New Books in Literature

It’s been a difficult year in America. From plague, to protests, to politics, there have never been so many lives at stake, nor so many questions about the future of our country.Since his election in 2016, questions have been raised about president Trump’s too-close-for-comfort ties to Russian leadership and intelligence. Lately, his antagonism toward infectious disease science and CDC guidelines in addition to his deployment of federal troops into American cities to silence protestors have led many to compare the current regime to authoritarian governments of long ago wars.But the truth is, very little about these tactics are new. In other parts of the world, such as in Ukraine, citizens know them, resist them, and subvert them in a way Americans are just learning how to.In her striking debut, On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine (Mad Creek Books), author Sonya Bilocerkowycz speculates on the possibility of future revolutions built on the lessons of revolutions past—both big, and small. Her essays expertly weave personal narrative as a member of the Ukrainian-American diaspora into research about Ukrainian myth, politics, history, art, and more, in one great cultural examination of Ukraine that is as timely as it is thoughtful.Bilocerkowcyz’s unique perspective as a Ukrainian-American sheds necessary light onto the darkness of America’s current political moment, her voice a guide to finding our way home.Today on New Books in Literature, please join us as we sit down with Sonya Bilocerkowcyz to learn more about On Our Way Home from the Revolution, available now.Zoë Bossiere is a doctoral student at Ohio University, where she studies creative nonfiction and teaches writing classes. For more NBN interviews, follow her on Twitter @zoebossiere or head to zoebossiere.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Lady Cecily Kay has just returned to England when she encounters Sir Barnaby Mayne. It’s 1703, Queen Anne is on the throne, and London’s coffee houses are buzzing with discussions of everything from science and philosophy to monsters and magic. Of course, Cecily has no plans to join the ongoing conversations; coffee houses bar the door to female visitors, however intelligent and learned. But she has secured something better: an entrée to the house of the city’s most influential collector, where she can compare her list of previously unknown plants to his rooms filled with specimens and, with luck, identify them.On Cecily’s first day in the Mayne house, however, Sir Barnaby is stabbed to death. His meek curator confesses to the crime, and even the victim’s widow seems willing to ignore any discrepancies in the evidence. With assistance from her childhood friend Meacan Barlow, an illustrator also living in Sir Barnaby’s house, Cecily sets out to tie up the loose ends on a murder that far too many people would prefer to remain unsolved. Her quest leads her into the shadowy world of London’s collectors, who will stop at nothing to cut out the competition and have no qualms about silencing a pair of nosy women who are coming too close to the truth.In The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne (Minotaur Books, 2020), Elsa Hart the author of the famed Li Du novels, here brings her talent for spinning a great yarn and crafting a compelling mystery to a new place, which—as you will learn in the interview—is in fact her original literary destination, attained at last.C. P. Lesley is the author of ten novels, including Legends of the Five Directions, a historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Her latest book, Song of the Shaman, appeared in 2020. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It’s 1966, and Bernice’s husband has either died or abandoned her. Her brother Floyd invites her to join him as a servant working for white owners of an old plantation house in Mississippi. Floyd warns Bernice about the housekeeper, Silva, who lives there with her two young sons. The owner and his wife don’t speak much and there seem to be secrets hidden in every corner. The Mister works, fishes, reads the paper, and eats. When the Missus, a sickly, vindictive woman, sets her plan in motion, Bernice tries to mitigate the pain that will reverberate through everyone involved. In his novel Pale (Blackstone, 2020), Farmer tells a slowly bubbling, heartbreaking story that shows a household infected by the scourges of jealousy and vengeance.Edward A. Farmer is a native of Memphis, Tennessee where he journaled and cultivated stories his entire childhood. He is a graduate of Amherst College with a degree in English and Psychology, and recipient of the MacArthur-Leithauser Travel Award for creative writing. He currently lives and writes in sunny Pasadena, California, where he is able to hike whenever he’s not reading or writing.If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/joinG.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Premee Mohamed’s debut novel, Beneath the Rising (Solaris, 2020) came out in March, but don’t call her a new writer.“I find it funny that people refer to people who have just started to get published as new writers. I finished my first novel when I was 12. I'm not a new writer. What I am is new to publishing, and it's so weird to me that people conflate the two, as if you just started writing at the moment you started getting published,” Mohamed says.She’d completed the first draft of Beneath the Rising in 2002, around the time she’d received her undergraduate degree in molecular genetics, but it wasn’t until 2015 that she decided to try and publish it. Until then, writing was “very much my private little hobby.”Beneath the Rising combines horror, science fiction and fantasy in its portrayal of the complicated friendship of Nick and Joanna (Johnny). They’d been close since they were young children despite many differences (she’s a rich, white, world-famous scientist; he’s a poor, brown, ordinary guy). But their relationship gets tested when Johnny’s latest invention—a clean reactor the size of a shoebox—unleashes Lovecraftian monsters, and, in the process of helping Johnny battle this cosmic evil, Nick uncovers secrets that change his view of Johnny.The monsters pose the ultimate foil for Johnny, who, like many scientists, wants to both understand the world and control it.“As a scientist,” Mohamed explains, “she wants [the monsters] to be understandable, to be comprehensible. And, of course, they can't be reduced down to something you can study in the lab and that just drives her berserk.”Rob Wolf is the host of New Books in Science Fiction and the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Italian Renaissance introduced—or reintroduced—many valuable concepts to society and culture, giving rise eventually to our modern world. But it was also a time of fierce political infighting, social inequality, the subjugation of women, religious intolerance, belief in witchcraft, and many other elements that are more fun to read about than to experience. In The Road to Gesualdo, Erika Rummel draws on her years as a historian of the sixteenth century to bring this captivating story to life.When Leonora d’Este, the daughter of the powerful family running the Italian city-state of Ferrara, receives orders from her brother to marry Prince Carlo of Gesualdo, she accepts the arranged match without protest. Her lady-in-waiting, Livia Prevera, does not. Prince Carlo, Livia argues, must have a secret, because the courtiers of Ferrara get quiet whenever his name comes up.Only after the wedding ceremony does Leonora discover that Livia is right. Prince Carlo murdered his first wife and her lover after finding them in bed together, his legal right at the time but an act committed with sufficient savagery to cast doubt on his mental health.At first, Carlo and Leonora establish a bond through their love of music, but as time goes on, Livia becomes ever more concerned about a series of threats to her own health and, by extension, the future of those she cares about. Meanwhile, Pietro, the man she loves but cannot marry due to poverty on both sides, has been sent to Rome on a mission for Leonora’s brother: to discover whether the Gesualdo family really holds the power the d’Este clan expects and requires.Part of Pietro’s mission involves an arranged marriage with the daughter of a wealthy diplomat. Surrounded by plots and treachery, Livia and Pietro struggle to balance the demands of love, loyalty, and practicality—always hoping that fate will bring them together once more.C. P. Lesley is the author of ten novels, including Legends of the Five Directions, a historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Her latest book, Song of the Shaman, appeared in 2020. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In Bill LeFurgy's Into the Suffering City: A Novel of Baltimore (High Kicker Books), Sarah Kennecott is a brilliant young doctor who cares deeply about justice for murder victims after her own family is murdered. She’s not like other people; she doesn’t like noises and smells, she doesn’t understand chit chat, and she cannot interpret inflection or nuance. It’s 1909, and the city of Baltimore is filled with gilded mansions and a seedy corrupt, underworld.Sarah struggles to be accepted as a doctor. After getting fired for looking too closely into the killing of a showgirl, she refuses to back down from the investigation and joins forces with a street-smart private detective who is able to access saloons, brothels, and burlesque theaters where Sarah isn’t allowed. Together, they unravel a few secrets that could cost them their lives.Bill LeFurgy is a professional historian who has studied the seamy underbelly of urban life, including drugs, crime, and prostitution, as well as more workaday matters such as streets, buildings, wires, and wharves. He has put his many years of experience into writing gritty historical fiction about Baltimore, his favorite city. Bill has graduate degrees from the University of Maryland and has worked at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore City Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library of Congress. He has learned much from his children and grandchildren, including grace, patience, emotional connection, and the need to welcome different perspectives from those on the autism spectrum or with other personality traits that are undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or unexplained. Bill has published many books and articles about U.S. history and history sources, including for the Library of Congress, Maryland Historical Magazine, and the U.S. Department of Energy.If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/joinG.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In The Spinning Place (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019), Chelsea Wagenaar explores the power of language—in terms of its possibilities and what it fails to express.As a being with a body in the world, there are so many experiences that are inexpressible. These poems attempt to touch upon those experiences, relating what it means to have a body, one that carries so many things, from children in the womb to the emotional weight of our relationship to others and the world around us. As Wagenaar lyrically examines everyday moments, her words reach for an ecstatic experience of the sacred.Moon-sliced star-pockedstreetlit bleat, coal train movinglike its own ghost along the tracks.2:00, 3:00, my shadow swaysas I catch myself, hand on the wall,pulled from bed by your nocturnal haunt,you at your crib rail, blanket clutched,more sound than body.— from “Night Shift” Chelsea Wagenaar is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently The Spinning Place was winner of the 2018 Michael Waters Prize. Her first collection, Mercy Spurs the Bone, was selected by Philip Levine to win the 2013 Philip Levine Prize. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of North Texas, and currently teaches at Valparaiso University. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in Image and The Southern Review.Andrea Blythe is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast. She is the author of three chapbooks, Twelve: Poems Inspired by the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale (Interstellar Flight Press), Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch (Kickstarter funded, 2018), and the collaboratively written Every Girl Becomes the Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2018), authored alongside Laura Madeline Wiseman. She cohosts the New Books in Poetry podcast and is the founder of Once Upon the Weird. Find her online at andreablythe.com or on Twitter/Instagram @AndreaBlythe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Christina Gessler talks with her friend Nancy Thayer about Girls of Summer: A Novel (Ballantine Books), which was just chosen for O Magazine’s Summer Reading List.Girls of Summer is set during one life-changing summer on Nantucket, which brings about exhilarating revelations for a single mother and her two grown children in this sensational novel from New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer.Lisa Hawley is perfectly satisfied living on her own. Having fully recovered from a brutal divorce nearly two decades earlier, she has successfully raised her kids, Juliet and Theo, seeing them off to college and beyond. As the owner of a popular boutique on Nantucket, she’s built a fulfilling life for herself on the island where she grew up.With her beloved house in desperate need of repair, Lisa calls on Mack Whitney, a friendly—and very handsome—local contractor and fellow single parent, to do the work. The two begin to grow close, and Lisa is stunned to realize that she might be willing to open up again after all . . . despite the fact that Mack is ten years her junior.Juliet and Theo worry that Mack will only break their mother’s heart—and they can’t bear to see her hurt again. Both stuck in ruts of their own, they each hope that a summer on Nantucket will provide them with the clarity they’ve been searching for. When handsome entrepreneur Ryder Hastings moves to the island to expand his environmental nonprofit, Juliet, an MIT-educated web designer, feels an immediate attraction, one her rocky love life history pushes her to deny at first.Meanwhile, free spirit Theo finds his California bliss comes to a brutal halt when a surfing injury forces him back to the East Coast. Upon his return, he has eyes only for Mack’s daughter, Beth, to whom he is bound by an unspeakable tragedy from high school. Can they overcome their past?As the season unfolds, a storm threatens to shatter the peace of the golden island, forcing Lisa, Juliet, and Theo to decide whether their summer romances are destined for something more profound. Nancy Thayer dazzles again in this delightful tale of family, a reminder that sometimes, finding our way back home can bring us unexpected gifts.Nancy Thayer is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty books. Girls of Summer was chosen for O Magazine’s Summer 2020 Reading List. She lives on Nantucket.Dr. Christina Gessler’s background is in anthropology, women’s history, and literature. She works as a historian, poet, and photographer. In seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, Gessler writes the histories of largely unknown women, poems about small relatable moments, and takes many, many photos in nature. She lived on Nantucket from 2000 to 2005 and longs to return, at least for the summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A decrepit house in Greendale, Mississippi once belonged to Billie James’s father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when she was four years old. Her mother dies of cancer. Then years later, her paternal grandmother dies and leaves Billie the old Mississippi Delta house. At age 34, Billie returns to the house, encounters the locals, and learns that on the day her father died, she went missing. She doesn’t want to leave Mississippi until she finds out what happened, but someone doesn’t want Billie to know the truth. Told from several perspectives, The Gone Dead (Ecco, 2019) is a story about family and memory, justice for those who were never given a chance, and some of the wounds caused by racism in America.Chanelle Benz has published work in Guernica, Granta.com, The New York Times, Electric Literature, The American Reader, Fence and others, and is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize. Her story collection The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead was named a Best Book of 2017 by The San Francisco Chronicle and one of Electric Literature’s 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2017. It was also shortlisted for the 2018 Saroyan Prize and longlisted for the 2018 PEN/Robert Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Story Prize. The Gone Dead was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and a Tonight Show Summer Reads Finalist. It was long-listed for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. It was also named a best new book of the summer by O, The Oprah Magazine, Time, Southern Living, and Nylon. Benz currently lives in Memphis where she teaches at Rhodes College. Whenever possible, she loves to listen to true crime and history podcasts.If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/joinG.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

How Do We Write Our Personal History at the Same Time That It’s Written for Us?Today I talked to Suri Hustvedt about this question and others as we discuss her book Memories of the Future (Simon and Schuster, 2019).The Literary Review (UK) has called Hustvedt “a twenty-first-century Virginia Woolf.” She’s the author of seven novels, four collections of essays, and two works of nonfiction. She has a PhD in English literature from Columbia University and lectures in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Hustvedt is the recipient of numerous awards, including the European Essay Prize.Topics covered in this episode include: What it can mean to be a heroine instead of a hero, including in regards to which emotions might conventionally be considered “off-limits.” The role that the author’s over-a-dozen drawings play in this novel. Musings on what the roots of ambition might be, and how ambition and shame as well as memory and imagination are often so intertwined. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his “Faces of the Week” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature