Hello. You know the drill. It’s May; we have some books we’d like to recommend. Some fiction, some nonfiction, some poetry. In other words, here’s what we’re excited about this month.
Alison Kinney, United States of Rejection: A Story of Love, Hate, and Hope
(May 1, University of Georgia Press)
Rejection, on some level, is a universal experience. In her new book, Alison Kinney takes on the myriad forms that it can take, covering plenty of gropund along the way. As Publishers Weekly noted in its review, “Kinney provides especially intriguing commentary on the harms of can-do, self-improvement–focused responses to rejection.”
Sara Lippmann, Hidden River
(May 5, Tortoise Books)
We have long enjoyed Sara Lippmann’s work, including interviewing her in these pages. And we’re thrilled to see that she has a new novel out this month, one which traces the troubled outlines of a friendship over the course of several decades.
Rennie McDougall, Nonstop Bodies: How Dance Shaped New York City
(May 5, Abrams Books)
In an interview last month with Maxwell Neely-Cohen, Rennie McDougall explained one of the guiding principles behind his new book. “A throughline in this book is how artists created those spaces in the city for themselves, carving out space where they weren’t invited or they didn’t necessarily belong.” The result is a fascinating and wide-ranging look at how one art form remade a city.
Fernando Pessoa (translated by Patricio Ferrari and Margaret Jull Costa), The Complete Works of Ricardo Reis
(May 5, New Directions)
Do you enjoy surreal, singular writing? This new collection brings together all of the works written under the name Ricardo Reis, an alias used by the writer best known as Fernando Pessoa. It’s an expansive foray into poetry and prose.
Keith Waldrop, Light While There is Light: An American History
(May 12, NYRB Classics)
In a 2013 article for The New Yorker, Ben Lerrner — who contributed the introduction to this new edition — sung the praises of Keith Waldrop’s unconventional memoir. Lerner described it as “a book that develops by illuminating scenes, not by imposing the coherences of a conventional plot.” As for the benefits of taking such an approach — well, you’ll have to delve into this volume and discover them for yourself.
Ryan Ridge and Mel Bosworth, Climate Strange
(May 15, Astrophil Press)
In describing this collection, Amber Sparks had glowing things to say about Ryan Ridge and Mel Bosworth’s collaboration. Sparks called it “so absorbing and funny and sad and good they deserve to just exist without category, to be read without anything but delight.” We’re intrigued!
Philip Hensher, Kitchen Venom
(May 19; McNally Editions)
A 2012 article in The Guardian noted that Philip Hensher’s novel Kitchen Venom was “partly narrated by Margaret Thatcher and featured indolent Commons clerks, rent boys and murder.” (It also got him fired from his job at the House of Commons.) Now, it’s being reprinted in a stylish new edition. It’s a political novel like few before it.
Caitlin Horrocks, The Sleep
(May 19, IKE: A Publishing Project)
We’ve long admired Caitlin Horrocks’s fiction, which can be found in several acclaimed collections as well as online. This new chapbook explores the point when depression shifts into a higher register, one capable of altering reality into something bizarre and menacing.
Howard A. Rodman, Destiny Express
(May 19, Rare Bird Books)
You might recognize Howard A. Rodman’s name from some of the films he’s written — or for his introduction to a certain Jean-Patrick Manchette novel. He’s also the author of several novels, including Destiny Express, a story of history, filmmaking, and fascism. Also worth mentioning: among its admirers is one Thomas Pynchon.
Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Attention-Seeking Behavior
(May 19, Graywolf Press)
“Initially the project was going to be a monograph about lying,” Aea Varfis-van Warmelo explained in a recent interview with AnOther. Eventually, that project altered into this: an immersive, beguiling story told from the perspective of someone with, shall we say, a questionable relationship to the truth. If you like your narrators unreliable, look no further.
Xitlalitl Rodríguez Mendoza (translated by Dora Prieto and Daniela Rodríguez Chevalier), JAWS
(May 21, Cardboard House Press)
Publisher Cardboard House Press describes this collection as “a book about water, breath, and suffocation, about work that disciplines the body, about survival under glass.” And if you’re curious to see what that means in terms of texts on a page, the online poetry journal Volume has one example.
All cover artwork and release dates are subject to change.