Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by
Staff
From the July/August 2018 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

With so many good 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 Sick by Porochista Khakpour. 

“I have never been comfortable in my own body.” Sick (Harper Perennial, June 2018) by Porochista Khakpour. Third book, first memoir. Agent: Seth Fishman. Editor: Laura Brown. Publicist: Lily Lopate.  

“when you are sitting / with the corpse of your friend / this is what to do / when what do you do” Trickster Feminism (Penguin Books, July 2018) by Anne Waldman. Forty-sixth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Paul Slovak. Publicist: Theresa Gaffney. 

“Sonja is sitting in a car, and she’s brought her dictionary along.” Mirror, Shoulder,
Signal
(Graywolf Press, June 2018) by Dorthe Nors, translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra. Seventh book, fourth novel. Agent: Astri von Arbin Ahlander. Editor: Fiona McCrae. Publicist: Caroline Nitz.

“The man next to me on the plane was so tall he couldn’t fit in his seat.” Kudos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2018) by Rachel Cusk. Thirteenth book, tenth novel. Agent: Sarah Chalfant. Editor: Eric Chinski. Publicist: Lottchen Shivers.  

“When it wasn’t profitable to bury / us you didn’t  &  that’s the story / of the ground.” Sons of Achilles (YesYes Books, June 2018) by Nabila Lovelace. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: KMA Sullivan. Publicist: Jill Kolongowski.

“The rain had been falling with a pounding meanness, without ceasing for two days, and then the water rose all at once in the middle of the night, a brutal rush so fast Asher thought at first a dam might have broken somewhere upstream.” Southernmost (Algonquin Books, June 2018) by Silas House. Fifth book, novel. Agent: Joy Harris. Editor: Kathy Pories. Publicist: Michael McKenzie. 

“Whenever I woke up, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed.” My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Penguin Press, July 2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh. Fourth book, second novel. Agent: Bill Clegg. Editor: Scott Moyers. Publicist: Elisabeth Calamari.

“These are the practices of bodily art—/ Burn an almond, collect the soot, mix it with butter.” Atmospheric Embroidery (TriQuarterly Books, June 2018) by Meena Alexander. Twelfth book, ninth poetry collection. Agent: Priya Doraswamy. Editor: Parneshia Jones. Publicist: Greta Bennion. 

“She is on the phone.” Days of Awe (Viking, June 2018) by A. M. Homes. Twelfth book, third story collection. Agent: Sarah Chalfant. Editor: Andrea Schulz. Publicist: Olivia Taussig. 

“You are old when you learn it’s May by noticing that daffodils erupt outside your window.” A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2018) by Donald Hall. Forty-eighth book, eighth memoir. Agent: Wendy Strothman. Editor: Deanne Urmy. Publicist: Leila Meglio.  

“The machine said the man should eat tangerines.” Tell the Machine Goodnight (Riverhead Books, June 2018) by Katie Williams. Third book, novel. Agent: Douglas Stewart. Editor: Sarah McGrath. Publicist: Glory Anne Plata.

“Time sticks numbers on the world and marks spaces I can’t see.” Little Panic: Dispatches From an Anxious Life (Grand Central Publishing, June 2018) by Amanda Stern. Thirteenth book, first memoir. Agent: Bill Clegg. Editor: Millicent Bennett. Publicist: Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski.