Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by
Staff
From the May/June 2014 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

We had magic before the crows came.” The Orenda (Knopf, May 2014) by Joseph Boyden. Fourth book, third novel. Agent: Eric Simonoff. Editor: Gary Fisketjon. Publicist: Gabrielle Brooks.
            
“Just after we eloped and just before the housing market crashed, my husband and I bought a condo across the street from the Aragon Ballroom.” Once I Was Cool (Curbside Splendor, May 2014) by Megan Stielstra. Second book, essay collection. Agent: None. Editor: Leonard Vance. Publicist: Ben Tanzer.

“The aluminum bat leaned against the garage wall, next to a rake and a hoe and four bicycles with flat tires and rusty chains…” Songs Only You Know (Soho Press, April 2014) by Sean Madigan Hoen. First book, memoir. Agent: Alice Tasman. Editor: Mark Doten. Publicist: Meredith Barnes.
                                                         
“You are a hairy painting.” Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, May 2014) by Sally Wen Mao. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Carey Salerno. Publicist: Alyssa Neptune.

“We were going to be flying to the carrier from the US Navy base in Bahrain on a Grumman C-2A Greyhound: an ungainly propeller plane, more war- or work-horse than greyhound.” Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H. W. Bush (Pantheon, May 2014) by Geoff Dyer. Thirteenth book, ninth memoir. Agent: Andrew Wylie. Editor: Dan Frank. Publicist: Josefine Kals.

“Exactly once upon a time in a small village in northern Iran, a child of the wrong color was born.” The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, May 2014) by Porochista Khakpour. Second book, novel. Agent: Seth Fishman. Editor: Lea Beresford. Publicist: Summer Smith.

“One mild, overcast day in August 1969, a bus came winding its way along a narrow road at the far end of an island in southern Norway, between gardens and rocks, meadows and woods, up and down dale, around sharp bends, sometimes with trees on both sides, as if through a tunnel, sometimes with the sea straight ahead.” My Struggle: Book Three (Archipelago, May 2014) by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett. Fifth book, novel. Agent: Andrew Wylie. Editor: Jill Schoolman. Publicist: Kendall Storey.

“The first time Sarmiento saw the woman who would become his wife, he thought she was a nun.” The City of Palaces (Terrace Books, April 2014) by Michael Nava. Tenth book, ninth novel. Agent: None. Editor: Raphael Kadushin. Publicist: Elena Spagnolie.

“In L.A. my sister’s car wrapped like foil / around a pole as the sun sank, // offering illusions of a softened world” Talisman (Red Hen Press, April 2014) by Lisa C. Krueger. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Kate Gale. Publicist: Gabriela Morales.

“The phone rings.” Not for Everyday Use (Akashic Books, April 2014) by Elizabeth Nunez. Ninth book, first memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Ibrahim Ahmad. Publicist: Kate Bogden.

“There is a bullet here on my desk.” Talkativeness (Wave Books, April 2014) by Michael Earl Craig. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Matthew Zapruder. Publicist: Brittany Dennison.
                                                                          
“My son’s Italian landlord in Brooklyn kept a shed out back in which he cured and smoked salamis.” Can’t and Won’t (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 2014) by Lydia Davis. Ninth book, eighth story collection. Agent: Denise Shannon. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Sarita Varma.
                                                                      
For author podcasts and excerpts of books featured in Page One, visit us at www.pw.org/magazine.