June 8, 2024
Trouble is brewing here: in a simulated utopia; in a house full of secrets; from a struggling young woman’s career choice; in a transplanted Iranian family; and for a new mother’s valiant efforts to keep it all together. These characters’ psyches are flayed open, all flawed but deeply humane and highly entertaining.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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One of Our Kind
By Nicola Yoon
Published by Knopf
‘Our Kind’ are the privileged residents of a planned California community called Liberty, meant to be a haven for wealthy Black families increasingly concerned about rising police violence. Yoon (The Sun Is Also a Star) crosses over to her first adult novel with a chilling story of psychological horror filled with great movie-ready dialogue. As we follow a pregnant lawyer, her husband, and her young son, we soon find that all is not as perfect as it seems. “It’s a place we can be free to relax and be ourselves,” her husband enthusiastically remarks, but, as Jasmyn replies: “There are no utopias.”
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Brat
By Gabriel Smith
Published by Penguin Press
Gabriel’s father has just died, and his girlfriend has dumped him. This double-whammy sends him reeling. He is also living off an advance for a novel he is not writing. (His father was a writer, as is his mother, who has dementia, as well as his grandmother who is in assisted living.) He’s staying in the family house—allegedly cleaning it out for an estate sale. Elements of gothic horror encroach as Gabriel’s skin begins to molt and the house fills with black mold. Smith’s debut novel is not mere navel-gazing—there are some very moving revelations here about dark nights of the soul that sparkle with black humor.
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Margo's Got Money Troubles
By Rufi Thorpe
Published by William Morrow
Margo has more than money troubles. Barely out of her teens, a short-lived affair with her professor results in pregnancy, and her relationship with her divorced parents is fraught. She becomes a cam girl (an internet sex worker), which she is surprisingly good at. Things go well until her married professor suddenly demands full custody of their son. Thorpe started this book during the pandemic hoping to write “about power, cold and green.” Despite her troubles, Margo gets (spoiler alert) a happy ending in this funny, sexy, and wise romp.
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Tehrangeles
By Porochista Khakpour
Published by Pantheon
Khakpour (Sick) is originally from Tehran. In her lively and appealing new novel set in Los Angeles, an immigrant Iranian family with four daughters aspires to have their own reality TV show. They are comfortably wealthy in a world that is “hell dressed like heaven, or the opposite, depending on who you’re asking” (according to the middle daughter, Mina). It’s a bit Little Women with some Crazy Rich Asians mixed in. “Satire is best when you have one foot in, one out, “ says Khakpour. She definitely succeeds.
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Soldier Sailor
By Claire Kilroy
Published by Scribner
In a spare portrayal of the constraints of motherhood, Kilroy unveils the terrors and frustration, but also the deep, deep love required to handle those early years of caring for a child. Teething, refusing to eat, endless crying, and feelings of resentment for the husband who goes off to work each day abound. This novel took my breath away more than once. End-of-the-rope exhaustion, complete loss of identity, I could go on. You keep thinking she will just snap. But Kilroy’s mix of pleasure and pain is perfectly calibrated. Add to the shelf of books like Nightbitch; The Wren, the Wren; and Dept. of Speculation.
