiction with their novel BRIGHT LINES, successfully navigating the overwhelmingly straight, white perfume industry, or speaking truth to power on social media, Tanaïs carves out space for the rest of us. Their latest book, IN SENSORIUM, continues in this tradition, interweaving the science of perfumery, the voices of freedom-fighting Bangladeshi femmes, and the author’s own experiences as a queer Muslim writer into a narrative that fearlessly envisions liberation. It is, in short, the balm we have always needed.” Harper published the book on February 22, 2022.