New growth is sprouting and the weather in Chicago is (slowly) steadying to warmer temperatures, which can only mean one thing: we've made it to May!
There's no shortage of new reads to savor as we reach the start of summer. May sees the releases of some of our most exciting writers working today, including Miranda July, R.O. Kwon, and Chicago's own Abby Geni. But be sure to dig deep below, because you never know when you might discover one of your favorite books of the year!
The Body Farm
By Abby Geni
Counterpoint LLC
Abby Geni's novel The Lightkeepers won the inaugural Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, so it goes without saying that we're highly anticipating her latest collection The Body Farm. In eleven explosive and deeply empathetic stories, Geni explores the ways in which the world scars the body and the body marks the world in return. In her notably sharp and unsparing prose, Geni charts the most monumental moments our bodies can experience, from sex, aging, lingering illness, and ultimately death. The Body Farm is so easily savored, but the depth of its incisive perspective invites you to return to its stories again and again.
Blue Ruin
By Hari Kunzru
Knopf Publishing Group
Hari Kunzru is one of our most astute thinkers on the topic of art and capitalism, and his latest novel, Blue Ruin, provides a look into the role of the artist during the COVID pandemic and its lingering traumas upon our society. Once a promising young artist, Jay finds himself undocumented in the United States and living out of his car as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. When he makes a delivery to a house in the woods, he is confronted with a former lover and the friend she left him for.
Exhibit
By R. O. Kwon
Riverhead Books
R.O. Kwon burst upon the literary scene with her bestselling novel The Incendiaries, and we're thrilled to see that her followup is officially here. Exhibit follows photographer Jin and ballerina Lidija, who find themselves encapsulated with one another as they both navigate their own personal crossroads. In the heat of conversation, Jin tells Lidija about a familial curse that could threaten to bring death and ruin to her if she doesn't keep it a secret. In a recent essay in The Guardian, Kwon describes her novel as "sexually exuberant," and we couldn't agree more. Exhibit is unabashedly bold and filled with desire, a novel openly and proudly bearing its intimacy on every page.
Nothing's Ever the Same
By Cyn Vargas
Tortoise Books
We've long considered Cyn Vargas one of the most exciting names in short fiction, so we're thrilled to see the release of her first novella Nothing's Ever the Same, which chronicles a young girl's coming of age amid a fracturing family in Chicago. When Itzel's 13th birthday party is interrupted by her father suffering a heart attack, she comes to learn that his recovery will forever alter her family's life moving forward. Nothing's Ever the Same is consistently clear-eyed, witty, and stunningly sharp. If you aren't familiar with Cyn Vargas's work yet, now's the time to read one of Chicago's brightest contemporary voices.
The Backwards Hand: A Memoir
By Matt Lee
Curbstone Press
The Backwards Hand is an entrancing memoir about the power and perception of the disabled body. Written in a fascinating lyrical mode that features historical research and pop culture references, Matt Lee weaves together varying perceptions of the body such as monster movies and the American eugenics movement to explore the ways in which ableism has shaped what society often views as impure or incomplete. These prosaic and knotty fragments combine to form a deep exploration of Lee's own beliefs about monstrosity and meaning as he awaits the birth of his son.
All Fours
By Miranda July
Riverhead Books
Miranda July may be one of the most interesting writers working today, as her artistic interests span across genres to encompass literature, film, and music. In her latest novel All Fours, a semi-famous artist on a cross-country drive from LA to New York spontaneously decides to leave her husband and child and check into a nondescript motel to rediscover herself. All Fours announces itself as a scream and an uncontrollable laugh, shining a light on the absurdity of the left turns one takes on their way to midlife. But underneath the strangeness and irreverence rests a notable sense of vulnerability that will leave readers awe-struck of July's daring.
Long Island
By Colm TóibÃn
Scribner
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers living in Long Island. One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that when the baby is born, he will deposit it on Eilis's doorstep. Colm TóibÃn's latest sees the return of one of his most beloved heroine's from his novel Brooklyn and deftly explores the longings of a woman who finds herself alone in her tilted marriage.
Bad Seed
By Gabriel Carle
Translated from the Spanish by Heather Houde
The Feminist Press at CUNY
The stories in Bad Seed take readers through a journey of love and desire in the night clubs and darkened streets of working-class Puerto Rico. In one entry, a queer love triangle unravels on the theater steps of the University of Puerto Rico, where in another an HIV positive college student works the night shift at a local bathhouse. Gabriel Carle perfectly chronicles the disillusionment of youth and the heartbreak of fractured love, creating a captivating debut that will demand your attention.
Oye
By Melissa Mogollon
Hogarth Press
Hilarious and stunning in its originality, Oye is a novel structured as a series of one-sided phone calls from Luciana, whose grandmother Abdue moves into her room to ride out a hurricane. When Abdue suffers a medical emergency during the storm, Luciana is forced to quickly grow up and become the main caretaker and keeper of her grandmother's secrets. Melissa Mogollon's debut immediately earns the rare recognition of having one of the most delightful and unique narrations in modern literature, as Luciana's unforgettable voice is sure to echo for years to come.
Ninetails: Nine Tails
By Sally Wen Mao
Penguin Books
From acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao comes her first collection of short stories Ninetails, a fabulist retelling of the nine-tailed fox spirit of Asian folklore. From a fox spirit avenging a teen girl by seducing her abuser to an assassination plot against the Queen of Korea known as Operation Fox Hunt, each story glimmers with captivating premises and glistens with undeniable lyricism. Sally Wen Mao has built entire worlds in each short entry, making this a prose debut that you don't want to miss.
This Strange Eventful History
By Claire Messud
W.W. Norton & Company
Claire Messud is an author who perfectly pairs scale and intimacy in her prose. Inspired in part Messud's family history, This Strange Eventful History is an epic cross-generational story that follows a pieds-noirs family separated in the chaos of World War II and made adrift without a homeland after Algerian independence. The novel's ingenuity and ambitious scope can't be underestimated; This Strange Eventful History is nothing less than a literary event, sure to surprise and delight at every turn.
Woodworm
By Layla MartÃnez
Translated from the Spanish by Sophiee Hughes & Annie McDermott
Two Lines Press
We love a class-conscious horror novel here at the Chicago Review of Books, and Laya MartÃnez's debut is one of the best we've read this year. When the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws attention to an infamous house built by an abusive hustler and inhabited by his daughter and granddaughter, the news draws unwanted attention to the women and stir the spirits that live within its walls. Woodworm is both a classic haunted house story and so much more, as it encapsulates the traumas of broken families and the Spanish Civil War.
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