MANUEL GONZALES discusses his new book THE REGIONAL OFFICE IS UNDER ATTACK!, with JIM GAVIN

The Regional Office is Under Attack! (Riverhead Books)

In a world beset by amassing forces of darkness, one organization the Regional Office and its coterie of super-powered female assassins protects the globe from annihilation. At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now, the Regional Office is under attack. 

Recruited by a defector from within, Rose is a young assassin leading the attack, eager to stretch into her powers and prove herself on her first mission. Defending the Regional Office is Sarah who may or may not have a mechanical arm fiercely devoted to the organization that took her in as a young woman in the wake of her mother's sudden disappearance. On the day that the Regional Office is attacked, Rose's and Sarah's stories will overlap, their lives will collide, and the world as they know it just might end. 

Weaving in a brilliantly conceived mythology, fantastical magical powers, teenage crushes, and kinetic fight scenes, The Regional Office Is Under Attack!"is a seismically entertaining debut novel about revenge and allegiance and love.

Praise for The Regional Office is Under Attack!

“[A] wry and propulsive work of inventive fiction by a terrific young writer! Read it!”—Jess Walter, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins

“Delightfully weird, weirdly delightful! Manuel Gonzales clearly has a labyrinth of a brain—all stuffed with monsters, trapdoors, and complicated heroes. Sign me up as a member of the fan club, please.”—Kelly Link, author of Get in Troubleand Magic for Beginners

“With exuberant prose and a corkscrew plot, Manuel Gonzales vanquishes artistic orthodoxies, tiresome genre boundaries and every humdrum narrative convention in sight, leaving in his wake a riveting story of secrets, betrayals, and vengeance!” —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus

“[A]n exciting new voice."—Aimee Bender, The New York Times Book Review

“It’s easy to compare Manuel Gonzales to George Saunders, but it would be just as easy to compare him to Borges or Márquez or Aimee Bender . . . He makes the extraordinary ordinary, and his playfulness is infectious.”—Benjamin Percy,Esquire

“Manuel Gonzales has an imagination that's as expansive and open as a Texas prairie.”—Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

“A brand-new American literary voice.”—Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet

“The Regional Office is Under Attack! is wickedly subversive, suspenseful, and thoughtful, all at once—but most of all, it's just fun to read, from the first  sentence to the last. Put down your expectations and pick up this book.  It'll hit you like a lightning bolt.”—Jess Row, author of Your Face in Mine

“Wild, visionary, ablaze with heart and riot, The Regional Office is Under Attack! is unforgettable—an epic love story that confronts our future with a howl and fireworks.”—Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters

Manuel Gonzales is the author of the acclaimed story collection The Miniature Wife, winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. A graduate of the Columbia University Creative Writing Program, he teaches writing at the University of Kentucky and the Institute for American Indian Arts. He has published fiction and nonfiction in Open City, Fence, One Story, Esquire, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, andThe Believer. Gonzales lives in Kentucky with his wife and two children.

Jim Gavin’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Esquire, Slice, The Mississippi Review, andZYZZYVA. He lives in Los Angeles.