First Novel Friday: The High Heaven, If the Dead Belong Here, and This Is the Only Kingdom

Friday, 6:00 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT November 7, 2025

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

Members of The Center for Fiction receive free tickets to First Novel Friday and early access to registration. Become a member today. Already a member? RSVP here.

On the first Friday of the month, join us as we celebrate and launch a selection of the best debut novels published today. Be among the first to discover boundary-pushing and world-expanding work from exciting new voices in fiction.

Kick off the weekend with a happy hour at our cash bar for ticket holders in our Members Lounge starting at 6pm. Then, at 7pm, we’ll move to our auditorium for readings from the featured debut novelists, followed by a short moderated conversation. The party continues with book signings and signature cocktails to round out the night. Go home with something new—a book, a friend, a favorite Friday night tradition.

This month’s novels traverse traditions, genres, and cultures, from Native American Southern Gothic and neo-Western sci-fi, to an epic family story set in a Puerto Rican barrio. We are thrilled to welcome award-winning author Victor LaValle (The Changeling) as the evening’s moderator. We hope you will support our featured debut novelists by purchasing their books at the event (purchase all three for 15% off). Space is limited, so reserve your spot today!

Presented in partnership with The Travel Agency.

We offer two in-person ticket options: the $5 Community Ticket and the $15+ Supporter Ticket. Both provide the same access, but if you’re able, we kindly suggest registering for the Supporter Ticket to help sustain our programs for emerging writers.

November’s Featured Debuts:

This Is the Only Kingdom by Jaquira Díaz
When Maricarmen falls for Rey el Cantante—a beloved local musician with a Robin Hood reputation—she begins to imagine a life beyond the confines of her Puerto Rican barrio. But the dream slips away, and one violent moment shatters everything. Fifteen years later, she and her daughter Nena are caught in the aftermath of a murder that turns their community against them. Navigating loss, betrayal, and the discovery of her sexual identity, Nena must learn to assert herself and safeguard her family in a world that can be unwelcoming. This Is the Only Kingdom is a bold, heartrending novel about mothers and daughters, survival, and the weight of generational wounds.

If the Dead Belong Here by Carson Faust
When six-year-old Laurel Taylor disappears without a trace, her family is left broken and searching for answers. As despair sets in, her older sister Nadine begins to experience vivid nightmares that seem to echo a deeper family history. Convinced Laurel’s disappearance is tied to long-buried tragedies, Nadine turns to her elders for guidance. Inspired by Native American folklore and family history, If the Dead Belong Here explores the enduring impact of colonization, the weight of generational trauma, and the strength it takes to face what haunts us.

The High Heaven by Joshua Wheeler
The High Heaven is a daring multigenre debut novel that follows Izzy Gently’s life after she’s orphaned during a deadly clash in the New Mexico desert on the night of the first Apollo mission. Taken in by a struggling rancher whose land is encroached by NASA rocket tests, Izzy’s journey spans tragedy, addiction, and a cast of eccentric characters across Texas and New Orleans. Blending neo-Western, picaresque, and Southern gothic, Joshua Wheeler’s novel reflects on the enduring human drive to find purpose amid vast and uncertain landscapes.

Featuring

Jaquira Díaz

Jaquira Díaz

Jaquira Díaz is the author of Ordinary Girls, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, an American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Selection, an Indie Next Pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, a Library Reads pick, and finalist for the B&N Discover Prize. She has written for the Atlantic, the Guardian, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches in the writing program at Columbia University.

Photo Credit: Sylvia Rosokoff
Carson Faust

Carson Faust

Carson Faust is two-spirit and an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina. He is the recipient of artist fellowships from the McKnight Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. His fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly, ANMLY, and Waxwing, among other journals, and has been anthologized in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. He lives in Minnesota, where he works in philanthropy.

Photo Credit: Laura Rae Rosenberg
Joshua Wheeler

Joshua Wheeler

Joshua Wheeler is the author of the essay collection Acid West, which was named a best book of 2018 by Newsweek, the Paris Review, and O, The Oprah Magazine. He’s written for the New York Times, Alta, and Harper’s magazine, and he teaches at Louisiana State University.

Photo Credit: Adrienne Battistella
Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle is the author of eight works of fiction: five novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, the Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.

Photo Credit: Vrinda Madan

Featured Books

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This Is the Only Kingdom

By Jaquira Díaz

Published by Little, Brown and Company

PURCHASE

When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico – beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for herself, for Rey, his young brother Tito, and eventually, their daughter Nena. Until one fateful day changes everything.

Fifteen years later, Maricarmen and Nena find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation as the community that once rallied to support Rey turns against them. Now Nena, a teenager haunted by loss and betrayal and exploring her sexual identity, must learn to fight for herself and her family in a world not always welcoming. For lovers of the Neapolitan novels, This Is the Only Kingdom is an immersive and moving portrait of a family – and a community – torn apart by generational grief, and a powerful love letter to mothers, daughters, and the barrios that make them.
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If the Dead Belong Here

By Carson Faust

Published by Penguin Publishing Group

PURCHASE

When six-year-old Laurel Taylor vanishes without a trace, her family is left shattered, struggling to navigate the darkness of grief and unanswered questions. As their search turns to despair, Laurel’s older sister, Nadine, begins experiencing nightmares that blur the line between dream and reality, and she becomes convinced that Laurel’s disappearance could be connected to other family tragedies. Guided by her elders, Nadine sets out to uncover whether laying the ghosts to rest is the key to finding her sister and healing her fractured family.

Carson Faust captivates in this chilling literary debut that confronts the specter of colonization and the generational scars it leaves on Native American families. Steeped in Indigenous folklore and drawing from the author’s own family history, If the Dead Belong Here examines what it means to be haunted—both by the supernatural and by terrors of our own making. Faust crafts a powerful, kaleidoscopic tale about the complicated legacies of violence that shape our present, the importance of honoring our past, and the resilience of a family—and a people—determined to heal from old wounds.

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The High Heaven

By Joshua Wheeler

Published by Graywolf Press

PURCHASE

In 1967, on the night of the first Apollo mission, a child named Izzy is orphaned when the doomsday cult she was born into clashes with the sheriff in the high desert of New Mexico. She’s taken in by a struggling rancher who is trying to keep his mind from falling apart as NASA rocket tests encroach on his outer range. Inspired by the true story of a UFO cult in a village near White Sands, this novel traces Izzy Gently’s whole life: from tragedy on the ranch, through addiction and a rich cast of eccentrics in Texas, to New Orleans, where Izzy is haunted by her past even as she uses lessons from childhood to counsel people who have lost the ability to see the moon.

In The High Heaven, Joshua Wheeler explores American piety as it mutates over the course of the Space Age, as technology changes notions of both humanity and the heavens. Shot through with the speculative while paying homage to three iconic genres—neo-Western, picaresque, and Southern gothic—Izzy’s life story becomes a mirror for the warping of manifest destiny and, ultimately, a testament to the human will to seek meaning from the universe.

Suffused with the absurdist history of American space travel and the wide-open landscapes of the Southwest, The High Heaven chronicles a larger-than-life adventure of one extraordinary woman who, despite tragedy, never loses sight of redemption.