New and forthcoming titles from independent book publishers and university presses. Blurbs provided by publishers.
New & Noteworthy
Posted November 25, 2019
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Evidence of V
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- Subtitle A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions
- Book Type Fiction
- by Sheila O’Connor
- Publisher (link) Rose Metal Press
- Date Published October 2019
- ISBN-13 978-1-941628-19-5
- Format Paperback
- Pages 280pp
- Price $16.95
In an ambitious blend of fact and fiction, novelist Sheila O’Connor tells the riveting story of V, a fifteen-year-old singer in 1930s Minneapolis. Drawing on the American practice of incarcerating adolescent girls for “immorality” in the first half of the twentieth century, O’Connor follows V from her work as a nightclub entertainer to her subsequent six-year state school sentence for an unplanned pregnancy. Inspired by O’Connor’s research on her unknown maternal grandmother and the long-term effects of intergenerational trauma, Evidence of V is a poignant excavation of familial and national history that remains disturbingly relevant—a harrowing story of exploitation and erasure, and the infinite ways in which girls are punished for crimes they didn’t commit.
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Ghosts of the Upper Floor
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- Subtitle The Complete Dark Shadows (Of My Childhood), Book 3
- Book Type Poetry
- by Tony Trigilio
- Publisher (link) BlazeVOX
- Date Published September 2019
- ISBN-13 978-1-609643379
- Format Paperback
- Pages 140pp
- Price $16.00
"There’s so much to admire in Tony Trigilio’s addictive new book (the third in his delicious Dark Shadows poetry soap opera): the obsessive vision, the light and dark of emotion, and the everyday world brushing eerily—sometimes hilariously—against the supernatural. [ . . . ] Inside these love poems to baroque camp and fabulous melodrama is a haunting meditation on memory and the shadowy lenses through which we look back on the past while navigating the present. Trigilio shows us there’s nothing so small or obscure, or so wonderfully bad, that we can’t love it—in its entirety—into art." —Aaron Smith
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The Marriage of the Moon and the Field
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Sunni Brown Wilkinson
- Publisher (link) Black Lawrence Press
- Date Published August 2019
- ISBN-13 978-1-62557-004-8
- Format Paperback
- Pages 80pp
- Price $16.95
"The poems in Sunni Wilkinson’s The Marriage of the Moon and the Field show us history, affection, private struggle, and the common life with a kind of grave, irony-tinged happiness that is rare in the poetry of our time. Her poems turn away from complaint, as though she had set out to reveal instead the domestic life of intelligence in all its color, warmth, and depth. This is a very fine debut volume, worth treasuring; and more are sure to follow." – Christopher Howell
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Someday This Will Fit
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- Subtitle Linked Essays, Meditations, & Other Midlife Follies
- Book Type Nonfiction
- by Joan Silverman
- Publisher (link) Bauhan Publishing
- Date Published October 2019
- ISBN-13 978-0-87233-299-7
- Format Paperback
- Pages 159pp
- Price $19.95
Someday This Will Fit celebrates the things that matter—family and friendship, Dove Bars and thank-you notes. An original memoir-in-essays, the book muses on issues that are instantly familiar—from privacy in the digital age, to racism at the dinner table, to a friend’s suicide; from Post-Its and Kindles, to head colds and home repairs. In the age of Twitter, these bite-sized narratives evoke the richness and humor of daily life in a brief, compact form. The book’s wry midlife observations offer an insightful no-nonsense take on modern living.
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Superhero Thought Experiments
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- Subtitle Comic Book Philosophy
- Book Type Nonfiction
- by Chris Gavaler & Nathaniel Goldberg
- Publisher (link) University of Iowa Press
- Date Published September 2019
- ISBN-13 978-160938-655-9
- Format Paperback
- Pages 224pp
- Price $22.50
Examining the deep philosophical topics addressed in superhero comics, authors Gavaler and Goldberg read plot lines for the complex thought experiments they contain and analyze their implications as if the comic authors were philosophers. Reading superhero comic books through a philosophical lens reveals how they experiment with complex issues of morality, metaphysics, meaning, and medium. Given comics’ ubiquity and influence directly on (especially young) readers—and indirectly on consumers of superhero movies and video games—understanding these deeper meanings is in many ways essential to understanding contemporary popular culture. The result is an entertaining and enlightening look at superhero dilemmas.
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Fiction Posted November 25, 2019
Deprivation, Roy Freirich, Meerkat Press
The Devil's Country, Perla Suez, White Pine Press
The Dreamed Part, Rodrigo Fresan, Open Letter
I Have the Answer, Kelly Fordon, Wayne State University Press
The OK End of Funny Town, Mark Polanzak, BOA Editions LTD
Orders of Protection, Jenn Hollmeyer, University of North Texas Press
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, Sergio Troncoso, Cinco Puntos Press
Stone Skimmers, Jennifer Wisner Kelly, BkMk Press
The Tender Birds, Carole Giangrande, Inanna
The Thirteenth Month, Colin Hamilton, Black Lawrence Press
To the Volcano and Other Stories, Elleke Boehmer, Myriad Editions
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Nonfiction Posted November 25, 2019
Dispatches from the End of Ice, Beth Peterson, Trinity University Press
Elegy for Ebbets: Baseball On and Off the Diamond, Michael Steinberg, Pint-Size Publications
Grief's Country: A Memoir in Pieces, Gail Griffin, Wayne State University Press
Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History, Gary Calyton Anderson, University of Oklahoma Press
My Victorians: Lost in the Nineteenth Century, Robert Clark, University of Iowa Press
On Serious Earth: Poetry & Transcendence, Daniel Tobin, Orison Books
Uninvited: Confessions of a Hollywood Party Crasher, Adrian Maher, Chicago Review Press
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Poetry Posted November 25, 2019
Antipsalm, Wayne Johns, Unicorn Press
Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader, Steve Abbott, Ed. Jamie Townsend, Nightboat Books
Birthright, George Abraham, Button Poetry
Blood Box, Zefyr Lisowski, Black Lawrence Press
Brand New Spacesuit, John Gallaher, BOA Editions LTD
DMZ Colony, Don Mee Choi, Wave Books
God's Green Earth, Noelle Kocot, Wave Books
How To Be a Poet, J.M. Farkas, Andrews McMeel Publishing
Improvisation Without Accompaniment, Matt Morton, BOA Editions LTD
Inland/Empire, Leah Huizar, Noemi Press
Inside Ball Lightning, Rainie Oet, Southeast Missouri State University Press
Latter Days of Eve, Beverly Burch, BkMk Press
Let's Become a Ghost Story, Rick Bursky, BOA Editions LTD
Look Look Look, Callista Buchen, Black Lawrence Press
Nowhere Beulah, Nicole Stockburger, Unicorn Press
Rue, Kathryn Nuernberger, BOA Editions LTD
The Shore, Chris Nelson, Wave Books
The Sky Contains the Plans, Matthew Rohrer, Wave Books
The Spinning Place, Chelsea Wagenaar, Southern Indiana Review Press
Triptych, Peter Grandbois, James McCorkle, Robert Miltner, Etruscan Press
The Underneath, Christopher Cokinos, New American Press
What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, Gloria Heffernan, NYQ Books
When Sleep Comes: Shillelagh Songs, Jack Foley, Sagging Mensicus Press
The Willies, Adam Falkner, Button Poetry
Words Like Thunder: New and Used Anishinaabe Prayers, Lois Beardslee, Wayne State University Press
Year of the Dog, Deborah Paredez, BOA Editions LTD
