Many of the pitches I’ve made-to review or discuss these new and forthcoming works-have landed. I would be pleased to review the other works as well; if we’ve worked together previously, let me know your time-frame, and if you’re interested in working together for the first time, please share your rate and revision schedule.
Murder on the Red River and Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon are reissues of her Cash Blackbear mysteries centred on the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation from Soho Press. As with Thomas King’s Dreadfulwater mystery series, the dialogue and scene-work here (at a glance) look very interesting.
ANY EDITOR SEEKING COVERAGE, please reach out.
Updated March 1/22: Review space secured
Updated September 1/22: Feature space secured
Also from Soho, Fuminori Nakamura’s The Thief (translated from the Japanese by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates) to assist in a review of My Annihilation (translated by Sam Bett and just published). This has proven to be a deceptively simple story about a pickpocket that’s slid into character-driven commentary on class and corruption.
Patrick McCabe’s Poguemahone, from Biblioasis. Presumably they needed a hefty tome for the other end of the bookshelf that sports Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newport (they’re her Canadian publisher). I’m new to McCabe and this is an excellent reason to explore his backlist. Am I intimidated? Yup, but I’ll sharpen my pencil. MAY 3, 2022
ANY EDITOR SEEKING COVERAGE, please reach out.
Kristjana Gunnars’ The Scent of Light is a reissue of five of her novella-length works. I’ve already read, and absolutely love, Kazim Ali’s introduction, because when I first read Gunnars (three of the five books only), I did not have the vocabulary to articulate what I admired and warmed to and Ali says it all so astutely, so gracefully. “They are themselves alive. And in them a reader comes to life.” MAY 2022 Coach House
ANY EDITOR SEEKING COVERAGE, please reach out.
Updated March 1/22: Review space tentatively secured.
Updated: March 22/22: Review space secured.
Anne Lardeux’s The Second Substance (translated from the French by Pablo Strauss) is described as “often funny, sometimes raunchy, consistently surprising, never flinching.” It’s also the “debut of a Québec literary firebrand” with a character from an Agnes Varda film and inspired by the writing of Anne Boyer. Due in JUNE 2022 from Coach House. (Review to come.)
Also from Coach House, launching this week, Kim Fu’s debut story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. I found her debut novel captivating, so I am eager to explore her short work. Also, her acknowledgements are warm and funny, and I like that,
ANY EDITOR SEEKING COVERAGE, please reach out.
Updated March 1/22: Review space secured
A second novel by Victoria Hetherington from Dundurn Press (the Rare Machines imprint), Autonomy. Even though I’ve not read their debut novel, the blurb from Michael Redhill piques my interest. Set in 2035, I’m also curious to see how it fits with some of the speculative fiction I read last year for my feature on writers confronting the climate crisis.
ANY EDITOR SEEKING COVERAGE, please reach out.
Updated: March 22/22: Review space secured.
Already available in the U.K., the American edition of Sarah Moss’ The Fell is due March 1st from Macmillan (FSG). I’ve been steadily reading through Moss for a feature that will consider this new “pandemic novel” in the wider context of her work. At first, I wondered how relevant the early works would be…turns out there are many fascinating connections. (Feature to come.)
Stéfanie Clermont’s The Music Game (translated from the French by J.C. Sutcliffe) is a story of three women in Montréal’s east end in the 2010’s seeking to “define their identities, sexualities and political commitments.” As if that wasn’t enough to intrigue me, it’s also a novel in stories. Launching next week from Biblioasis. (Review to come, May-ish)
S.J. Sindu’s debut novel Marriage of a Thousand Lies was a finalist for the Lambda and her follow-up Blue-Skinned Gods got a lot of buzz and a snazzy cover blurb from Roxane Gay. The content of her stories varies but what remains consistent is her ambition, simmering beneath a focus on identity and relationships. (Review to come.)
This second volume of Marlon James’ Dark Star trilogy is a doorstopper and I had not yet read the first volume from 2019. Technically, that doesn’t matter, for these are companion novels, but James has done so much research and is attending to so many matters, small and large, that I needed that familiarity to appreciate the complexity of his work. (Review to come.)
This is an experiment for me, a way to draw attention to new and forthcoming works that I’m reviewing or would like to review. Sometimes even a successful pitch doesn’t pan out: production schedules change or a publisher’s shipping options don’t satisfy a publication’s needs (e.g. books don’t arrive as originally promised). And books coverage has declined in recent years, so editors can place only a limited number of reviews. Sometimes release dates don’t coincide with a review’s planned issues, for editors who strive to publish in concert with publication dates. Sometimes there’s a pandemic. Things happen!
If this proves useful or interesting, I’ll continue the experiment and share the accumulated works every few weeks.