Books to Celebrate in July 2023 https://ift.tt/wZEVjcl
It’s sticky and steamy in Tennessee in July, and honestly, I love it. Whether you’re out and about (and very sweaty) or huddling inside next to the A/C, these new releases are sure to be good company.
Wheelbarrow Books: “Lesbian bars, libraries, highways, churches, and oil rigs set the scenes for the poems in Landlocked. Whether at work or at play, the speakers in Landlocked live in the space between longing and belonging, wanderlust and homesickness, and explore the intersection of place and identity. In the era of “don’t say gay,” these poems provide a defiantly queer perspective on Oklahoma, one of the reddest of the red states, and its many contradictions.”
Eyewear Publishing: “Charm Offensive, Ross White’s debut poetry collection, explores the space between Dickinson’s directive to tell the truth slant and the universal reality of seeing the truth slant without knowing it. Charting the ways that tenderness can resolve into dissonance and uncertainty can resolve into transcendence, Charm Offensive crackles with the dangers of being alive and the joys of remaining defiant. At turns playful and surreal, exuberant and somber, these poems urge readers to find something new to trust in the world.”
Amistad: “Trinity is the riveting story of the daughter-spirit born to stitch love back into the scattered wombs of her Black mothers and call love back into the fishing blues songs of her Black male kin. Lottie Rebecca Lee is the Divine spirited daughter born to set everything back up right again, in this daringly original novel.”
Stephen F. Austin University Press: “The Southern Gothic is a clash between the old and the new, tradition and breaking the cycles its people are, or should be, ashamed of. It’s grotesque and violent, surreal and symbolic but it makes people listen. It’s about calling people to change or be forgotten. Hard to Find: An Anthology of New Southern Gothic, is an anthology focused on giving writers an opportunity to shed light on the issues faced by the people of the American South today, whether those are new issues or just new ways of taking on the same ghosts.”
Algonquin: “Rachel Ruskin never intended to return to her family’s tobacco farm in Shiloh, North Carolina. But when her academic career studying Southern folklore in New York City flames out, she has no choice. Back in her hometown in the wake of family loss, she is alone, haunted by memories, by ghosts, and by Shiloh’s buried history of racism and violence. Haunting, fierce, and urgently topical, Inside the Wolf is a page-turning and redemptive novel about masculinity, guns, violence — and the American past.”
Doubleday: “Debut novelist Lindsay Lynch brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through Edie’s wry observations, Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies, and interrogates who actually gets to tell women’s stories.”
Scribner: “Onlookers is an astute new story collection about people living in the same Southern town whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Peaceful Charlottesville, Virginia, drew national attention when white nationalists held a rally there in 2017, a horrific event whose repercussions are still felt today. These are stories of unexpected relationships and affiliations that affirm the value of friendship, even when it requires difficult compromises or unexpected risks. Beattie involves the reader in questions about the nature of community, as the characters grapple with complicated inheritances that are both historical and personal and the realities of their lives interact uneasily with the past.”
MCD: “Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, the small town they all fled after high-school graduation. Each of them is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter: You promised. Told in two enthralling time lines, The Wonder State is a stunning, immersive follow-up to Girl One. Sara Flannery Murphy has created another dazzling, genre-blurring novel — an adventure story laced with nostalgia and magic, exploring belonging and the lasting power of community.”
Flatiron: “Victor Chin’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of 15. Diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, otherwise known as leprosy, he’s forced to leave the familiar confines of his father’s laundry business in the Bronx – the only home he’s known since emigrating from China with his older brother – to quarantine alongside patients from all over the country at a federal institution in Carville. At first, Victor is scared not only of the disease, but of the confinement, and wants nothing more than to flee. Between treatments he dreams of escape and imagines his life as a fugitive. But soon he finds a new sense of freedom far from home – one without the pull of obligations to his family, or the laundry business, or his mother back in China. Here, in the company of an unforgettable cast of characters, Victor finds refuge in music and experiences first love, jealousy, betrayal, and even tragedy.”
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