It’s no secret that we’re big fans of the work Kevin Maloney is doing these days. We’ve published his fiction and interviewed him multiple times. And now, his bibliography is about to get a bit larger with the forthcoming release of his collection Horse Girl Fever.
Well, it’s December. We’ll level with you: December can be a weird time to write about new releases. That makes it a little more of a challenge, though, and there’s a certain joy that comes from assembling a “hey! new books!” list at the same time as you might see year-end lists popping up elsewhere. Here are ten books we’re keeping an eye out for this month, from surreal literary fiction to detailed explorations of literary movements.
In October, I sat inside James Turrell’s installation Hind Sight for the first time. This is what it was like: I followed a railing along a winding pathway before arriving at a chair, where I sat. I then stared across the room at something imperceptible: something made out of light, something not designed to be perceived by human eyes under normal light. I left the room with a greater understanding of friends and family who have had genuinely religious experiences. In Hind Sight, there was the sense of perceiving something utterly ineffable and yet utterly present.
Credit where credit is due: I picked up Jean-Pierre Martinet’s With Their Hearts In Their Boots (translated by Alex Andriesse) in no small part due to the fact that its introduction was by William Boyle. Boyle’s cultural recommendations, whether literary or cinematic, are often spot-on, and reading his description of this “[h]hard-boiled, funny, dangerous” short novel piqued my interest for what was to follow.
Charles Bock hails from Las Vegas. And it’s clear right from the opening pages of this memoir, that he’s been dealt a tough hand. He’s a reluctant father and working novelist, and his beloved wife Diane has just passed away from leukemia, leaving him to care for his three-year old daughter, Lily. And things will only get worse before you leave Chapter One. The book has a Sisyphean feel to it because nothing is ever easy in this story, except the clear, persistent love the writer has for his daughter. That drives the narrative and allows you to see struggle, self-doubt, and sacrifice as the essential journey we’re on with this family.
Increasingly, the podcast Know Your Enemy has become one of my go-to sources for book recommendations. Sometimes this involves going to the backlist, particularly when it comes to Garry Wills; sometimes it involves checking out a more recent work, particularly when its author was a KYE guest. That’s how I came to read Ronnie A. Grinberg’s Write like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals. That’s an imposing title, but the book itself is eminently readable; more than that, it’s also deeply relevant, chronicling a compelling blend of literature, politics, and interpersonal rivalries.
In our weekend reading: talking money with Claire Rousay, new writing from Justin Taylor, and more.
When I first encountered Corey Farrenkopf online, it was due in part to his literary profile — he’s a writer, an interviewer, and a librarian with a wide-ranging sense of the uncanny. This year brought with it the release of his deubt novel Living in Cemeteries, set in a world similar to our own with one key difference: restless spirits sometimes take revenge on the living for the sins of their ancestors. It’s a wonderfully disquieting book, and we discussed its origins, its evolution, and what’s next for him.