Happy Pride Month from the Chicago Review of Books!
It's hard to believe that we're already approaching the halfway point of the year. June is a great example of why 2024 has been outstanding for readers. The books coming out this month are dazzling in their variety and scope, but many have something in common—a voracious wit.
Check out some of our favorites for June and prepare for some dark humor and unforgettable writing!
Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
By Ananda Lima
Tor Books
In what is sure to be one of the most dazzlingly innovative and intricate books of 2024, Ananda Lima weaves together nine fascinating stories with the overarching narrative structure of a writer's night with the devil in 1999 and their passing relationship thereafter. Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is as slippery in its categorization as it is satisfying to read; a blend of novel, short story, and fable that builds to something wholly new. Like Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector, or even Italo Calvino's If on winter's night a traveler or Invisible Cities, Lima's fiction debut brims with possibility as it breaks the boundaries of its genre. To put it simply, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is one of our favorite books we read this year.
The Material
By Camille Bordas
Random House
A novel about struggling comics studying at a program called "The Chicago Stand-Up MFA?" Count us in. Chicago author Camille Bordas's latest novel follows a group of students practicing how to tread the line between comedy's sharpness and cruelty, all the while worrying that they will find themselves becoming the punch line. Whether her characters thrive or bomb on stage, The Materials is laugh-out-loud funny and offers an incisive look at the deep sadness of trying to find a laugh when you need it the most.
Fire Exit
By Morgan Talty
Tin House Books
Morgan Talty burst onto the scene in 2022 with his award-winning debut short story collection, Night of the Living Rez, and we're thrilled to see that Fire Exit continues that fine form. The novel follows Charles Lamosway, who spends his life watching from across the river his secret child Elizabeth grow up. But when Elizabeth goes missing for weeks, he must begin to confront his own traumatic past that includes a love affair cut too short and the death of his stepfather in a hunting death. Talty's writing is blistering and brilliant, which makes for an undeniable classic.
Mouth: Stories
By Puloma Ghosh
Astra House
We've been treated to some fantastic short stories collection this year, and Mouth belongs right in that conversation. In these surreal and horrifying stories, Puloma Ghosh presents readers with unforgettable tales of monstrosity both real and imagined—from a a teen figure skater with necrophiliac fantasies who is convinced the other Indian girl at the rink is a vampire to a woman who can't tell if she's haunted by her dead mother or a shakchunni (or both). Mouth is a collection that sinks its teeth into you, with evocative prose and a sense of urgency that are sure to leave a mark.
Same As It Ever Was
By Claire Lombardo
Doubleday Books
Claire Lombardo is carefully attuned to the messy inner workings of family, and in her follow up to her acclaimed novel The Most Fun We Ever Had, she presents to readers another singularly complex cast of characters. When Julia Ames runs into an old friend who almost ended her marriage decades before, her contented life is quickly upended. Same As It Ever Was explores Ames's tumultuous several months following the encounter and her chaotic childhood in Chicago that led her to this moment, diving deep into the question of what it takes to form and keep a family.
The Road to the Country
By Chigozie Obioma
Hogarth Press
Two time finalist for the Booker Prize Chigozie Obioma returns with The Road to the Country, an epic story about Kunle, a university student in Lagos trying to save his brother and himself amid the chaos of Nigeria's civil war. Trapped in the entanglements of war, Kunle's search for his brother leads him to being conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight in a conflict he hardly understands. Obioma expertly balances the horrific scale of war with a heartbreaking and intimate desperation to save one's loved ones from its violence.
Brat
By Gabriel Smith
Penguin Press
Gabriel Smith's debut follows the titular "brat" who moves back to his family's house after his father's death to clear it out for sale, where he discovers unfinished manuscripts written by his parents that seem to mutate every time he picks them up and a bizarre home video that hints at long-buried secrets. For readers looking for something that will grip you from start to finish, Brat is sure to be your breath of fresh air. The novel crackles with gothic horror, deadpan humor, and a damning sense of alienation that you won't soon shake.
Tehrangeles
By Porochista Khakpour
Pantheon
Get ready to meet your next favorite literary family. The Milanis—a multimillion Iranian-American family sitting atop a microwaveable snack empire—find themselves on the verge of landing their own reality TV show. But even as the family's four daughters desire to use their new platform to launch their own aspirations, they find that the potential new attention will shed light on their deepest secrets. Porochista Khakpour's debut Tehrangeles is an iridescent satire that has its finger firmly on the pulse of our modern culture; a hilarious and tragic novel that quickly unravels into the delightful chaos of a dysfunctional family.
Devil is Fine
By John Vercher
Celadon Books
Seeped in the pain of grief and slipping between the cracks of the real and the imagined, Devil is Fine explores what it means to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile the past. When our narrator receives a letter from an attorney while he's in the throes of the sudden death of his teenage son, he discovers that he has inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather. But upon traveling to inspect the land, he learns that he is now the owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mother's side of the family. John Vercher's latest is a powerful exploration of fatherhood and family legacy that never fails to lead with its wit.
Parade
By Rachel Cusk
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
For lovers of the written word, a new book from Rachel Cusk is always a seismic event. Like its predecessors, Parade resists simple description. The novel follows G, an artist whose life contains many lives. Cusk's sentences are a journey in themselves; the breadth and beauty of her writing consistently delights, surprises, and leaves readers in awe.
Instructions for the Lovers
By Dawn Lundy Martin
Nightboat Books
Dawn Lundy Martin's Instructions for the Lovers strips down her poetry to its raw and resonant form, creating a piercing collection that spares not a single word. Her poems reflect on her relationship with her mother, the sadness and loss associated with aging, and her experiences of queer polyamory and the racist conditions within the dying American university system. Instructions for the Lovers shows us the genuine, searing emotion that emerges when a poet dispenses with preambles.
Prairie Edge
By Conor Kerr
University of Minnesota Press
In this raucous and smart thriller, Métis cousins Ezzy and Grey hatch a plan to fight against ongoing colonialism by capturing a herd of bison from a nearby national park and releasing them in downtown Edmonton. Prairie Edge is part heist, part social satire, and fully a treat, as Conor Kerr paints a sterling portrait of cultural drift and resistance against the forces that are destroying our planet.
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