New Books in Literature

Maya, the protagonist of Rohit Manchanda’s novel The Enclave (Fourth Estate: 2024), should be happy with her life. She’s newly single, her net worth steadily rising in the booming India of the 2000s. She has a cushy, if slightly unfulfilling, job in academia. But she struggles: She wants to write, but can’t summon the energy to do so. She juggles several relationships, each one slowly imploding as the novel continues. And she butts heads with an oblivious and pompous bureaucrat, nicknamed “The Pontiff.”Rohit Manchanda is a professor at IIT Bombay where he teaches and researches computational neurophysiology. His first novel won a Betty Trask Award, was published with the title In the Light of the Black Sun and was republished in 2024 titled A Speck of Coal Dust.The Enclave is Rohit Manchanda’s second novel, coming decades after his first published work. In this episode, Rohit and I talk about his writing career, the themes of The Enclave, and the very real struggle of wanting, but not having the energy, to write.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Enclave. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024).When Akosua, a 24-year-old grad student in New York, falls and bangs her head, she has too much drama in her life to pay attention to her headaches and exhaustion. She’s just broken up with Wisdom, her boyfriend, she learns that her long-estranged Ghanian father is in New York, and she’s worried that dropping so many graduate classes means that she’ll lose her scholarship and work-study job in the library (where she met Daniel, her new crush). As she grapples with her Ghanian-American identity, her mother’s wishes for her, her troubled relationship with the father who left when she was a child, and her coursework, Akosua’s head injury worsens, and she wakes up in the hospital, forced to confront her own history, memory, dreams, and desires.Esinam Bediako is a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit. She writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including awkward third-person autobiographies. A graduate of University of Southern California (M.A.T. in Secondary English), Sarah Lawrence College (M.F.A. in Fiction), and Columbia University (B.A. in English and Comparative Literature), she has worked as a high school English teacher and administrator, a textbook editor, and, during one nerve-wracking summer, a pharmacy technician. She currently writes and edits for the Spondylitis Association of America. She is the author of the Ann Petry Award-winning novel, Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024), as well as the essay/poetry chapbook, Self-Talk (Porkbelly Press, 2024) and you can find some of her recent work in Porter House Review, Cathexis Northwest press, Great River Review, North American Review, and Southern Humanities Review. Esi lives in Claremont, CA with her husband and their two sons, who create stories, videos, and other artwork with enviable speed and imagination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

You will want to start with Part 1 of episode 135; it can be found right here.Linda Schlossberg, author of Life in Miniature, who teaches at Harvard, joins RTB to read and explore one of her favorite Alice Munro stories, "Miles City, Montana" in our new series, Recall This Story. The discussion ranges widely.This story first appeared in The New Yorker (1/6/1985) and was reprinted in The Progress of Love (1986) one Munro's many many short story collections. In 2013 Munro became not just the first Canadian Nobel laureate for literature, but also the only person ever to win the prize for short fiction.When her name comes up in 2024, most of us don't think first about the Nobel. In a July 8 article in The Toronto Star, Munro's daughter Andrea Robin Skinner revealed that during her childhood she was abused by her stepfather Gerard Fremlin, Munro's second husband. She also reported that Munro herself ignored or minimized the enormity of those crimes. Those facts will inevitably shape how future readers think about Munro's work. Linda and John, though, recorded this conversation in June, 2024, before the news broke.Mentioned in the episode Edgar Allen Poe had an account (in a review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short works) of short stories as compact and singular in their focus; also of his notion of "the imp of the perverse." The 19th-century Scottish novelist and short-storyist James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd" is one of Munro's Scottish ancestors: John has written about him. Munro's Books is the thriving bookstore Alice Munro co-founded. "When He Cometh" (hymn sung at funeral) Here's what it meant to look chic like Jackie O in 1962 Want to hear the rest of the story, and the rest of John and Linda's discussion?Head on over to Part 1 of episode 135. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In the slums of 19th-century New York. A tattooed mystic fights for her life. Her survival hangs on the turn of a tarot card.Powerful, intoxicating and full of suspense. The Knowing (Bedford Square Publishing, 2024) by Emma Hinds is a darkly spellbinding novel about a girl fighting for her survival in the decaying criminal underworlds.Whilst working as a living canvas for an abusive tattoo artist, Flora meets Minnie, an enigmatic circus performer who offers her love and refuge in an opulent townhouse, home to the menacing Mr Chester Merton. Flora earns her keep reading tarot cards for his guests whilst struggling to harness her gift, the Knowing – an ability to summon the dead. Caught in a dark love triangle between Minnie and Chester, Flora begins to unravel the secrets inside their house.The Knowing is a stunning debut inspired by real historical characters including Maud Wagner, one of the first known female tattoo artists, New York gang the Dead Rabbits, and characters from PT Barnum’s circus.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

From Pashas to Pokemon (Vishwakarma Publications, 2024), Maaria Sayed’s first novel, is a coming-of-age story. Aisha grows up in the Muhammad Ali Road neighborhood of Mumbai in the Nineties–a time when India was starting to grapple with liberalization, globalization, and polarization. In Mumbai and London, Aisha tries to learn what it means to grow up, as an Indian, a daughter, a woman, and a Muslim.In this interview, Maaria and I talk about the Nineties, how filmmaking differs from writing a novel, and her long process in getting From Pashas to Pokemon completed.Maaria Sayed is a writer and filmmaker based in Mumbai and Northern Italy. She’s worked as a writer for networks such as Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and Fox. Her shorts “Aabida” and “Chudala” screened at film festivals such as Raindance, Izmir Kisa, BFI Flare and Busan.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of From Pashas to Pokemon. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Linda Schlossberg, author of Life in Miniature, who teaches at Harvard, joins RTB to read and explore one of her favorite Alice Munro stories, "Miles City, Montana" in our new series, Recall This Story. The discussion ranges widely.This story first appeared in The New Yorker (1/6/1985) and was reprinted in The Progress of Love (1986) one Munro's many many short story collections. In 2013 Munro became not just the first Canadian Nobel laureate for literature, but also the only person ever to win the prize for short fiction.When her name comes up in 2024, most of us don't think first about the Nobel. In a July 8 article in The Toronto Star, Munro's daughter Andrea Robin Skinner revealed that during her childhood she was abused by her stepfather Gerard Fremlin, Munro's second husband. She also reported that Munro herself ignored or minimized the enormity of those crimes. Those facts will inevitably shape how future readers think about Munro's work. Linda and John, though, recorded this conversation in June, 2024, before the news broke.Mentioned in the episode Edgar Allen Poe had an account (in a review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short works) of short stories as compact and singular in their focus; also fo his notion of "the imp of the perverse." The 19th-century Scottish novelist and short-storyist James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd" is one of Munro's Scottish ancestors: John has written about him. Munro's Books is the thriving bookstore Alice Munro co-founded. "When He Cometh" (hymn sung at funeral) Here's what it meant to look chic like Jackie O in 1962 Want to hear the rest of the story, and the rest of John and Linda's discussion?Head on over to Part 2 of episode 135. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Today I talked to Cynthia Swanson about Anyone But Her (Columbine York, 2024).In 1979 during her freshman year at Denver East High School in 1979, Suzanne’s mother was murdered by an armed robber while working in her record store. Suzanne has always sensed ghosts, so she’s not surprised when soon after, she hears her dead mother warning her about her father’s new girlfriend. Now it’s 2004, and Suzanne is back in Denver with her husband, a mouthy teenage daughter, and a nine-year-old son with behavioral problems. The old record store space is available, and Suzanne follows her dream of selling women’s art and craft, but she can’t stop feeling like someone is watching her. At the same time, she starts researching her family history to figure out if there’s a genetic component to her son’s behavior. Suzann is strong, but she’s challenged in this suspenseful mystery about relationships, fidelity, and family secrets.Cynthia Swanson started out in college majoring in Architecture, because she's always loved design, and she thought she needed to pursue a "practical" career. (She can hear all the architects in the room laughing.) But after a few years, she returned to her first love—writing—changing her major to English and becoming a technical and marketing writer. Today, she writes psychological suspense, freelance edits, and occasionally teaches writing classes and seminars. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the novels The Bookseller, The Glass Forest, and Anyone But Her, as well as the editor of the Colorado Book Award winning anthology Denver Noir. She lives with her family in Denver, where in addition to writing, editing, and scoping out creepy locales for future books, she raises chickens and grows an extensive vegetable garden. Find Cynthia online and follow her on Facebook (Cynthia Swanson, Author), Instagram (cynswanauthor), and Threads (cynswanauthor).GPGottlieb.ComHost, New Books in Literature, New Books NetworkBlackbird Writers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program (Stephen F. Austin UP, 2020) spans two very different decades from the Nazi concentration camp of Dora-Mittelbau to the coast of central Florida in the late 1960s; the book tells the story of the real life intersections between the horror of the Third Reich's V-2 rocket program and the wonderment of the Apollo missions. Eli Hessel, a brilliant young Jewish mathematician, finds himself deep beneath a mountain where he is forced to build Nazi rockets. When he is finally freed from this secret underground concentration camp, he immigrates to New York, studies astrophysics, and is recruited by NASA to help build the largest rocket ever to rise above a launch pad: the Saturn V. To his shock, though, he will be under the command of former Nazi scientists Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, both of who were at Dora. As America turns to the moon and cheers for rockets that lance the sky, Eli is swallowed up by the past and must cope with memories he thought were safely buried. This is a novel that asks questions about memory, morality, technology, and how the past influences the present. If we clamp down images of horror, will they always ignite and rise up on us? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Kevin Dean speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Patron Saints,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Kevin talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which follows a young American trying to find his place in Cairo, while the city roils with political uncertainty after the Arab Spring uprising. Kevin also discusses how it feels to write from memory, what he tries to capture when writing about place, and what projects he’s working on now. Kevin Dean is a writer currently based in Seattle, Washington. Previously, he lived in Cairo, Egypt, where he worked as an editor and studied Arabic. His writing has been published in The Common and The Rumpus. He co-authored a theatrical adaptation of the novel Taxi, by Khaled Al-Khamissi, which was performed live in Cairo in 2013 and published in Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution. He is at work on his first novel. ­­Read Kevin’s story “Patron Saints” in The Common at thecommononline.org/patron-saints.Follow Kevin on Instagram @KevinWilliamDean, and check out more at kevinwilliamdean.com.The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It takes a certain gall to update one of William Shakespeare’s most enduring and most beloved tragedies. Anyone who has survived an English literature class at a US high school or college knows that neither Romeo nor Juliet lives to old age; and those few who have not read the play, for pleasure or under duress, have probably seen one of the screen versions.All the more kudos, then, to Christina Dodd for pulling off this updated and reimagined version of that classic play. This first book in a new series called Daughter of Montague features Rosaline, nicknamed Rosie—the eldest daughter of Verona’s most famous and still passionate couple. Rosie has at best a jaundiced eye toward love and marriage, having spent her entire life observing life on an emotional seesaw. Yet this is fifteenth-century Europe, and “wife” is the only acceptable destiny for a woman. When her famous parents finally make a match for her, Rosie’s fate seems to be sealed. Then things go wrong in ways even Rosie could not have anticipated.The story is fun, the mystery satisfying, the author’s obvious delight in manipulating Shakespeare’s famous tale infectious, but what really grabs the reader is Rosie’s voice. At once irreverent and responsible, she sounds more like a modern teenager than anyone from the fifteenth century, but that’s exactly why she draws us into her world.Christina Dodd has written more than sixty novels ranging from historical romance to contemporary suspense. A Daughter of Fair Verona (John Scognamiglio, 2024) is her most recent work.C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels, including one co-written with P.K. Adams. Her next book, Song of the Steadfast, is due in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature