Six industry professionals enthralled a standing room only crowd of booksellers on Wednesday afternoon with their presentations of this year’s adult editors buzz panel selections. While the three memoirs, two novels, and one true crime story varied in scope, they possess one common characteristic: they all capture the spirit of our times.
Bryn Clark, a Flatiron editor, kicked off the session by presenting Small Animals: Parenting in the Age of Fear (Aug.) by Kim Brooks. In her memoir, Clark explained, Brooks recounts the aftermath of her decision to leave her young son in the car while she ran into a store. (It involved the police.) Brooks doesn’t just tell her story: she paints a portrait of parenthood in America that can only be described as “fearful parenting.” Parenting in the Age of Fear, Clark said, is an “expertly crafted work of cultural criticism.”
Cary Goldstein, S&S executive director of publicity, touted Ohio (Aug.) a debut novel by Stephen Markley, set in a decaying Rust Belt town. Describing Ohio as both a murder mystery and social critique about post-industrial society, Goldstein described Ohio’s four characters as much like the author himself: people who grew up in a world “rocked by so many transformative events,” beginning with 9/11. Ohio is, Goldstein said, a “timely, yet timeless story” that “reads like a Springsteen song.”
Fiona McCrae, Graywolf Press publisher, talked up She Would Be King (Sept.) by Wayétu Moore, a debut novel reimagining the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through the eyes of three characters. She Would Be King is “a thoroughly satisfying read,” with magical elements, McCrae said, noting that Graywolf is publishing the Liberian-born, U.S.-raised Moore’s memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women, in 2019.
Becky Saletan, Riverhead Books’ editorial director, described Casey Gerald’s memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here (Sept.) as “breaking the mold for what a memoir should be,” written by “one of the most charismatic human beings” she has ever met. The book is a rags-to-riches narrative, but is “not the story you think it is.” Gerald examines race, class, religion, power, and what it means to be true to oneself when one has achieved the pinnacle of success. “This book is fire,” she said.
Krishnan Trotman, a Hachette senior editor, described Stephanie Land’s memoir, Maid (Dec.) as “Hillbilly Elegy meets Nickeled and Dimed,” about a single mother’s life below the poverty line, cleaning people’s homes, eking out an existence for her and her young daughter. Disclosing that she herself is a single mother, Trotman called Maid “raw,” and noted that parents, no matter their background, will relate to Land’s tale of wanting “everything in the world for [her] child, but sometimes [she] can’t.” Land, Trotman said, “puts a human face” on poverty in America from the perspective of a servant worker.
Zachary Wagman, executive editor of Ecco, discussed The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World (Nov.) by Sarah Weinman, about the 1948 abduction of 11-year-old Sally Horner that inspired the novel by Nabokov. Weaving together the true crime narrative with cultural and social history, Weinman relates Horner’s two years on the road with a pedophile. “Without Sally’s story, Lolita would be a quite different book,” Wagman said, describing it as a compelling tale that “shows us that books still have the power to enlighten and entertain.”
