New Books: May 2020
Topping our TBRs—new fiction for May, 2020!
Dima Alzayat, Alligator & Other Stories
“Alzayat’s slim, powerful debut collection showcases the author’s deep empathy and imagination in stories about grief, assimilation, and trauma… This intelligent collection is a force to be reckoned with.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
From Two Dollar Radio | May 29, 2020
Nathacha Appanah, Tropic of Violence (translated by Geoffrey Strachan)
“Appanah’s heartrending, insightful story makes us understand—and feel—the steps leading toward bloody confrontation in this relentless world.” —Library Journal, starred review
From Graywolf | May 19, 2020
Deni Ellis Béchard, A Song from Faraway
“Béchard’s poetic gifts give voice to the outsiders of society, and make them glow with humanity and love.” —Elizabeth McKenzie
From Milkweed Editions | May 12, 2020
Christopher Beha, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts
“[E]ach character is engaging and full-blooded, and Beha pushes them hard: He’s concerned with how irrationality worms its way into everybody’s lives (via infidelity, faith, insider trading, plagiarism, addiction) and how that irrationality can undermine us and push us closer to understanding ourselves…. An admirably big-picture, multivalent family saga.” —Kirkus, starred review
From Tin House | May 5, 2020
Percival Everett, Telephone
“The differences between the editions, which begin with the colophon, include extended or altered scenes and three distinct endings. The cover designs are nearly identical, but if you look closely, you can spot the differences.” —James Yeh, The New York Times
From Graywolf | May 5, 2020
Ilana Masad, All My Mother’s Lovers
“This ambitious, deft, compassionate debut novel finds eternal truths in a very contemporary story: that even those we care for most remain mysteries to us, that our judgments of others’ lives are always inadequate, that love demands heroism. Ilana Masad is an exciting talent.” —Garth Greenwell
From Dutton | May 26, 2020
Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible: A Novel
“As bewitching, unflinching, wry, and profoundly attuned to the state of the planet as ever, supremely gifted Millet tells a commanding and wrenching tale of cataclysmic change and what it will take to survive.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist
From Norton | May 12, 2020
Ryan Ridge, New Bad News: Stories
“New Bad News is tenderness and mordancy awash with California moonlight and Kentucky ghosts too. Ryan Ridge’s strange transmissions glow like buzzing neon in the dim and make us feel less weird and alone. This! This is a book of brilliant, zappy echoes we can touch.” —Leesa Cross-Smith
From Sarabande | May 19, 2020
Samanta Schweblin, Little Eyes (translated by Megan McDowell)
“Readers will be fascinated by the kentuki-human interactions, which smartly reveal how hungry we are for connection in a technology-bent world. Of a piece with Schweblin’s elliptical Fever Dream and the disturbing story collection A Mouthful of Birds…this jittery eye-opener will appeal to a wide range of readers.” —Library Journal
From Riverhead | May 5, 2020
Anna Solomon, The Book of V.
“Solomon connects these stories in a way that’s fresh and tantalizing, with fascinating intergenerational discussions about desire, duty, family, and feminism, as well as a surprising, completely believable twist. This frank, revisionist romp through a Bible tale is a winner.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
From Holt | May 5, 2020
Ashley E. Sweeney, Answer Creek
“Intimate, engrossing, and personal―this novel is so much more than the story of the Donner Party. It is the story of a budding young woman: her loves, her hopes, and her generous spirit in the midst of an unfolding tragedy. As I read this engrossing novel I forgot I knew―or thought I knew―the story that inspired it. Sweeney captures both the highs and lows of human behavior with each gripping scene.” —Martha Conway
From She Writes Press | May 19, 2020
Karen Tei Yamashita, Sansei and Sensibility: Stories
“An elegantly written, wryly affectionate mashup of Jane Austen and the Japanese immigrant experience…. Yamashita’s reimagining of Austen is sympathetic and funny—and as on target as the movie Clueless.” —Kirkus, starred review
From Coffee House Press | May 5, 2020
Kate Zambreno, Drifts
“Drifts gathers up multiple ways of seeing, feeling and understanding, layering fiction, meditation, biography, confession and prose poetry into one capacious structure. This is an extraordinary book.” —Margo Jefferson
From Riverhead | May 19, 2020