New Books in Literature

Kathleen Collins talks about her debut novel Study in Hysteria (Vine Leaves Press, 2024)). In the middle of 1974, Flora is privileged and middle-aged in a liberation-hued America, and feels both compelled by and left out of the women’s movement. She finds it difficult to activate her limited supply of empathy as she contends with a clandestine and unlikely friendship, a worrisome health scare, a domineering and philandering psychiatrist husband or her own distant daughter.Flora's secret foray into psychotherapy does nothing to halt the sense that there is a better life for her somewhere else, in some parallel existence. Through the continuum of psychological diagnoses, she is lost in the murky place between contentment and discontentment, normal and abnormal.Is her state of mind a clinical, diagnosable condition, or common malaise? Perhaps she'll find out if she stops resisting to share herself with those who love her.Rebekah Buchanan is a Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It’s the UConn Popcast, and today we discuss Prophet Song (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023), Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize winning novel about a totalitarian regime coming to power in Ireland. We discuss the novel’s theorization of individual rights and political power, its success in depicting a family’s unraveling and its failures in telling a broader, more universal story. Why have critics lauded this novel, and who is its intended audience? More fundamentally, what is the role of literary fiction in popular culture?The UConn Popcast is proud to be sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. Check out the institute’s Popular Culture Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

I’ve interviewed Andrea Penrose before about her mysteries set in the Regency period—most notably, her ongoing series starring the Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloane. In this latest novel, she takes a break from dead bodies and the complicated plots associated with them to tackle a real-life question: how did a supposedly sheltered nineteenth-century aristocrat defy all of society’s expectations that she marry to suit her family and instead craft a life that suited herself?The titular Diamond of this fictional biography is Lady Hester Stanhope, tagged even today with adjectives such as “notorious” and “eccentric.” After her politically radical and mentally unstable father threatens her with a knife, Lady Hester flees her country estate for London. There—with the help of the noted dandy Beau Brummell during a previous visit—she has already acquired a reputation as outspoken, passionate, and “different.” At twenty-four, she is also regarded as almost too old to wed, but her ties to the politically powerful Pitt family, which boasts two prime ministers among its ranks, mean that she is still a “catch” for men of ambition.Lady Hester wants none of it. She’d rather dress in men’s clothes and sneak out to prize fights with her cousin Camelford, known to society as the “Half-Mad Lord,” or ride hell-for-leather across the moors. And so the stage is set for what will become, over the course of the book, a spectacular and wholly unconventional life.Penrose’s decision to focus on Lady Hester’s time in England, rather than her later and better-known sojourn abroad, makes sense in dramatic terms because that’s where the character change happens. And the author does a wonderful job of balancing the demands of history against the requirements for a good novel. Lady Hester is herself a diamond: brilliant and multifaceted, but also cutting and razor-sharp. Although not always likable, she is unforgettable—just as she must have been in real life. I rooted for her all the way, even when I wanted to shake her and say, “Are you nuts? Why would you do that?!”Andrea Penrose is the bestselling author of Regency-era historical fiction, including the acclaimed Wrexford & Sloane mystery series. The Diamond of London (Kensington Books, 2024) is her latest novel.C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book—The Merchant’s Tale, co-written with P.K. Adams—appeared in November 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Christine Evans' Nadia (U Iowa Press, 2023) is a dark novel about how the trauma of war follows people no matter how far they’ve fled. A few years after the Balkan War, two refugees from Sarajevo are temping in the same questionable London office. Nadia, who is Bosnian, is unhinged by memories of starvation, deprivation, and losing everyone she loved, including her family and her girlfriend, Sanja. She sees potential snipers and visions of Sanja throughout London, sometimes becoming unhinged by it. All she has is her office friends, and the Indian family where she has tea with buns every day. Iggy was a Serbian sniper who gunned down Bosnians as part of a militaristic street gang, but he justifies all the innocent people he kills by weighing them against the people he saved by distracting his friends or purposefully missing. They’re both forced to confront their choices during the chaotic days of the war, but Nadia still struggles with survivor’s guilt, the ethical choices she made in taking a job in a shady office, and her queer sexuality.Christine Evans writes internationally produced plays, opera libretti, and fiction. Christine’s theater and opera work has been staged at the Sydney Opera House, the American Repertory Theater and many other venues, and her plays are published by Samuel French. She is a multiple MacDowell fellow, VCCA fellow, and a recipient of several DC Council on the Arts & Humanities Fellowships. Originally from Australia, she is a Professor of Performing Arts at Georgetown University, and lives in Washington, DC. She loves the ocean beyond all reason, dreams of dividing her time (as they say on the book jackets) between DC and Australia and has just dusted off her mandolin to start playing music again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Dayna Tororici is the co-editor of n + 1 magazine, located in New York City. She’s been on staff for the past 10 years, following her studies at Brown University. She’s also a new mother.n + 1 positions itself as combining a fine sense for how literature is composed through the use of voice, and an eye for detail and an ear for rhythm, in addition to wanting to address the current political and cultural situation in America and elsewhere. She sees the essay form as giving its authors time to “marinate” on a topic, building up their reflections to a richer outcome. Many of n + 1’s essays offer a mix of the memoir approach combined with reportage and often some historical analysis as context. In this case, we discussed in particular three essays that lean more purely in the memoir vein from three recent editions of the magazine: Jessica Karissa’s “Love and Wizkid” (about Afrobeats and trying to explore one’s sexuality without feeling exploited); Sander Pleij’s voice-driven essay “Cowboy in Sweden” (with travelogue observations that come from traveling as a roadie helping his wife stage her music); and Laura Preston’s “Human Fallback” (about aiding a real estate chatbot without, ideally, beginning to feel too automatic and sterile yourself).Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

From the Dagger Award–winning author of Norwegian by Night comes a vivid, thrilling, and moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroes, allies become villains, and a child learns what it means to become an adult—for fans of All the Light We Cannot See. August, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving the American bombing raid that killed his parents, Massimo is attacked by thugs and finds himself bloodied at the base of the Montecassino. It is there in the Benedictine abbey’s shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed “Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican,” rescues Massimo and brings him up the mountain to serve as his assistant in preserving the treasures that lay within the monastery walls. But can Massimo believe what Pietro is saying, particularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man? When it becomes evident that Montecassino will soon become the front line in the war, Pietro Houdini and Massimo execute a plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a nurse concealing a nefarious past, a café owner turned murderer, a wounded but chipper German soldier, and a pair of lovers along with their injured mule, Ferrari. Together they will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through battlefields to survive, all while smuggling the Renaissance masterpieces and the bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from the “safe keeping” of the Germans. Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of City of Thieves by David Benioff, Derek B. Miller's novel The Curse of Pietro Houdini (Simon and Schuster, 2024) is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed adventure heist, an imaginative chronicle of forgotten history, and a philosophical coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale.AJ Woodhams hosts the "War Books" podcast. You can subscribe on Apple here and on Spotify here. War Books is on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Helen is one of the brightest minds of her generation: a young physicist on a path to solve high-temperature superconductivity (which could save the planet). When she discovers that her brilliant adviser is involved in a sex scandal, Helen is torn: should she give up on her work with him? Or should she accompany him to a controversial university, founded by a provocateur billionaire, that hosts academics other schools have thrown out?Helen decides she must go--her work is too important. She brings along her partner, Hew, who is much less sanguine about living on an island where the disgraced and deplorable get to operate with impunity. On campus, Helen finds herself drawn to an iconoclastic older novelist, while Hew stews in an increasingly radical protest movement. Their rift deepens until both confront choices that will reshape their lives--and maybe the world.Irreverent, generous, anchored in character, and provocative without being polemical, How I Won a Nobel Prize (Little, Brown, 2023) illuminates the compromises we'll make for progress, what it means to be a good person, and how to win a Nobel Prize. Turns out all of it would be simple--if you could run the numbers.Julius’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Chronicle of Higher Education, and some other places. For a while he was a lawyer. Julius attended Yale Law School and Pomona College. He lives in New York.Recommended Books: Dorothy Baker, Cassandra at the Wedding Tom Holland, Dominion Kabat, The Eighth Moon 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

The opening story of Eternal Summer of My Homeland (Epigram Book, 2023) the debut story collection from Singaporean author Agnes Chew, is about grief. Hui Shan loses her mother right before the birth of her first child–and gradually cuts her father out of her life after he refuses to do the traditional things one does to commemorate the death of a family member. Until she learns what her father has actually been doing: Growing a garden, illegally, on Singaporean government land.Agnes’s stories are all about Singapore and its multiculturalism, tradition, and modernity. And, as she explains in today’s interview, the collection is in fact Agnes's attempt to reconnect with the city, after moving away to Germany.Agnes Chew is also the author of The Desire for Elsewhere (Math Paper Press: 2016), a collection of travel essays. Her work has appeared in Granta, Necessary Fiction, and Wildness Journal, among others. She holds a Master’s degree in international development from the London School of Economics; her prizewinning dissertation, which examines inequality and societal wellbeing in Singapore, was featured in the Singapore Policy Journal.Agnes can be followed on Instagram at @_agneschew.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Eternal Summer of My Homeland. 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

It’s been over a decade since a mysterious cataclysm caused a permanent blackout that toppled infrastructure and thrust the world into anarchy. Evan Whitesky led his community in remote northern Ontario off the rez and into the bush, where they’ve been living off the land, rekindling their Anishinaabe traditions in total isolation from the outside world.As new generations are born, and others come of age in the world after everything, Evan’s people are in some ways stronger than ever. But resources in and around their new settlement are beginning to dry up, and the elders warn that they cannot afford to stay indefinitely.Evan and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Nangohns, are elected to lead a small scouting party on a months-long trip to their traditional home on the north shore of Lake Huron—to seek new beginnings, and discover what kind of life—and what dangers—still exist in the lands to the south.Moon of the Turning Leaves (William Morrow, 2023) is Waubgeshig Rice’s exhilarating return to the world first explored in the phenomenal breakout bestseller Moon of the Crusted Snow: a brooding story of survival, resilience, Indigenous identity, and rebirth.Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation. He’s written four books, most notably the bestselling novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, published in 2018. He graduated from the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2002, and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. In addition to his writing endeavours, Waubgeshig is an eclectic public speaker, delivering keynote addresses and workshops, engaging in interviews, and contributing to various panels at literary festivals and conferences. He speaks on creative writing and oral storytelling, contemporary Anishinaabe culture and matters, Indigenous representation in arts and media, and more. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and three sons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Middle Daughter (Dzanc Books, 2023) by Chika Unigwe opens with a happy, well-to-do family living in a guarded community in Nigeria. The loving father owns a business, the formidable mother is a doctor, one daughter is at university in America and the other daughters are in private school. The story is told from the perspective of the youngest daughter, Ugo, and middle daughter, Nani, whose life in thrown off balance by the death of her father. A single bad choice leads to her giving up a college education in America to become a browbeaten mother of three married to an abusive husband who keeps her locked in a tiny apartment, chops off her hair and buys her ugly polyester dresses. Like Persephone in the underworld, she’s unable to see or contact her powerful mother. When she has an opportunity to escape, she needs strength and courage that she isn’t sure she possesses.Chika Unigwe was born and raised in Enugu, a hilly city in the southeast of Nigeria. Also known as the coal city because it was a significant coal mining city in the 1900s, Enugu literally means "top of the hill." In elementary school, Chika was enamored with the magazine Highlights for Children that a friend brought to school. Her parents, who encouraged reading, took out a subscription for her and her sister, and Unigwe spent years sending in stories and poems to the magazine, with no success. At the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where she earned her BA in English, she met the man who would become her husband. Right after her final exams, they moved to Belgium, and her family relocated to the United States in 2013. Unigwe has won several awards for her writing and was most recently knighted into the Order of the Crown by the Belgian government for her contributions to culture (in literature). Her previous works include On Black Sisters Street (which won the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature), Night Dancer, and a collection of short stories, Better Never than Late. Her works have appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, Aeon, The Kenyon Review, Wasafiri, Georgia Review and others. She teaches at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, and lives in Atlanta with her family and two spoilt dogs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature