interior banner image

New in July: Andrew Sean Greer, Sylvia Brownrigg, Nicole Georges, and Achy Obejas

New in July: Andrew Sean Greer, Sylvia Brownrigg, Nicole Georges, and Achy Obejas

Author: Edit Team

July 6, 2017

New month, new books!

Bestselling author Andrew Sean Greer’s heartfelt new novel, Less (Little, Brown & Co), is a humorous examination of gay adulthood gone astray.

From the publisher:

Arthur Less, a mid-list novelist, is approaching his 50th birthday, and he needs to grow up. But first he needs to get out: Arthur’s much younger, exceedinglybeautiful ex-boyfriend is getting married, and the last thing Arthur wants to do is attend the wedding. So he accepts every half-baked literary invitation that’s recently come his way, slaps together his frequent flier miles, leaves San Francisco, and takes a trip around the world.

His travels take him to Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Morocco, Vietnam, India, and Japan. Along the way, he finds love, despair, adventure, and plenty of misadventure, is forced to come to terms with the fleeting of youth and the realities of life—in often quite hilarious ways.

Pages For Her: A Novel (Counterpoint) by Sylvia Brownrigg, a follow-up to Brownrigg’s beloved romance novel, Pages for You, takes a look at what comes after the intensity of first love.

From the publisher:

Pages for Her is the story of two women, Flannery and Anne, each at a personal turning point, and the circumstances that lead to their reunion. Twenty years after their brief but passionate affair, chronicled in Brownrigg’s earlier novel Pages for You, Flannery has the chance once again to meet Anne, who opened young Flannery up to the possibility of love—then left her heartbroken.

Having long ago put their love behind them, they live now on opposite coasts. Anne has been in a deep, childless partnership with a fellow scholar, Jasper, who recently left her. Flannery, to her own surprise, married a charismatic artist named Charles, with whom she has a young daughter. Submerged by her husband’s demands and personality and her adjustment to motherhood, Flannery has lost sight of her self and her work. When the two women meet at a conference, they find that the passion and understanding between them has endured, though it has been hidden. In rediscovering each other, they are able to rediscover themselves.

Graphic novelist Nicole Georges’ latest memoir, Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, maps the unconventional relationship between Georges and her unruly dog:

When Nicole Georges was sixteen she adopted Beija, a dysfunctional shar-pei/corgi mix—a troublesome combination of tiny and attack, just like teenaged Nicole herself. For the next fifteen years, Beija would be the one constant in her life. Through depression, relationships gone awry, and an unmoored young adulthood played out against the backdrop of the Portland punk scene, Beija was there, wearing her “Don’t Pet Me” bandana.

Georges’s gorgeous graphic novel Fetch chronicles their symbiotic, codependent relationship and probes what it means to care for and be responsible to another living thing—a living thing that occasionally lunges at toddlers. Nicole turns to vets, dog whisperers, and even a pet psychic for help, but it is the moments of accommodation, adaption, and compassion that sustain them. Nicole never successfully taught Beija “sit,” but in the end, Beija taught Nicole how to stay.

Lauren Karcz’s debut young adult novel, The Gallery of Unfinished Girls (HarperTeen), is an evocative snapshot of a young creative at an emotional crossroad:

A beautiful and evocative look at identity and creativity, The Gallery of Unfinished Girls is a stunning debut in magical realism. Perfect for fans of The Walls Around Us and Bone Gap.

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn’t been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year.

Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings.

Despite Mercedes’s creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate.

At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn’t ever before. But Mercedes can’t take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can’t live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality

This month, critically acclaimed writer Achy Obejas returns with The Tower of Antilles (Akashic Books), a short story collection that casts an exacting eye towards the post-revolution Cuban community:

The Cubans in Achy Obejas’s story collection are haunted by islands: the island they fled, the island they’ve created, the island they were taken to or forced from, the island they long for, the island they return to, and the island that can never be home again.

In “Supermán,” several possible story lines emerge about a 1950s Havana sex-show superstar who disappeared as soon as the Revolution triumphed. “North/South” portrays a migrant family trying to cope with separation, lives on different hemispheres, and the eventual disintegration of blood ties. “The Cola of Oblivion” follows the path of a young woman who returns to Cuba, and who inadvertently uncorks a history of accommodation and betrayal among the family members who stayed behind during the revolution. In the title story, “The Tower of the Antilles,” an interrogation reveals a series of fantasies about escape and a history of futility.

With language that is both generous and sensual, Obejas writes about existences beset by events beyond individual control, and poignantly captures how history and fate intrude on even the most ordinary of lives.

As always, if we missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.

 

 

Fiction

 

Nonfiction
 

 LGBT Studies

 

Young Adult and Children’s

 

Romance
 

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror 

 

Mystery/Thriller
 

Bio/Memoir

 

Poetry

 

Related posts:

New in September: Bob Smith, Ari Banias, Tim Lawrence, Michelle Tea, and Emma Donoghue
The 25th Annual Triangle Awards Finalists Announced
'Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?' Edited by Paul Alan Fahey
Edit Team photo

About: Edit Team

Subscribe to our newsletter