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” [3] 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.” [4] 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” [5] 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.” [6] 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.