From a young age CeCe copes with her mother's crippling depression, their severe poverty, an absentee father, and her own insecurities. With gorgeous language, a vivid cast of characters, and an eye for poignant detail, Dasha Kelly tells the story of CeCe's struggle to break free from the grips of codependency and poverty to find confidence and success in her career and her personal life, finally becoming the strong woman she's al ...
Laurie Bird appeared in three films: Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, and Annie Hall. Her fiancé, Art Garfunkel, was away shooting another film, Bad Timing, when she committed suicide at the age of 26. Let Go and Go On and On blurs what little is actually known of her with her roles in these films. Guided by constraints, it is a collage and a loving tribute. ...
Don’t Start Me Talkin' is a comedic road novel about Brother Ben, the only remaining True Delta Bluesman, playing his final North American tour. Set in contemporary society, Brother Ben's protege Silent Sam Stamps narrates an episodic 'last ride,' laying bare America's complicated relationship with African American identity, music, and culture, and like his hero Sonny Boy Williamson once sang, Silent Sam promis ...
After an aimless life, Martin Blaskett is ready to settle down, unaware of the tension rising in his new town from unknowable forces. When he draws the attention of a shape-shifter from local legend, his world is shaken, and he is led across the hazy border of the feral wilderness with a tempestuous history. Steve Himmer is author of the novels The Bee-Loud Glade and Fram. His stories have appeared in Hobart, Hawk & Handsaw, the Collagist, ...
After a divorce and an early retirement from newspaper reporting, Hank Fowler’s life is back on track—he has a girlfriend, steady freelance work, a teaching job—that is, until he gets a call from his old pal Chris Beckwith. Beckwith, his college roommate and a former drug-addict turned motivational speaker, is found dead not too long after. Following up on Chris’s sudden death, Hank begins to unravel a serie ...
On June 13, 1974, Shagara, a low-level employee at the Alexandria shipyard, is charged with taking workers to cheer for the motorcade of Egyptian President Sadat and his guest President Nixon. Instructed to pay each worker half a pound at the end of Nixon’s visit, Shagara pays them half that, spares them the festivities, and pockets the difference. So begins The House of Jasmine, which follows Shagara, a loner who yearns for female com ...
In the wilds of Northern Pakistan, where glaciers are born of mating ice, two young lovers shatter the tenuous peace of a nomadic communityThinner than Skin is a riveting novel about identity and belonging. It’s also a love story: between Nadir, a Pakistani man trying to make his way as a photographer in America, and Farhana, a Pakistani-American woman who wants to return to a country she’s never seen. Together Nadir and Farh ...
A new novel from the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African LiteratureIt is the mid-1980s in Lagos, Nigeria, and the government's War against Indiscipline is in full operation. Amid poverty and tight rules and regulations, women especially must sacrifice dignity and safety in order to find work and peace. Tolani Ajao is a secretary working at Federal Community Bank. A succession of unfortunate events leads Tolani's roommate and v ...
In Japan, nothing is more familiar than the neighborhood post office, with its big red box in front and bright, welcoming windows. The post office has been Siya’s favorite place since she was a child. Now a young woman, Siya is delighted to have a job at the Shindori Post Office in Shizuoka City, even though it is temporary. <br><br> But her boss is a jerk. Born in Japan of a Japanese father and an Indian mother, Siya looks just a l ...
