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June 2019

New Books by NER Authors

June 10, 2019

“Don’t miss Hazel Hicks. She may try you, she may frustrate you, she may exasperate you. But you will not forget her.” — Castle Freeman, Jr.

From the publisher: Hazel is a portrait of an ordinary and exceptional person, revealed in a sequence of narratives that present chapters of her life from childhood into her senior years.

David Huddle is the author of more than twenty previous books, including fiction, essays, and poetry. His novel Nothing Can Make Me Do This (Tupelo, 2011) won the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction, and his Black Snake at the Family Reunion won the PEN New England Award for Poetry. He teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English and the Rainier Writing Workshop. A native of Ivanhoe, Virginia, Huddle has lived in Vermont for over four decades, and served as Acting Editor of the New England Review from 1993 to 1995 and as Contributing Editor in 1988. Read his stories “Poison Oak,” published in NER 1.3, and “Scotland,” from NER 13.2.

Hazel can be ordered from the publisher here, or purchased at your local independent book store.


“This collection is magical, hypnotic, brilliant.” — Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Tinkers.

From the publisher: Going where most readers have never been — past the workshop door, behind the curtain to the hidden rehearsal space, and into the back room of a pawn shop or dealer’s office, Gregory Spatz’s new book delves deeply into the world of those who build, play, and sell (or steal) violins. This is a realm of obsession, of high-stakes sales and thefts, and of rapturous but also desperate performance escapades. Dense with detail, and peopled with a fabulously particular (yes, eccentric) ensemble cast, the linked pieces in What Could Be Saved—two of novella length, and two stories—have the intense force and beauty of chamber music.

Gregory Spatz is the author of the novels Inukshuk, Fiddler’s Dream, and No One But Us, and of the story collections Half as Happy and Wonderful Tricks. The recipient of a Michener Fellowship, an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Washington State Book Award, and an NEA Fellowship in literature, he teaches at Eastern Washington University in Spokane. Spatz plays the fiddle in the twice Juno-nominated bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds. His stories have appeared such publications as The New Yorker, Glimmer Train Stories, Shenandoah, Epoch, Kenyon Review and New England Review, where his work has been featured in over seven issues: first in 1992 (NER 14.2), and most recently in 2017 (NER 38.4).

What Could be Saved can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.


“A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal… Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” — Ron Charles, The Washington Post


From the publisher: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. 

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Read his poem “To My Father/To My Unborn Son” published in NER 36.1.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.


“Aronson’s examination of medical culture in stories, of the brutality and tenderness at home and hospital, is a gem. [Her] voice is tender and one from which I hope we’ll hear more histories in the future.” — Washington Independent Review of Books 


From the publisher: Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that’s neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy — a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author’s own words, “an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being.”

Louise Aronson has an MFA in fiction from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and an MD from Harvard Medical School. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California where she cares for diverse, frail older patients and directs the Pathways to Discovery Program, the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center and UCSF Medical Humanities. She lives in San Francisco. Read her piece “Necessary Violence” published in NER 38.3.

Elderhood can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.


An extraordinary novel by war correspondent Grossman, completing, with Life and Fate, a two-volume Soviet-era rejoinder to War and Peace… A classic of wartime literature finally available in a comprehensive English translation that will introduce new readers to a remarkable writer.
— Kirkus, starred review

From the publishers: The story told in Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad unfolds across the length and breadth of Russia and Europe, and its characters include mothers and daughters, husbands and brothers, generals, nurses, political activists, steelworkers, and peasants, along with Hitler and other historical figures. In Stalingrad, published here for the first time in English translation, and in its celebrated sequel, Life and Fate, Grossman writes with extraordinary power and deep compassion about the disasters of war and the ruthlessness of totalitarianism, without, however, losing sight of the little things that are the daily currency of human existence or of humanity’s inextinguishable, saving attachment to nature and life.

The Robert and Elizabeth Chandlers’ other translations include Alexander Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter (Vintage Classics, 2012) and works by Vasily Grossman (NYRB Classics). Robert Chandler has edited and served as primary translator for Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov, and co-edited The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. The Chandlers’ translation of Teffi’s “Lifeless Beast” appeared in NER 34.3-4.

Stalingrad can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.


“A brilliant, sorrowful, hopeful, hilarious, painfully honest love letter, not just to Stoner but to writing, marriage, teaching, reading, parenting, even death. Which makes this book, like the one it praises, a love letter to life.” — Matthew Zapruder, author of Come On All You Ghosts and Why Poetry


From the publisher: Stoner
 tells the story of William Stoner. Born into a poor Missouri farming family at the end of the nineteenth century, Stoner is sent to the state university to study agronomy. Instead, he falls in love with literature and becomes a professor. In this achingly beautiful novel, we witness the many disappointments and struggles in Stoner’s life, including his estrangement from his wife and daughter, and the failure of his academic career to prosper, all set against the dramatic changes of the first half of the twentieth century.

Steve Almond is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Against Football and Candyfreak. His short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, and the Pushcart Prize anthologies. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He hosts the New York Times “Dear Sugars” podcast with Cheryl Strayed. His story “The Course of True Love” appeared in NER 38.2 and a new story will be published in 40.2 (summer 2019).

William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life can be purchased from the publisher here or at your local independent bookstore.

Filed Under: NER Authors' Books, News & Notes Tagged With: David Huddle, Gregory Spatz, Louise Aronson, Ocean Vuong, Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Steve Almond

New Books by NER Authors

June 7, 2016

Chandler CoverThis collection of vignettes about life as a refugee is by turns hilarious, beautiful, and heartbreaking, and strikingly holds up despite being a century old —Publishers Weekly

A warm congratulations to NER contributors Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, whose translation of Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (NYRB Classics), marks the first time Teffi’s memoir has been published in English. It tells the story of the Russian writer’s 1918 journey through Ukraine as she fled the Bolsheviks.

The Chandlers’ other translations include Alexander Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter (Vintage Classics, 2012), and works by Vasily Grossman (NYRB Classics). Robert Chandler has edited and served as primary translator for Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov, and co-edited The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. The Chandlers’ translation of Teffi’s “Lifeless Beast” appeared in NER 34.3-4.

Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea is available from New York Review Books and other booksellers.

♦

Best of Teffi[Teffi] can write in more registers than you might think, and is capable of being heart-breaking as well as very funny . . . I can’t recommend her strongly enough —Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

Another Teffi translation by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi, is also now available from New York Review Books and other booksellers.

♦

Magruder CoverMagruder’s language is so precise, so beautifully crafted and bitingly funny, that I laughed throughout and then nearly cried when Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall ended —Lori Ostlund, author of After the Parade

In James Magruder’s newest novel, Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall, the ghost of Helen Hadley chronicles the experiences of the residents of her dormitory for Yale graduate students and their entanglements with love, betrayal, and attachment.

Magruder’s debut novel, Sugarless (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. He has also published the short story collection Let Me See It (Northwestern University Press, 2014). Magruder also writes and translates for the stage. His short story “Matthew Aiken’s Vie Bohème” appeared in NER 32.3.

Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall is available from Queen’s Ferry Press and independent booksellers.

♦

A Perfect Life CoverA Perfect Life probes how we live in the face of uncertainty and the ways risk can both disable and empower us. In her latest novel, Eileen Pollack has crafted a tender exploration of family love that is as smart and thought-provoking as it is moving—Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You

Congratulations to Eileen Pollack on the publication of her third novel, A Perfect Life. The novel follows Jane Weiss, a researcher at MIT trying to solve a genetic mystery that may threaten her life.

From Publishers Weekly: When [Jane is] surprised by love—and certain discoveries in the lab—she must grapple with what it means to live and love fully in the face of risk and loss.

Pollack’s previously published novels are Paradise, New York (Temple University Press, 2000) and Breaking and Entering (Four Way, 2012). She has also published two collections of short stories—In the Mouth (Four Way, 2008), and The Rabbi in the Attic (Delphinium Books, 2012)—as well as several nonfiction works. Her writing has appeared in NER 14.1, 16.4, 31.2, and 32.4.

A Perfect Life is available from Ecco and independent booksellers.

♦

The Clouds CoverOne of the best writers of today in any language —Ricardo Piglia author of The Absent City

An English translation of Juan José Saer’s novel The Clouds is now available.

Juan José Saer was a leading Argentinian author of stories and novels, and received Spain’s prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for his novel The Event.  Saer’s novel excerpt “Thursdays at La Giralda” appeared in NER 35.1.

The Clouds is available from Open Letter Books and other independent booksellers.

 

♦

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Shaughnessy’s particular genius . . . is utterly poetic, but essayistic in scope.—The New Yorker

Congratulations to NER poet Brenda Shaughnessy on her fourth book of poetry, So Much Synth. This collection addresses adolescent girlhood, and is what Publishers Weekly calls “simmering in the obsessive nature of regrets and paths not taken.”

Shaughnessy’s poem, “A Mix Tape: The Hit Singularities,” appeared in NER 36.4. Her work has also appeared in Harper’s, the New Yorker, Paris Review, and more, and she was recognized as a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 2013.

So Much Synth is available from her publisher, Copper Canyon Press and from independent booksellers.

♦

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The poet’s wide-aloud love song to New York’s most boisterous borough is a deftly-crafted tour-de-force, a sleek melding of lyric and unflinching light. —Patricia Smith, author of Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah and four-time National Slam Champion

A love song indeed, Patrick Rosal’s fourth book Brooklyn Antediluvian serves as a both an ode to music and dance and also an examination of race in America. Rosal’s poetry appeared in NER 35.4 and his poems and essays have been featured in many other journals and anthologies.

This collection, which Publishers Weekly calls “an earth-shattering performance,” is not to be missed. Brooklyn Antediluvian can be purchased at Indiebound.org.

♦

gilley-full-cover-jan-201

Life this deeply observed—and felt—will always astound. —Mary Ruefle, author of Trances of the Blast

We are excited to congratulate NER contributor Ted Gilley on his first book of poetry, Come to Me. His short story “Bliss” appeared in NER 29.3 and his poems and fiction have appeared in many journals and publications.

Author Stephen Sandy says that this new collection, “delivers poems that resonate with the fears and joys of growing up. They are poems of recognition and acceptance, of love soberly considered and expressed.” This collection is available on Amazon and is not to be missed.

 

♦

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Calling out from the rural horse pastures and the blackness of the mind’s night, The Body Double is, at once, a tribute to the world’s roughness and bowing down to its mysterious power.—Award-winning poet Ada Limon

Warmest congratulations to Lisa Lewis on her newest poetry collection The Body Double. Lewis’s poem “Dry Hollows” appeared in the recent NER 36.4 and can be read online here. Her work as also appeared in Carolina Quarterly, Guernica, Sugar House Review, American Literary Review, and elsewhere.

Lewis’s fifth book features poems which Ada Limon calls both “unflinching and precise . . . both piercing and generous.” This stunning new work can be purchased on Amazon.

 

♦

41U0mnDMz7LOne of those writers whose style insinuates itself into your consciousness . . . you find your thoughts echoing its rhythms.—Philadelphia Enquirer

Congratulations to Gerald Stern on the publication of Divine Nothingness, a new collection of poems. Stern won the National Book Award for This Time (W.W. Norton, 1999), and in this collection he sets out to explore the nature of existence in the face of mortality.

Stern’s work has appeared in NER 9.1, 15.1, 15.2, and 30.3.

Divine Nothingness is available in paperback from W.W. Norton and other booksellers.

♦

questions-in-the-vestibuleRachel Hadas makes isolated moments huge with meaning–scintillating or sad . . . She is endlessly observant, and often wry, about the loves and losses that hold up what she calls “a world in progress.”—J.D. McClatchy, author of Pulitzer Prize-nominated Hazmat

NER is excited to announce the publication of Rachel Hadas’s collection of poems, Questions in the Vestibule. Her work, both poetry and nonfiction, has appeared in too many volumes of NER to list, most recently in 36.1.

Questions in the Vestibule is available from Northwestern University Press and independent booksellers.

Filed Under: NER Authors' Books Tagged With: Brenda Shaughnessy, Gerald Stern, James Magruder, Juan José Saer, Lisa Lewis, Patrick Rosal, Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Ted Gilley, Teffi

Teffi

Lifeless Beast

February 20, 2014

Fiction from NER 34.3-4.

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Teffi (1872–1952)

The Christmas party was fun. There were crowds of guests, big and small. There was even one boy who had been flogged that day—so Katya’s nanny told her in a whisper. This was so intriguing that Katya barely left the boy’s side all evening; she kept thinking he would say something special, and she watched him with respect and even fear. But the flogged boy behaved in the most ordinary manner; he kept begging for gingerbread, blowing a toy trumpet, and pulling crackers. In the end, bitter though this was for her, Katya had to admit defeat and move away from the boy.

The evening was already drawing to a close, and the very smallest, loudly howling children were being got ready to go home, when Katya was given her main present—a large woolly ram. He was all soft, with a long, meek face and eyes that were quite human. He smelt of sour wool, and if you pulled his head down he bleated affectionately and persistently: “Ba-a-a!”

Katya was so struck by the ram, by the way he looked, smelt, and talked, that she even, to ease her conscience, asked, “Mama, are you sure he’s not alive?” Her mother turned her little birdlike face away and said nothing; she had long ago stopped answering Katya’s questions, she never had time. Katya sighed and went to the dining room to give the ram some milk. She stuck the ram’s face right into the milk jug, wetting it right up to the eyes. Then a young lady she didn’t know came up to her, shaking her head: “Oh, dearie me, what are you doing? Really, giving living milk to a creature that isn’t alive! It’ll be the end of him. You need to give him pretend milk. Like this.”

She scooped up some air in an empty cup, held it to the ram’s mouth, and smacked her lips. “See?”

[Read more]

This story will appear in Subtly Worded and Other Stories, translated by Anne Marie Jackson, Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, and others, to be published by Pushkin Press (2014). 

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Lifeless Beast, Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Teffi

Vol. 42, No. 1

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Writer’s Notebook

Writer’s Notebook—Field Dress Portal

Sarah Audsley

Writer’s Notebook—Field Dress Portal

Writing this poem was not a commentary on a rivalry between the sister arts—poetry and painting—but more an experiment in the ekphrastic poetic mode.

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