New Books in Literature

As revealed by the title of Talia Carner’s latest novel, The Third Daughter (William Morrow, 2019), her heroine, Batya, has two older sisters. Both ran off with men their parents could not tolerate, placing a heavy burden on Batya to compensate for her sisters’ failings by making her parents happy.When her family is forced to flee its home in a Ukrainian village to escape a pogrom, losing most of its goods, Batya helps out by taking a job at a local tavern. There she meets Yitzik Moskowitz, a smooth-talking, well-respected, and obviously well-off visitor who soon convinces Batya’s father to give his third daughter’s hand in marriage. Moskowitz promises to wait two years before making Batya his wife, but he insists she travel with him now, because who knows when he will return to Ukraine?Although only fourteen, Batya agrees to accompany her future husband on his journey. But after one night on the road, she discovers that what the “Man from Buenos Aires” wants from her has nothing to do with marriage. After a hideous journey across the Atlantic, Batya ends up in an Argentinean brothel, enslaved to the legal trafficking organization Zwi Migdal. For a while, she longs for death. But strong and resilient, she learns to adapt and even finds solace in unexpected places.Based on a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem, some of which became the basis for the popular musical Fiddler on the Roof, this fifth novel by a committed social activist is not always an easy read. But it is an essential and compelling read, not least because although set in the late nineteenth century its story is as contemporary as yesterday’s headlines.C. P. Lesley is the author of nine novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, The Vermilion Bird, and The Shattered Drum), a historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible, and Song of the Siren, published in 2019. 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

"Poetry gave me back a way to find my culture, my history,” says Jason Bayani while discussion his new book Locus (Omnidawn Publishing 2019), which blends memoir and poetry into a stunning exploration of fragmented identities and the Pilipinx-American experience. Drawing inspiration from hip-hop and delving into the knotted complexity of family history and relationships, Bayani is able to recover a migrant identity and experience that is often silenced and shape a confident declaration of selfhood in American culture.In my grandfather’s last daysHe wandered the rice fields alone.What was left of his mind bringing him backto what he spent his entire life building.We are the land—lupa ay buhay, land is living.When my father talks of his poverty, he presentsa bowl of rice and says, ‘Your Inangwould put one piece of fish on the table,and we would press our fingersagainst it for flavor.’ Mimicking his handscooping rice out of the bowl.— fragment from “The Low Lands”Bayani’s recommended poets and artists from the podcast: Microchips for Millions by Janice Sapigao, This is for the Mostless by Jason Magabo Perez, Souvenir by Aimee Suzara, Circa 91 by Ruby Ibarra, Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay,  Insurrecto by Gina Apostol, and Anak Ko by Jay Som.Jason Bayani is an MFA graduate from Saint Mary's College, a Kundiman fellow, and works as the artistic director for the Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American arts organization in the country. His publishing credits include World Literature Today, Muzzle Magazine, and Lantern Review, among others. Jason performs regularly around the country and debuted his solo theater show "Locus of Control" in 2016 with theatrical runs in San Francisco, New York, and Austin.You can join New Books in Poetry in a discussion of this episode on Shuffle by joining here.Andrea Blythe bides her time waiting for the apocalypse by writing speculative poetry and fiction. She is the author of Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch (2018) a collection of erasure poems created from the pages of Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyers, and coauthor of Every Girl Becomes the Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2018), a collaborative chapbook written with Laura Madeline Wiseman. She is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association and the Horror Writers Association. Learn more at:www.andreablythe.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

“There are only two ways to live your life,” said Albert Einstein, “One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.”Oren Harman clearly agrees with Einstein’s sentiments. In Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), Harman takes scientific facts, as we know them today, and weaves them into narratives that have the tone, grace and drama of myth. Harman recognizes that despite the astounding achievements of science we are as humbled as the ancients by the existential mysteries of life. Has science revealed the secrets of fate or immortality? Has it provided protection from jealousy insight into love?Evolutions brings to life the latest scientific thinking on the birth of the universe, and the journey from a single cell all the way to our human minds. Here are the earth and the moon presenting a cosmological view of motherhood, a panicking mitochondrion introducing sex and death to the world, and the loneliness of consciousness emerging from the memory of an octopus. Reawakening our sense of wonder and terror at the world around us and within us, Oren Harman uses modern science to create new and original mythologies.Renee Garfinkel is a Jerusalem-based psychologist, writer, and television & radio commentator. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com or tweet @embracingwisdom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash discusses his novel, The Last Ballad (William Morrow, 2017) writing fiction inspired by the South, and exploring the complexities of southern class, race, and gender relations against the backdrop of the 1929 Loray Mill strike.Intertwining myriad voices, Wiley Cash brings to life the heartbreak and bravery of the now forgotten struggle of the labor movement in early twentieth-century America—and pays tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers. Lyrical, heartbreaking, and haunting, this eloquent novel confirms Wiley Cash’s place among our nation’s finest writers.Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Alan Bradley’s first mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, came out in 2009, and received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, the Agatha Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Macavity Award and the Spotted Owl Award. This book introduced the intrepid 11-year-old protagonist, Flavia de Luce, who lives in an enormous manor house in England, with her widowed father and two sisters. It’s 1950, and England is still rebuilding itself after WWII. Another book has followed each year. Golden Tresses of the Dead, the 10th novel in the series, was released in early 2019, and continues the escapades of now orphaned Flavia, who is being cared for, along with her annoying little cousin Undine, by a staff of servants. Flavia collaborates with the estate gardener, Dogger, who was her father's previous army companion and has a surprising repertoire of talents. Together, they solve whatever crimes pop up in the seemingly peaceful little English town of Bishop’s Lacey.In addition to the Flavia de Luce Mystery Series, Canadian-born author Alan Bradley is the author of many short stories, children's stories, newspaper columns, and the memoir, The Shoebox Bible. He co-authored Ms. Holmes of Baker Street with the late William A.S. Sarjeant. Alan Bradley and his wife live on the Isle of Mann in the middle of the Irish Sea. He began writing the series after retiring from the University of Saskatchewan, where, among other things, he taught television broadcast engineering and designed engineering studios. When not writing, he can be found reading, and often, both take place in his bed.G.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) to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, to check out some of her awesome recipes, or to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

After writing more than 30 books, including memoirs, military science fiction, alternate histories, and a book of writing advice, John Birmingham was ready to try his hand at the sweeping and dramatic science fiction subgenre known as space opera.But you’d never know The Cruel Stars(Del Rey, 2019) is his first attempt at epic, interstellar, battle-of-the-ages storytelling. His deft hand has produced a tightly paced, suspenseful, and bitingly funny adventure full of wild military tech, high-stakes conflict, and five eloquent characters.“I'm a huge fan of the [space opera] genre, but it took me a while to get the confidence to write my own,” Birmingham says.The conflict at the core of The Cruel Stars pits the Sturm—who believe with Nazi-like conviction in keeping humans “pure,” i.e. free of genetic or technological enhancements—against the rest of humanity.“I very much based [the Sturm] on the ultra-right, which was coming to scary prominence as I was first putting this book together. But in a way, the system against which they set themselves isn't particularly pretty either.”Set in the far future, the story follows multiple protagonists: a scrappy lieutenant who suddenly finds herself commanding a powerful warship, a pre-pubescent princess on the run from the Sturm, a sharp-shooting pirate, a centuries-old, reclusive and foul-mouthed war hero, and a prisoner convicted of treason whose computer-generated soul is facing permanent “deletion.”Each character has a distinct voice and unique challenges. Princess Alessia, for example, transforms overnight from a coddled heir to an embattled leader while war hero Admiral Frazer McLennan must finally confront the guilt he feels for decisions he made hundreds of years ago when he last battled the Sturm.But the story’s center of gravity is Lucinda Hardy, the lieutenant-turned-commander. “Hers is the story I want to investigate most of all,” Birmingham says. “She grew up poor, and she finds herself moving through rarefied and powerful centers of society. Early on, one of the other characters tells her ‘You don't belong here.’ And the thing that she has to come to terms with over the course of her story is whether or not she does.”The Cruel Stars, which came out in August, is the first installment of a planned trilogy.Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. A former journalist, he directs communications at a non-profit dedicated to justice reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A man turns himself into the police for kidnapping an underage girl. The police chief tell him to go home but Walter insists on being arrested and charged. Back to the beginning of the story in 1999, Walter is an eighteen-year-old math prodigy who has already earned two doctorates but is told to get some work experience before going to law school. An investment banker on Wall Street, by nineteen he’s married, and by twenty, the father of a daughter, Olivia. Then 9/11 happens, Walter loses his best friend, he becomes disillusioned with the banking world, and he focuses on fatherhood. Then he includes the little next-door neighbor in all of Olivia’s activities. Later, as his marriage crumbles and his wife takes Olivia with her to Maine, Walter finds himself more and more drawn to the neighbor. This is a novel about family dynamics, growing older, struggling with loneliness, and forbidden love.K. C. Maher always knew that she wanted to write. She learned grammar in parochial school and did a BA at St Johns College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she found her second passion, philosophy. Her short fiction has appeared in literary journals including Ascent, Black Warrior Review, Confrontation, Cottonwood, Gargoyle, and The View From Here. Her work has been short-listed for the Iowa School of Letters Award and Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She lives in New York City and when not writing, she likes to run along the East River where it connects to the Hudson River, then back through the Financial District. Today we discuss her book The Best of Crimes (RedDoor Publishing, 2019).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

Francie Meeker and her best friend, Vi Carothers, bought into the promise offered to middle-class, especially white, women in the mid-twentieth-century United States: find a man with a good career, marry young, stay at home, raise the children, keep house, and all will be well.By 1952, despite some successes, reality has killed this dream. So at the beginning of Lies in White Dresses (William Morrow, 2019)—the sparkling new novel by Sofia Grant, who is also the author of The Dress in the Window and The Daisy Children—Francie and Vi are boarding a train to Reno, Nevada. There, after six weeks residency, they can file for divorce.On the train they meet a young woman, June Samples, traveling with a small child. Unlike Francie and Vi, June has almost no means of support. Vi takes a liking to the younger woman and, when they reach Reno, she invites June to share her hotel suite.The first night, a babysitting job brings the threesome to the attention of Virgie, the hotel keeper’s daughter and a self-styled detective. Then, not long after their arrival, the local police report that Vi has drowned. Virgie is convinced she knows what happened. But who will believe a twelve-year-old girl?Compared to medieval Europe or Han Dynasty China, the 1940s and 1950s do not seem so long ago. But as Sofia Grant makes clear in this page-turning novel, in many respects the previous century was indeed a different world.C. P. Lesley is the author of nine novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, The Vermilion Bird, and The Shattered Drum), a historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible, and Song of the Siren, published in 2019. 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

Nicholas Walton’s Singapore Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency (Hurst, 2019) is far more than a portrait of the rise of a resource-poor nation that has become a model of economic development, governance and management of inter-communal relations. Part travelogue, part history, Walton charts the opportunities and pitfalls confronting small states that have become particularly acute in an era of identity politics and civilizational leadership. Potential threats include not only the Singapore’s struggle to insulate itself from global trends as well the impact of the rise of ultra-conservative attitudes in its majority Muslim neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, but also increased difficulty in balancing rival powers China and the United States. If that were not enough, Singapore is juggling multiple issues at a time that it is transiting to a new generational leadership faced with the challenge of ensuring that Singapore remains relevant to its neighbours as well as the international community at large.To do so, Singapore’s leadership will have to upgrade if not reinvent its relevance to its neighbour as well as the international community at large given tectonic geopolitical and technological shifts among which first and foremost artificial intelligence. Walton argues convincingly that complacency may be one of Singapore’s greatest challenges. Generational change involves not only a new generation of leadership but also a generation that was born into a wealthy welfare state, lacks the older generations’ sense of being pioneers and takes things for granted. It is a challenge that is likely to have consequences for a rethink of Singapore’s education system, considered one of the world’s best. In portraying the miracle of Singapore’s success and the challenges it faces, Walton brings a strong sense of history, keen observation and a journalist’s ability to paint with words an incisive picture of a country that has turned its lack of resources into an asset.James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Amid a wave of time travel books published this year, Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline(Tor, 2019)stands out for its focus on a woman’s right to obtain a safe abortion.The book opens in an alternate America in which women gained the right to vote in the 1870s (rather than 1920), but abortion never became legal.“I was imagining that if women had gotten the vote earlier, there might have been a backlash, which would have prevented a reproductive rights movement from really taking hold,” Newitz says.In the novel, time travel has gone mainstream. Anyone with the proper training can do it, although technically it’s only supposed to be used for research. That doesn’t stop Tess, under the guise of studying cultural history, from trying to “edit” the timeline to thwart men’s rights activists from trying to subjugate women through their own illicit edits.And hidden within Tess’s agenda is another secret, which she hides even from her trusted friends. That secret is revealed slowly to the reader, through alternating chapters set in the 1990s in Irvine, California. For those chapters, Newitz draws on their own experiences, including being raised by an abusive father.While the father in the story is different from their own, “what’s true to my own experience is the emotional part of it,” Newitz says, adding that one of the ways “that fiction allows us to get distance on things that have happened to us is that we get to make shit up, and somehow, in the act of doing that, it’s healing.” The Future of Another Timeline is Newitz’s second novel. Their debut novel, Autonomous, which they discussed on the show last year, was nominated for Nebula and Locus awards, and won a Lambda Literary Award. They also co-host, with Charlie Jane Anders, the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, which won this year’s Hugo for best fancast.Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. A former journalist, he directs communications at a non-profit dedicated to justice reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature