Having already fictionalized the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein (The World as I Found It), Duffy now sets his sights on Arthur Rimbaud, who, as a teenager, caused a scandal in Paris with his decadent poetry and his affair with the older, married poet Paul Verlaine. But in 1873, at age 20, Rimbaud is through with Verlaine, poetry, and Paris, and announces his farewell in "A Season in Hell" before settling in Africa, where he becomes an arms merchant. A sickness forces him to return to France for treatment and a final confrontation with the overbearing mother he'd fled from 20 years earlier. Duffy recreates Rimbaud's absinthe-drenched life in Paris and imaginatively fills in the gaps of his later career in Africa, where the poet finds, to his chagrin, that his literary reputation in France has been enhanced by his absence. Duffy's Rimbaud is like a character created by Conrad after a long night spent in the company of the Green Fairy, but the conceit isn't helped by the author too often straining the reader's patience with sentences that try to out-Rimbaud Rimbaud, resulting in a strange but not unappealing mashup of Moulin Rouge and Heart of Darkness. (July)

Reviewed on 04/11/2011 | Release date: 07/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

The middle class launches a violent revolution in this prophetic satire by the late master Ballard (1930–2009). David Markham, a psychologist, infiltrates the "rebellion of the new proletariat" at—naturally—a cat show, looking for the architects of the Heathrow Airport bombing that killed his ex-wife. What he finds are a bored coterie of suburbanites: charmingly unhinged academic Kay Churchill, biker-priest Stephen Dexter, and Kurtz-figure Richard Gould, who dreams of liberation from the 20th century. As David's spying becomes increasingly participatory, his actions begin to worry his second wife, Sally, who may herself be at risk of being swept up in Richard's plans to expand his campaign of structured "pointless violence." Ballard is a British Philip K. Dick, heir to Conrad and H.G. Wells, in whose stories the present, taken to extremes, anticipates the future. In fact, the only complaint to be made of this bruisingly smart novel is that it has taken eight years for it to appear in the U.S. (July)

Reviewed on 04/11/2011 | Release date: 07/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Originally published as a children's book and now debuting in the States as a "fable for readers all ages," this light work by the boundlessly talented Achebe follows Chike, an 11-year-old boy whose adventures comprise neat little life lessons. Chike lives in the Nigerian village of Umuofia with his mother and two sisters, and is surrounded by stories, such as that of Sarah, a friend of his mother, who tells Chike of a small bird and the River Niger; the story has a big impact on Chike, who likes to retell it with embellishments of his own, and, more significantly, it implants in Chike a strong desire to see and cross the great Niger. The desire becomes an obsession that leads to a foolish bargain struck with a charlatan and to taking a risk that nearly costs Chike his life. Of course this is one of many lessons that lead to maturity; others stem from mischief Chike gets up to with his friend Samuel, aka S.M.O.G. (Samuel Maduka Obi, with the "G" added just for fun), who teaches Chike how to ride a bicycle and nudges him into various adventures, most with a comic twist. Rodriguez's charming illustrations add texture to a classic children's story. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 04/11/2011 | Release date: 08/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

In this sobering tale of how adolescent stupidity can have criminal and social repercussions, Schulman (A Day at the Beach) explores what happens when a privileged teen boy forwards to friends a sexually explicit video made for him by a classmate. Jake Bergamot, 15, has recently moved to New York City from Ithaca, N.Y., with his parents, Richard and Liz, and his kindergarten-aged sister, Coco. Life in Ithaca was easy and idyllic, but after Richard takes a job in the city, that all changes. Jake is enrolled at Wildwood, a New York City prep school where he makes a new circle of friends and attends wild parties, one of which leads to the video—later made by a girl at the party who Jake refuses to sleep with because, among other reasons, she's too young—that could determine the direction his young life will take. Jake is a good student and a nice kid, and his parents are rocked to their foundations by their son being snared in a child pornography scandal. The plot is ripe for salacious tabloid treatment, but Schulman sidesteps easy shock and hyperbole to turn out a provocative story of ethics and responsibilities in the ever-shifting digital age. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 04/11/2011 | Release date: 08/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Like the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn of its setting, Christensen's unremittingly wonderful latest (after Trouble) is populated by an odd but captivating mix of characters. At the center is Harry Quirk, a middle-aged poet whose comfortable life is upended one winter day when his wife, Luz, convinced he's having an affair, destroys his notebooks, throws his laptop from the window, and kicks him out. Things, Harry has to admit, are not going well: their idealistic Dumpster-diving daughter, Karina, is lonely and lovelorn, and their son, Hector, is in the grip of a messianic cult. Taking in a much-changed Greenpoint, Brooklyn, while working at a lumberyard and hoping to recover his poetic spark, Harry must come to terms with the demands of starting anew at 57. Astute and unsentimental, at once romantic and wholly rational, Harry is an everyman adrift in a changing world, and as he surveys his failings, Christensen takes a singular, genuine story and blows it up into a smart inquiry into the nature of love and the commitments we make, the promises we do and do not honor, and the people we become as we negotiate the treacherous parameters of marriage and friendship and parenthood. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2011 | Release date: 06/01/2011 | Details & Permalink