With so many promising books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Console by Colin Channer and Gay Poems for Red States by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
“I’ve never eaten a person but today I might” Open Throat (MCD, June 2023) by Henry Hoke. Fifth book, second novel. Agent: Jim Rutman. Editor: Jackson Howard. Publicist: Claire Tobin.
“If you drive east from Raymond, Washington, up Highway 101 and take a left just before a big sign welcomes you to the town of South Bend and you wind around into the green hills for a few miles and you take the right unmarked dirt road which branches off into the thick woods, you’ll find a little cemetery.” The Loved Ones: Essays to Bury the Dead (Dzanc Books, June 2023) by Madison Davis. Second book, first essay collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michelle Dotter. Publicist: Kourtney Jason.
"But we never tire of them, do we?" I Do Everything I’m Told (Tin House, June 2023) by Megan Fernandes. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Alyssa Ogi. Publicist: Becky Kraemer.
“What is your gender?” As If She Had a Say (Curbstone Books, July 2023) by Jennifer Fliss. Second book, story collection. Agent: None. Editor: Marisa Siegel. Publicist: None.
“I was in Los Angeles for less than a month before I got scouted by a cult.” Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles (Henry Holt, July 2023) by Kate Flannery. First book, memoir. Agent: Meredith Miller. Editor: Lori Kusatzky. Publicist: Catryn Silbersack.
“Dearest Sister, The moon has roved away in the sky and I don’t even know what the pleiades are but at last I can sit alone in the dark by this lamp, my truest self, day’s end toasted to the perfect moment and speak to you.” I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home (Knopf, June 2023) by Lorrie Moore. Twelfth book, fourth novel. Agent: Melanie Jackson. Editor: Victoria Wilson. Publicist: Kathy Zuckerman.
“I jumped off an Iowa City bridge into the Iowa River my freshman year of college because I had been reading too much William Blake and Walt Whitman and William Butler Yeats.” Birding While Indian: A Mixed-Blood Memoir (Mad Creek Books, June 2023) by Thomas C. Gannon. Second book, first memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Kristen Elias Rowley. Publicist: Samara Rafert.
“‘You cannot set net for fish today.’” My Side of the River: An Alaska Native Story (University of Nebraska Press, July 2023) by Elias Kelly. First book, memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Matt Bokovoy. Publicist: Jackson Adams.
“Things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly” So to Speak (Penguin Books, July 2023) by Terrance Hayes. Ninth book, seventh poetry collection. Agent: Ana Paula Simões. Editor: Paul Slovak. Publicist: Kristina Fazzalaro.
“When I opened the suitcase and took out the knife, wrapped in a grimy old rag tied with a knot and covered in dark stains, I was just over seven years old.” Crooked Plow (Verso, June 2023) by Itamar Vieira Júnior, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz. Third of four books, first of two novels. Agent: None. Editor: Cian McCourt. Publicist: Tim Thomas.
“Weeks diffuse into each other like / they’re sprayed; jetted, they shoot certain:” Console (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, July 2023) by Colin Channer. Fifth book, second poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Joshua Porter.
“‘Would you like a Hot Wheel or a Barbie, sir?’” Gay Poems for Red States (University Press of Kentucky, June 2023) by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Abby Freeland. Publicist: Jackie Wilson.
