Unquestionably the funniest novel ever written about Calvinism. —Kirkus Reviews
From the publisher: With the comic unpredictability of a Wes Anderson movie and the inventive sharpness of a John Irving novel, author Brock Clarke introduces readers to an ordinary man who is about to embark on an absurdly extraordinary adventure.
Brock Clarke is the author of four previous novels—The Happiest People in the World, Exley, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, and The Ordinary White Boy, along with three collections of short stories, most recently The Price of the Haircut. Clarke is a frequent contributor to NER. His story “Transported” appeared in NER 35.3.
Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? can be purchased directly from Algonquin Books or from your local bookstore.
Mead propels readers forward, using plain language that’s elegant in its simplicity yet compelling and heartbreaking. Even as she confronts grief and loss, the poet highlights the overriding theme of courage. —Library Journal
From the publisher: With lyric candor and emotional precision, Mead offers her family history, meditations on loss and madness, and the landscape of California wine country in this collected volume. The natural world, in its bounty and brutality, is a grounding force for Mead, a reminder of a time scale beyond the human span.
Jane Mead is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently World of Made and Unmade (Alice James, 2016) which was nominated for a National Book Award, as well as a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and the Griffin Prize in Poetry. Her work appeared in NER 37.3.
To the Wren: Collected & New Poems is available through Alice James or from your local bookstore.
A book of wonders and a book of wondering, this is Alexandra Teague’s most ambitious, accomplished, an intimate book yet. — Mary Szybit, author of Incarnadine
From the publisher: This heartrending and darkly playful new collection by Alexandra Teague tries to understand the edges of self in a patriarchal culture and in relation to a family history of mental illness and loss. In poems that mix high art and popular culture (from classical Greek statues to giant plaster artichokes, Cubism to Freudian Disney dolls), Teague interweaves self-reflection with the stories and lives of mythic and historic female figures, such as the dangerous-wise witch Baba Yaga and early-20th-century sculptors’ model Audrey Munson—calling across time and place to explore desire, grief, and the representation and misrepresentation of the female form.
Alexandra Teague is the author of two previous books of poetry, Mortal Geography, winner of the 2010 California Book Award, and The Wise and Foolish Builders, as well as the novel The Principles Behind Flotation. She is co-editor of Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence, and a professor at the University of Idaho. Teague has been previously published in both NER 29.2 and 25.1, and NER Digital—”Stone Disease” and “Safe.”
Or What We’ll Call Desire is available for purchase from Persea Books or at your local, independent bookstore.
A masterful work of speculative fiction, The Memory Police is set on a nameless island where every instance of a plant, animal, or object occasionally vanishes without a trace. . . . If that isn’t creepy enough, there’s also an armed force of ‘memory police’ dedicated to erasing all evidence of whatever has vanished. An unforgettable literary thriller full of atmospheric horror. —Chicago Tribune
From the publisher: On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
Yoko Ogawa’s surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.
Translator Stephen Snyder is Dean of Language Schools and Kawashima Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of Fictions of Desire: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafū (University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), and has translated works by Yōko Ogawa and Kenzaburō Ōe, among others. His translation of Ogawa’s Hotel Iris (Picador, 2010) was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011, and his translation of Ogawa’s Revenge (Picador, 2013) was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize in 2014. He appeared in NER 37.4 with Insistence and Resistance: Murakami and Mizumura in Translation.
The Memory Police can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.