Translator Bernofsky (Foreign Words) teases out misperceptions about “unwaveringly devoted” Swiss author Robert Walser (1878–1956) in this masterful biography. “Not so long ago,” Bernofsky writes, Walser was “the greatest modernist author you’d never heard of,” though now his life is “full of gaps.” Arguably best known for his microscripts, works discovered after his death composed in minuscule writing, Walser was born to a middle-class family, but financial hardship after the family business collapsed meant that at age 14, he had to leave school. Walser moved to Zurich, then to Berlin with his brother, and finally back to Switzerland, where he began writing his signature short-form pieces. In 1921, Bernofsky writes, “mental illness became a complicating factor in his life,” and he entered an asylum where he stayed for the last 28 years of his life: he died alone, while taking one of his beloved walks. With skillful and lucid readings of Walser’s work, Bernofsky succeeds in creating a portrait of Walser as a “master craftsman”—his short-form essays “constructed elaborate edifices around the simplest topics,” while his 1921 novel, Theodor, showed “a layer of self-reflexive complexity” not seen in his earlier work. This balanced and meticulous account shines a bright light on a misunderstood and influential writer. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

With this ambitious first novel, Rosenbaum (The Ant King and Other Stories) immerses readers in a complex and utterly alien far-future sci-fi world populated by multibodied, cybernetically enhanced humans. Young protagonists Fift, who uses the pronouns ze/zir, and Shria, who uses the pronouns ve/vir, feel constrained by their society’s rigid gender system, enforced through a social capital–based economy and a system of global surveillance. When the pair are involved in a riot sparked by a mysterious circus performance, Fift must choose: disavow zir friend, leaving Shria to face public censure alone, or speak up and risk destroying zir own family. As the consequences of this choice spiral outward, the pair become unwilling figureheads for a revolution. Embedded in a narrative frame about civilizational expansion and collapse, Rosenbaum’s story offers a complex meditation on fame, taboo, gender, and social control. Dense, inventive worldbuilding coupled with the use of neopronouns will present some readers with a steep learning curve, but it’s tempered by the competent plotting and deeply human emotional core. Readers of secondary-world science fiction and science fantasy will find this to be as mind-bending as it is satisfying. Agent: John Silbersack, the Bent Agency. (June)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In this engrossing debut, urban planning professor D’Anieri takes a breezy trek through the century-long history of the Appalachian Trail. To provide a glimpse of the life of this well-traversed place as it’s developed over time, he compiles profiles of the individuals who shaped it. In the late 1920s, for example, Horace Kephart—who helped establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—was instrumental in devising the trail’s southern end, after its founding by Benton MacKaye in 1921, who saw it as “a recreational preserve to serve the people.” D’Anieri also chronicles the trail’s early hikers, among them Earl Shaffer—a “young loner” who charted paths in 1948 for others to follow—and Emma Gatewood, a septuagenarian who cared less about the “purity of nature” than the freedom the walk provided. Meanwhile, Bill Bryson’s influential book A Walk in the Woods—about his time on the trail—is given a local interpretation with criticism from the Appalachian Trail Club for its “apparent disinterest in the trail’s larger ideals.” In genial prose, D’Anieri captures the trail’s majesty and its power to inspire those who ramble on it. Hikers will be captivated by the rich history, as well as those in need of inspiration for their next escape. Agent: Regina Ryan, Regina Ryan Books. (June)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Memoirist Louise (Someone Has Led This Child to Believe) returns with an impressive collection of tenets intended to help build self-esteem. She begins by urging readers to identify their passions and to make a “pact with personal freedom.” Readers are instructed to give themselves permission, because doing so, Louise writes, allows the mind to focus on change and growth. Louise argues that by opening up to others, one can become more courageous and allow one’s “innate self-worth to shine through.” She also provides exercises for acknowledging aspects of one’s character that may not be ideal, as well as for accepting and moving on from difficult experiences. Throughout, there are questions for reflection, mindfulness practices, and affirmations, and Louise’s upbeat tone is undeniably motivational: “There is no need to wait for someone to grant us entry into our best selves and our best lives.” Readers will discover simple, effective ways for defining a personal sense of purpose here. (June)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Navajo artist and writer Belin and her coeditors compile a marvelously comprehensive anthology of Navajo literature, comprising a mix of familiar authors and bright new voices. They begin with a grounded excerpt of Blackhorse Mitchell’s 1967 memoir Miracle Hill. Other notables include Grey Cohoe, whose gritty, metaphoric prose is displayed in the story “The Promised Visit,” and Nia Francisco, whose poems appear in both Diné Bizaad and English. Younger standouts include Tacey Atsitty (from her poem “Ach’íí’”: “He had been memorizing/land formations: an angel the size of his hand/disappeared, and after that he was so empty”), and Bojan Louis, who writes in the essay “Beauty & Memory & Abuse & Love” that “Decolonization and Love seem like unlikely partners or unique inner demons.” There’s also the beautiful and strange story “In This Dream of Waking, a Weaver” by Natanya Ann Pulley, in which a woman, after gathering her extended family members at a hotel to collect oral histories, reflects: “A family tree, she thought. How absurd. How unnatural. As if a branch of her bloodline could ever end. As if a tree was still a tree without sensing a forest.” Readers will come away with a sense of the tremendous diversity in a seemingly small corner of the Native literary world. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Oulipo member Garréta’s wonderfully strange latest (after Not One Day) chronicles the misfortunes that befall a family after the father receives a concrete mixer for his birthday. He wants to “muddernize” (modernize) their recently inherited rustic house, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing and a series of mishaps ensue: he’s temporarily blinded by a shovel full of dust and mice droppings, and various family members are zapped by the house’s faulty wiring. While pouring a concrete floor, they run into the “most serious mishap [they’d] ever had”: the narrator’s younger sister, Poulette, ends up slathered in wet concrete. They then lose power to the water pump and can’t clean her off, and the mix solidifies on her. At this point the narrative morphs into poetry, song, and bursts of wordplay. Hence becomes “hens” and exhume “eggzoom” as the siblings contend with Poulette’s new form. They find new games to play and weaponize their wordplay against a group of local bullies. A few other things happen, but as with most work by Oulipo writers, what’s important is what Garréta does with language, and Ramadan, winner of the PEN Translation Prize, makes each of the pages sing. Fans of experimental fiction will find this delightful. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Murder, theft, and shady real estate dealings feature in the convoluted plot of Andrews’s so-so latest (after Hello Summer). Letty Carnahan, 33, flees Manhattan with her four-year-old niece Maya after Letty’s charming but troublemaking younger sister, Tanya, dies. Letty believes Tanya was killed by Tanya’s abusive and unscrupulous husband, Evan Wingfield, who’s under investigation by the FBI for running illegal Airbnb properties, because Tanya had recently confided her fear of Evan to Letty. Guided by a magazine clipping in Tanya’s “go-bag,” which also contained $19,000 in cash, Letty stops at the Murmuring Surf motel in Treasure Island, Fla., where owner Ava Decurtis offers her a job in exchange for a place to stay. Letty endears herself to the older guests and catches the eye of Ava’s handsome cop son, Joe, while untangling Tanya’s involvement with a pair of local criminals who swindled the motel’s guests out of their jewelry. In one of many contrivances, one of the criminals might also be Maya’s biological father. Meanwhile, an FBI agent sets up a sting to prove Evan wants Letty dead. Andrews is great at making the motel community come alive, but a host of one-note villains weakens the narrative, as does the overly complicated story and unconvincing romance with Joe. This one is a miss. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In this informative and often enraging account of “missed opportunit[ies]” in the U.S. government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Slavitt, who oversaw Medicare and Medicaid for the Obama administration, interweaves testimony from public health officials and scientific researchers with his own efforts to educate the public and mobilize supplies. Slavitt delves into the suspension of the NBA season in March 2020 and the slow-moving response that put New York state at 100,000 cases by early April, and tracks missteps by White House coronavirus task force members including Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar and Dr. Deborah Birx, who “inhaled the groupthink of the White House” in the early months of the pandemic. Some heroes emerge, including epidemiologist Blythe Adamson, who created an accurate model of the virus’s spread, while other infectious disease experts prove remarkably prescient—on March 15, Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota forecast an “18-month war” against the virus complicated by public resistance to government mandates (“People will listen to you for about two weeks, but if they don’t see what you’re telling them, they will begin to rebel”). Slavitt’s frequent attacks on Trump give the book a partisan flavor, but he offers critical insights for mitigating the next public health crisis. Readers will learn much from this pointed assessment of where things went wrong. (June)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Hamilton and Speed, who fell in love and married on the Netflix reality show Love Is Blind, dispense advice and revealing stories from their lives in this touching memoir. The first section explores the couple’s lives before casting, from Hamilton’s first girlfriend in the ninth grade to Speed’s “consecutive” long-distance dating. They met at the taping of Love Is Blind and share behind-the-scenes memories of their time on the show, such as when Hamilton delivered a plum tree to Speed as part of their fifth date, as well as their interactions with other cast members (“He was too smooth,” Speed reminisces about Carlton, a contestant “the girls were crazy about”). The newlyweds also share their experiences, after taping wrapped up, of adjusting to married life, including Speed’s reluctance to give up her own apartment after moving in with Hamilton. Throughout, the couple give fresh relationship advice—for instance, they recommend running a marriage like a business with weekly planning meetings to discuss short-term and long-term goals. Fans of the show will find much to love. Agents: Cindy Uh and Kate Childs, Creative Artists. (June)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Van Ogtrop (Just Let Me Lie Down), former editor of Real Simple magazine, takes a humorous look at middle age in this insightful outing. Written “for the woman who has perhaps stopped caring about things,” van Ogtrop’s essays are eminently relatable, covering the dangers of eating a salad without glasses, the joys of a Roomba vacuum cleaner, and the struggles of insomnia. “I Can Smell My Pillow” is an entertaining take on hormones: “although a woman has fifty hormones in her body, estrogen is the president and right now everything is her fault.” “The Shalom Ambulette, or How to Know if Your Career Is Over” covers van Ogtrop’s professional achievements and the tremendous loss she felt after leaving her job, and “My Fratermily” is a funny take on the messiness of living with three sons. Nearly every topic is fair game—droopy breasts, losing friends, and trying to keep up with her children as they jump from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram (the author raises the white flag at Snapchat)—and van Ogtrop’s tone is casual and welcoming. This thoughtful, quirky mix of meditations hits the spot. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink