Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by
Staff
From the March/April 2016 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

“Admit it.” The Halo (Four Way Books, March 2016) by C. Dale Young. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Martha Rhodes. Publicist: Clarissa Long.  
               
“The thing about Simon Limbres’s heart, this human heart, is that, since the moment of his birth, when its rhythm accelerated, as did the other hearts around it, in celebration of the event, the thing is, that this heart, which made him jump, vomit, grow, dance lightly like a feather or weigh heavy as a stone, which made him dizzy with exhilaration and made him melt with love, which filtered, recorded, archived—the black box of a twenty-year-old body—the thing is that nobody really knows it...” The Heart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2016) by Maylis de Kerangal, translated from the French by Sam Taylor. Eighth book, novel. Agent: Anne-Solange Noble. Editor: Ileene Smith. Publicist: Sarah Scire.
                                      
“Bringing a child into the world without its consent seems unethical.” So Sad Today (Grand Central Publishing, March 2016) by Melissa Broder. Fourth book, first essay collection. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff. Editor: Libby Burton. Publicist: Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski.

“On June 14, 2014, my husband, John Rehm—age eighty-three—began his withdrawal from life.” On My Own (Knopf, February 2016) by Diane Rehm. Third book, memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Robert Gottlieb. Publicist: Jessica Purcell.

“Not the patter of collide     not the warp of lean / not the click of revive     not the downpour of mean / not the curls of worry     not the brawn of prowl / not the tail of sorry     but the flame of now” Manual for Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, March 2016) by Sharon Dolin. Sixth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Ed Ochester. Publicist: Maria Sticco.                                                                           
                                                                          
“Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep.” Blackass (Graywolf Press, March 2016) by A. Igoni Barrett. Third book, first novel. Agent: Jacqueline Ko. Editor: Fiona McCrae. Publicist: Leah Paulos.  

“In a crumbling park in the crumbling back end of Copacabana, a woman stopped under an almond tree with a suitcase and a cigar.” Ways to Disappear (Little, Brown, February 2016) by Idra Novey. Third book, first novel. Agent: PJ Mark. Editor: Ben George. Publicists: Kimberly Burns and Katharine Myers.

“Once upon a time in Catalonia a baby was found in a chapel.” What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Riverhead Books, March 2016) by Helen Oyeyemi. Sixth book, first story collection. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Sarah McGrath. Publicist: Glory Anne Plata.

“When we eat wheat     we devour the sun / so in this room filled with permanent flowers, / let us celebrate not with fasting / but with Red Sammy Butts barbecue.” The Book of Hulga (University of Wisconsin Press, March 2016) by Rita Mae Reese. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Ron Wallace. Publicist: Sheila Leary.

“From the kitchen window, Milo Andret watched the bridge over the creek, and when he saw Earl Biettermann’s white Citroën race across the span he hurried out the door and picked up a short hoe.” A Doubter’s Almanac (Random House, February 2016) by Ethan Canin. Seventh book, fifth novel. Agent: Jennifer Walsh. Editor: Kate Medina. Publicist: Maria Braeckel.
                   
“I was born in a rugged ring of mountains in southwest Virginia—mountains so high, so straight up and down, that the sun didn’t even hit our yard until about eleven o’clock.” Dimestore: A Writer’s Life (Algonquin Books, March 2016) by Lee Smith. Eighteenth book, first memoir-in-essays. Agent: Liz Darhansoff. Editor: Kathy Pories. Publicist: Michael McKenzie.

“The bombing, for which Mr. and Mrs. Khurana were not present, was a flat, percussive event that began under the bonnet of a parked white Maruti 800, though of course that detail, that detail about the car, could only be confirmed later.” The Association of Small Bombs (Viking, March 2016) by Karan Mahajan. Second book, novel. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Allison Lorentzen. Publicist: Shannon Twomey.

For author podcasts and excerpts of books featured in Page One, visit us at www.pw.org/magazine.