New in April: Jennifer Finney Boylan, Erin Gough, James Allen Hall, and John Waters

Author: Edit Team
April 12, 2017
New month, new books!
In his new book, Make Trouble (Algonquin), writer and director John Waters offers his on transgressive take on the self-help manual.
From the publisher:
When John Waters delivered his gleefully subversive advice to the graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, the speech went viral, in part because it was so brilliantly on point about making a living as a creative person. Now we can all enjoy his sly wisdom in a manifesto that reminds us, no matter what field we choose, to embrace chaos, be nosy, and outrage our critics.
Anyone embarking on a creative path, he tells us, would do well to realize that pragmatism and discipline are as important as talent and that rejection is nothing to fear. Waters advises young people to eavesdrop, listen to their enemies, and horrify us with new ideas. In other words, MAKE TROUBLE!
Writer Jennifer Finney Boylan’s new novel, Long Black Veil (Crown), is a mesmerizing thriller that deftly explores themes of identity, love, and friendship.
From the publisher:
On a warm August night in 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. With a pianist, a painter and a teacher among them, the friends are full of potential. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in—and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. As they go their separate ways, trying to move on, it becomes clear that their dark night in the prison has changed them all. Decades later, new evidence is found, and the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them—celebrity chef Jon Casey— with murder. Only Casey’s old friend Judith Carrigan can testify to his innocence.
But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own–secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son. If she chooses to help Casey, she risks losing the life she has fought to build and the woman she has struggled to become. In any life that contains a “before” and an “after,” how is it possible to live one life, not two?
Writer Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts (University of Wisconsin Press), delves into the life of one the foremost chroniclers of the notorious members of the cultural “elite.”
s new biography of journalist Dominick Dunne,From the publisher:
Dominick Dunne seemed to live his entire adult life in the public eye, but in this biography Robert Hofler reveals a conflicted, enigmatic man who reinvented himself again and again. As a television and film producer in the 1950s–1970s, hobnobbing with Humphrey Bogart and Natalie Wood, he found success and crushing failure in a pitiless Hollywood. As a Vanity Fair journalist covering the lives of the rich and powerful, he mesmerized readers with his detailed coverage of spectacular murder cases—O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Michael Skakel, Phil Spector, and Claus von Bülow. He had his own television show, Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege, and Justice. His five best-selling novels, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, People Like Us, and An Inconvenient Woman, were inspired by real lives and scandals. The brother of John Gregory Dunne and brother-in-law of Joan Didion, he was a friend and confidante of many literary luminaries. Dunne also had the ear of some of the world’s most famous women, among them Princess Diana, Nancy Reagan, Liz Smith, Barbara Walters, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Dunne admitted to inventing himself, and it was that public persona he wrote about in his own memoir, The Way We Lived Then. Left out of that account, but brought to light here, were his intense rivalry with his brother John Gregory, the gay affairs and relationships he had throughout his marriage and beyond, and his fights with editors at Vanity Fair. Robert Hofler also reveals the painful rift in the family after the murder of Dominick’s daughter, Dominique—compounded by his coverage of her killer’s trial, which launched his career as a reporter.
Candid recollections and revelatory self-examination coalesce in James Allen Hall’s new essay collection, I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well (Cleveland State University Poetry Center).
In her description of the book, author Chris Kraus states:
Growing up queer in Florida in the 1980s, James Allen Hall’s life has taken him to places that high culture rarely treads … In these essays, Hall lives alongside, and empathically lives through, his family’s meth addiction, and mental illnesses … and considers his own penchants for less than happy, equal sex with an agility, depth, and lightness that is blissfully inconclusive. I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well is a tragic, funny, graceful book.”
In her new YA novel, Get It Together, Delilah! (Chronicle Books), writer Erin Gough illuminates the heartbreaking and comedic tribulations of teenage life:
Seventeen-year-old Delilah Green wouldn’t have chosen to do her last year of school this way, but she figures it’s working fine. While her dad goes on a trip to fix his broken heart after her mom left him for another man, Del manages the family cafe. Easy, she thinks. But what about homework? Or the nasty posse of mean girls making her life hell? Or her best friend who won’t stop guilt-tripping her? Or her other best friend who might go to jail for love if Del doesn’t do something? But really, who cares about any of that when all Del can think about is beautiful Rosa who dances every night across the street. . . . Until one day Rosa comes in the cafe door. And if Rosa starts thinking about Del, too, then how in the name of caramel milkshakes will Del get the rest of it together?
Poetry lovers rejoice! April is National Poetry Month; make sure to check out these new poetry titles from David Eye, Amber Flame, and Alex Dimitrov.
As always, if we missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.
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Fiction
- The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch, HarperCollins
- Breaking Norms by Mita Balani, Pixie Dust
- Ghosts of St. Vincent’s by Tom Eubanks, TOMUS
- Long Black Veil: A Novel by Jennifer Finney Boylan, Crown
- My Cat Yugoslavia: A Novel by Pajtim Statovci, Pantheon
- On a LARP by Stefani Deoul, Bywater Books
- Park Avenue Purgatory by Micah Enloe, Thought Catalog
- Saints+Sinners 2017: New Fiction from the Festival edited by Amie M Evans & Paul J Willis, Bold Strokes Books
- Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif, Bywater Books
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Nonfiction
- Edges of the Rainbow: LGBTQ Japan by Michel Delsol & Haruku Shinozaki, The New Press
- Cruising the Library: Perversities in the Organization of Knowledge by Melissa Adler, Fordham University Press
- Handbook of LGBT Tourism and Hospitality: A Guide for Business Practice by Jeff Guaracino & Ed Salvato, Harrington Park Press
- I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well by James Allen Hall, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
- Make Trouble by John Waters, Algonquin Books
- Queer Dance by Clare Croft, Oxford University Press
- Tom Atwood: Kings & Queens in Their Castles by Tom Atwood, Damiani
- Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child by Telaina Eriksen, Mango
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LGBT Studies
- Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America by Nathaniel Frank, Belknap Press
- Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies by Joanne Barker, Duke University Press Books
- Critical Articulations of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation edited by Sheena C. Howard, Lexington Books
- For the Gay Stage: A Guide to 456 Plays, Aristophanes to Peter Gill by Drewey Wayne Gunn, McFarland & Company
- Finding Feminism: Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution by Alison Dahl Crossley, NYU Press
- Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity by John Mercer, I.B.Tauris
- Killing Off the Lesbians: A Symbolic Annihilation on Film and Television by Liz Millward, Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub
- The Ladies of Llangollen: Desire, Indeterminacy, and the Legacies of Criticism by Fiona Brideoake, Bucknell University Press
- LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice by Kimberly D. Acquaviva, Harrington Park Press
- Performing La Mestiza: Textual Representations of Lesbians of Color and the Negotiation of Identities by Ellen M. Gil-Gomez, Routledge
- Queer Theory and Brokeback Mountain by Matthew Tinkcom, Bloomsbury Academic
- The Routledge History of Queer America by Don Romesburg, Routledge
- Teaching Queer: Radical Possibilities for Writing and Knowing by Stacey Waite, University of Pittsburgh Press
- Towards a Gay Communism: Elements of a Homosexual Critique by Mario Mieli, Pluto Press
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Young Adult
- Get It Together, Delilah! by Erin Gough, Chronicle Books
- How to Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Teenage Confusion by David Burton, Text Publishing Company
- Identify by Lesley Choyce, Orca Book Publishers
- Looking for Group by Rory Harrison, HarperTeen
- Meg & Linus by Hanna Nowinski, Swoon Reads
- The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli, Balzer + Bray
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Romance
- A Day Makes by Mary Calmes, Dreamspinner Press
- The Android and the Thief by Wendy Rathbone, Dreamspinner Press
- The Bravest Thing by Laura Lascarso, Dreamspinner Press
- Escape in Time by Robyn Nyx, Bold Strokes Books
- Falling Hard by Jae, Ylva Publishing
- Forget Me Not by Kris Bryant, Bold Strokes Books
- Heart Unseen by Andrew Grey, Dreamspinner Press
- Homecoming by Celeste Castro, Bella Books
- Highland Fling by Anna Larner, Bold Strokes Books
- Meet Me in the Middle by Yvonne Heidt, Sapphire Books Publishing
- Soul Survivor by I. Beacham, Bold Strokes Books
- Strawberry Summer by Melissa Brayden, Bold Strokes Books
- Where He Lay Down by Anthony Ramirez, Black Magic Media
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Speculative Fiction/Horror
- An Asian Minor by Felice Picano, Lethe Press
- From the Files of the Time Rangers by Richard Bowes, Lethe Press
- Phoenix Rising by Rebecca Harwell, Bold Strokes Books
- Pathfinder Tales: Gears of Faith by
- Sacred Band by Joseph D. Carriker Jr., Lethe Press
- Terms We Have for Dreaming by Eric Arvin, Dreamspinner Press
- Unknown Horizons by CJ Birch, Bold Strokes Books
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Mystery/Thriller
- A Secret to Tell by Ann Roberts, Bella Books
- Death Goes Overboard by David S Pederson, Bold Strokes Books Liberty Editions
- The Girl on the Edge of Summer by J.M. Redmann, Bold Strokes Books
- Speak in Winter Code by S. M. Harding, Bella Books
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Bio/Memoir
- 119: My Life as a Bisexual Christian by Jaime Sommers, Darton Longman & Todd Ltd
- At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces by Mary Collins & Donald Collins, Beacon Press
- The Black Penguin by Andrew Evans, University of Wisconsin Press
- Doll Parts by Amanda Lepore, Regan Arts
- George Michael: The Life: 1963-2016 by Emily Herbert, Lesser Gods
- I Love My Computer Because My Friends Live in It: Stories from an Online Life by Jess Kimball Leslie, Running Press
- Lucky Jim by James Hart, Cleis Press
- Making My Pitch: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey by Ila Jane Borders & Jean Hastings Ardell, University of Nebraska Press
- Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts by Robert Hofler, University of Wisconsin Press
- Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression by David Leite, Dey Street Books
- Paul Bartel: The Life and Films by Stephen B. Armstrong, Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub
- Reckoning: A Memoir by Magda Szubanski, Text Publishing Company
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Erotica
- Blind Obsession by Ella Frank, EverAfter Romance
- Consent: Bondage Tales by Jeff Mann, Lethe Press
- Lots of Love Unleashed by Kira Chase, eXtasy Books Inc
- The Man and the Mask by Alex Ironrod, MLR Press
- Veiled Innocence by Ella Frank, EverAfter Romance
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Poetry
- As Burning Leaves by Gabriel Jesiolowski, Red Hen Press
- Milo Writes by Milo Wright, Press 53
- Naming Rites: Poems by Gary Boelhower, Holy Cow! Press
- Of Mongrelitude by Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Wave Books
- Ordinary Cruelty by Amber Flame, Write Bloody Publishing
- Reaper by Jill McDonough, Alice James Books
- Seed by David Eye, Word Works
- Taliban Beach Party by Eric Howard, Turtle Point Press
- Tertulia by Seth Pennington, Sibling Rivalry Press
- Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov, Copper Canyon Press
- When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen, BOA Editions