New Books in Literature

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They'll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she's lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and--most heartbreaking of all--her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine--long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother's phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit's mind, she's reminiscing about the band she used to be in--and how they'd go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She's imagining an impossible threesome with her kid's pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?Neon bright in its insight, both devastating and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe (Knopf, 2024) is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction--a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.Kimberly King Parsons is the author of We Were the Universe, a novel the New York Times calls “a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power,” and the short story collection Black Light, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and Columbia University, Parsons won the 2020 National Magazine Award for “Foxes,” a story published in The Paris Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and children.Recommended Books: Chelsea Bieker, Mad Woman Ryan Chapman, The Audacity Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Giulia is an orphan who has been cloistered since she was a baby. In 1584, the powerful Medici family demands a test of virility from the Grand Duke of Mantua before his marriage to Eleanora de Medici. Giulia, who knows nothing about the world of men, is offered a dowry and husband in exchange for one night with the prince. She doesn’t know what that night entails, or that the lecherous minister who arranges it will never set her completely free. The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight Books, 2024) is based on a true story.Katherine Mezzacappa is an Irish author currently living in Carrara, northern Tuscany. She holds a BA in History of Art from UEA, an MLitt in English Literature from Durham and a master’s in creative writing from Canterbury Christ Church University. Her debut novel (writing as Katie Hutton), The Gypsy Bride, made the last fifteen in the Historical Novel Society’s 2018 new novel competition. Her short fiction has been short- and longlisted in numerous competitions, and she has been awarded residencies at Cill Rialaig Artists village by the Irish Writers Centre in 2019 and at Hald Hovedgaard by the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators in 2022. When she is not writing, Katherine volunteers with a second-hand book charity of which she is a founding member. She also sews dresses and is learning Irish and German. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Motherlove (Concord Free Press, 2024) is the powerful short-story collection from Jean Trounstine, an acclaimed writer and social-justice activist with a deep knowledge of the US prison system—and its devastating impact on our communities in Massachusetts and beyond. In Motherlove, she turns her sharp eye on an often-forgotten group—the mothers of children who kill.With deft writing and deep empathy, Trounstine explores the stories of ten mothers, each struggling with the aftermath of murder. While fictional, Trounstine’s characters are drawn from her more than thirty years of experience with prisoners and their families, making her stories all the more real and resonant.Jean Trounstine is an author, activist, and educator who has written extensively about the criminal legal system in America. She worked at Framingham Women’s Prison (MA) for a decade, where she directed eight plays for prisoners—resulting in her highly praised book, Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison. Her groundbreaking work is considered the first Shakespeare program launched in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Building parallels between technology and the human imagination, Masande Ntshanga’s conversation with Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra explains how cities are like machines and how South African history resembles some of the most sinister versions of techno-futurism. Masande is the author of two novels: The Reactive, winner of a Betty Trask Award in 2018, and Triangulum, nominated for the 2020 Nommo Awards for Best Novel in 2020 by the African Speculative Fiction Society. His responses to Magalí’s questions interweave autobiography and history, showing how when you venture into “underwritten spaces” in South Africa, realism starts to seem like speculation. Masande moves from playing bootleg Nintendo and hacking Lego sets in Ciskei, a “homeland” under the apartheid government’s Bantustan system, to data mining and novel writing in the global cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg. All the while, technology is never something “we’re resigned to experiencing” and “endorsing” in fiction—it can be a medium of contemplation as well as conquest. Masande and Magalí are also interested in the queer intimacies of young people busy forming their own “micro-tribes.” Especially young people who are reading the global phenomenon that is Stephen King by moonlight, when they might be just a little too young for it.Mentions: Masande Ntshanga, The Reactive, Triangulum, and the short story “Space” Samuel R. Delany, Equinox “Hauntology,” from Jacques Derrida in Spectres of Marx Ciskei Masande Ntshanga’s essay “Technologies of Conquest” in The Creative Arts: On Practice, Making, and Meaning (Dryad Press, 2024) Stephen King, The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Bonus mention: Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives, an edited volume of short stories, artworks, poems and essays that engage with the tragic destruction of the African Studies Library at the University of Cape Town in April 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Justin Gardiner is the author of two nonfiction books and a collection of poetry. His most recent title is the book-length lyric essay Small Altars, published by Tupelo Press in 2024. Besides his role as Nonfiction Editor for Southern Humanities Review, Justin is also an Associate Professor at Auburn University.Founded in 1967, SHR considers subject matter both within and beyond the South. The magazine has had Justin Gardiner as its nonfiction editor for the past half decade. Four essays are discussed in the episode, with most of all of them showing evidence of the associative qualities that Gardiner, as a poet, enjoys in whatever genre. In this case, we started with Lisa Greenwell’s essay “Your Soul Doesn’t Need You.” While ostensibly an essay about a carjacking she experienced, it goes wider to consider alike how well both more cognitively based therapy and poetry that speaks to one’s soul can aid recovery. In Leslie Stainton’s “Here with You,” an understanding of how the artist Joseph Cornell’s boxes reflect his life with a brother who suffered from cerebral palsy parallels the circumstances of the author’s own, younger sister. Delicacy is the order of the day. In Ceridwen Hall’s essay, “Submarine Reconnaissance: Bodies, Permutations, Voyages,” Hall delves into whether submarines are “female” (as her mom believes) or a “he” when in combat, along with many fascinating aspects of serving aboard a submarine and the “aquatic” nature of our memories and the way we must constantly “refit” our thinking. The other, remaining essay, Jennifer Taylor-Skinner’s “I Don’t Want Somebody in My House,” highlights the grand piano that serves as her companion, in contrast to how an esoteric French composer (Erik Satie) had two baby grand pianos stacked atop each other in his southern France villa. Again, expect the unexpected.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit this site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Joan Leegant’s new story collection, Displaced Persons (New American Press 2024) delves into human stories of living in the 21st century. Characters transform after illness or divorce, move to a new city or a new country, get caught between different cultures and traditions, or stumble into scary situations. People can be resilient about change and might rebuild themselves after loss, suffering, and illness, but they don’t all bounce back with equal fervor. Characters struggle with Jewish identity, family issues, social expectations, and health, and stories are set now and, in the past. Some stories are in the states, others are in Europe and Israel. This is a brave collection during a time when antisemitism is bubbling up again, and memories of times past seem surprisingly current.Joan Leegant’s first book of stories, An Hour in Paradise: Stories (W.W. Norton, 2003), won the PEN/New England Book Award and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. She is also the author of a novel, Wherever You Go (W. W. Norton, 2010). Her prize-winning stories have appeared in over two dozen literary magazines and anthologies. She has also written essays and pieces on writing craft. Formerly an attorney, she taught at Harvard, Oklahoma State, and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where she was also the writer-in-residence at Hugo House. For five years she was the visiting writer at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv where she also lectured at Israeli schools on American literature and culture under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy, and taught English to African refugees and asylum seekers. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband, Allen Katzoff, who works in nonprofit administration. When she’s not working, Joan spends a lot of time at the piano playing show tunes, light jazz, and klezmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes--you can call him Izzy--might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull's legal team and living in his aunt's garage-turned-efficiency, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana.When Izzy's efforts lead him to the tank that houses Lolita, a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium, she proves just how powerful she and the water surrounding her really are--permeating everything from Miami's sinking streets to Izzy's memories to the very heart of the novel itself. What begins as Izzy's story turns into a super-saturated fever dream as sprawling and surreal as the Magic City, one as sharp as an iguana's claws, and as menacing as a killer whale's teeth. As the truth surrounding Izzy's boyhood escape from Cuba surfaces, the novel reckons with the forces of nature, with the limits and absence of love, and with the dangers of pursuing a tragic inheritance. Wildly narrated and expertly rendered, Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon and Schuster, 2024) is Jennine Capó Crucet's most daring, heartbreaking, and fearless book yet.Jennine Capó Crucet is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. She’s the author of three books, including the novel Make Your Home Among Strangers, which won the International Latino Book Award, was named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice book, and was cited as a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, the Miami Herald, and other venues; it has been adopted as an all-campus read at over forty U.S. universities. Her other books include the story collection How to Leave Hialeah, which won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, the John Gardner Book Award, and the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award; and the essay collection My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education, which was long-listed for the 2019 PEN America/Open Book Award.Recommended Books: Percival Everett, Erasure Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this episode, Jenna Tang shares with us her translation of Lin Yi-Han's Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise: A Novel (HarperVia, 2024), one of the most iconic works of Taiwan's #MeToo movement.Thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi lives with her family in an upscale apartment complex in Taiwan, a tightknit community of strict yet doting parents and privileged children raised to be ambitious, dutiful, and virtuous. She and her neighbor Liu Yi-Ting bond over their love of learning and books, devouring classic works--Proust, Gabriel García Márquez, the very best Chinese writers. Yet, it is their lack of real-world education that makes them true kindred spirits. Si-Chi's innocence is irresistible to Lee Guo-hua, a revered cram literature teacher and serial predator who lives in her building. When he offers to tutor the academic-minded girls for free, their parents--unaware of Lee's true nature--happily accept. While Yi-Ting's studies with Lee are straightforward, Si-Chi learns about things no one teaches them in school--lessons about sex and love that will change the course of her life. Confused and uncertain, Si-Chi turns to her beloved books for guidance. But literature tells her nothing honest about rape or how to cope with the trauma of abuse. For her own salvation, the young girl begins to think of her personal hell as her "first love paradise," where the power of love, no matter how twisted, gives her the strength to survive. One of the biggest books to come out of Taiwan in the last decade, Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise is a chilling tale of grooming and its lingering trauma, and the power structures that allow it to flourish. Insightful, unsettling, emotionally raw, it is a staggering work of literature that reverberates across cultures and forces us to confront painful truths about the vulnerability and strength of women and those who use and hurt them.Jenna Tang is a Taiwanese writer, educator, and translator who translates between Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and English. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her translations and essays are published in The Paris Review, Latin American Literature Today, AAWW, Catapult, Mcsweeney’s, and elsewhere. She translated Lin Yi-Han’s novel, Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise.Linshan Jiang is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also obtained a Ph.D. emphasis in Translation Studies. Her research interests include modern and contemporary literature, film, and popular culture in mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan; trauma and memory studies; gender and sexuality studies; queer studies; as well as comparative literature and translation studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Emily Pacheco speaks with writer and researcher Jessica Kirkness about her memoir, The House with All the Lights on: Three Generations, One Roof, a Language of Light (Allen & Unwin, 2023). Jessica has published in Meanjin and The Conversation, as well as other outlets. Her PhD focused on the ‘hearing line’: the invisible boundary between Deaf and hearing cultures. She is also a teacher of nonfiction writing at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.The House With All The Lights On explores linguistic and cultural dynamics within Deaf-hearing families. Jessica shares her experience having Deaf grandparents and navigating the cultural borderline between Deaf and hearing cultures. It is a wonderful memoir about family, the complexities of identity, and linguistic diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Mayada Ibrahim speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her translation of “Symphony of the South,” a short story by Tahir Annour that appears in The Common’s most recent issue, in a portfolio of writing in Arabic from Chad, South Sudan, and Eritrea. Mayada talks about the process of translating this piece, including working with the author and TC Arabic Fiction Editor Hisham Bustani. She also discusses gravitating toward translation as a way to reintegrate Arabic into her life, after years of studying and learning in English. Her translation of Forgive Me, a novel set in Zanzibar and co-translated with her father, will be out in the UK this year.Mayada Ibrahim is a literary translator based in Queens, New York, with roots in Khartoum and London. She works between Arabic and English. Her translations have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published by Archipelago Books, Dolce Stil Criollo, and 128 Lit. She is managing editor at Tilted Axis Press.­­Read “Symphony of the South” in The Common at thecommononline.org/symphony-of-the-south.To learn more about Mayada and her work, visit mayadaibrahim.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