This week: a pair of books for those cold, windy, starless evenings when something doesn't feel right, when the air lays heavy in the stuffy house, when unusual noises echo in the shadowy corners. There's nothing on TV, no one to visit, no texts to answer. A half-finished bottle of wine is your only company. Time to read a book.
____________________________________
Daniel José Older
Imprint - November 5, 2019
[from the publisher]
Marisol vanished during the Cuban Revolution, disappearing with hardly a trace. Now, shaped by atrocities long-forgotten, her foul-mouthed spirit visits her nephew, Ramon, in modern day New Jersey. Her hope: That her presence will prompt him to unearth their painful family history.
Ramon launches a haphazard investigation into the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search. Along the way, he falls in love, faces a run-in with a murderous gangster, and uncovers the lives of the lost saints who helped Marisol during her imprisonment.
The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older is a haunting meditation on family, forgiveness, and the violent struggle to be free.
Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult series The Shadowshaper Cypher, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, the middle-grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, and Star Wars: Last Shot. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic, and hear his music on his website, YouTube and on Twitter.
Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult series The Shadowshaper Cypher, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, the middle-grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, and Star Wars: Last Shot. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic, and hear his music on his website, YouTube and on Twitter.
_________________________________
Farrar, Straus and Giroux - November 12, 2019
[from the publisher]
Ramón Martinez is a militant atheist, successful lawyer, and conventional family man. But all of that changes when cancer of the tongue deprives him of the source of his power and livelihood: speech.
The Mutations, by Jorge Comensal, is a comedy tracing the metastasis of Ramón’s cancer through his body and in the lives of his family members, colleagues, and doctors, dissecting the experience of illness and mapping the relationships both strengthened and frayed by its wake. Mateo and Paulina, his teenage children, struggle with the temptations of masturbation and binge eating, respectively. Ramón’s melancholic oncologist is haunted by the memory of a young patient whom he was unable to save. His selfish pathologist believes Ramón’s tumor holds the key to a major scientific breakthrough. And then there’s Elodia, Ramón’s pious maid, who brings him a foulmouthed parrot as a birthday gift. This lewd bird becomes Ramón’s companion, confidant, and unlikely double.
Paying homage to the works of forebears such as Sontag, Didion, Flaubert, and Tolstoy, and filled with a rough-hewn poetry of regret, rage, and finally resignation, The Mutations offers a profound but funny cross section of modern Mexican life, as well as a bold treatment of an unspeakable yet universal reality.
Jorge Comensal was born in Mexico City in 1987. He has received grants from the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. His work has appeared in Letras Libres, Este País, Nexos, Revista de la Universidad de México, VICE, and The Literary Review, and his essay Yonquis de las letras was published in Spain in 2017. The Mutations is his first novel.
Charlotte Whittle is a writer and translator. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, Guernica, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Her translation of Norah Lange’s People in the Room was published in 2018. She lives in New York and is an editor at Cardboard House Press.
Jorge Comensal was born in Mexico City in 1987. He has received grants from the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. His work has appeared in Letras Libres, Este País, Nexos, Revista de la Universidad de México, VICE, and The Literary Review, and his essay Yonquis de las letras was published in Spain in 2017. The Mutations is his first novel.
Charlotte Whittle is a writer and translator. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, Guernica, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Her translation of Norah Lange’s People in the Room was published in 2018. She lives in New York and is an editor at Cardboard House Press.
Later.
_________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment