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Bellies: A novel
By Nicola Dinan. 2023
"TRIUMPHANT AND HUMANE." — Elle , A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 I wore a dress on the night I…
first met Ming. It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom's awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming's orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he's already mapped out their future together. But shortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition. From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming's transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are? Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funny as the cast of characters it centers, Bellies is an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires
Blackouts: A novel
By Justin Torres. 2023
From the bestselling author of We the Animals , Blackouts mines lost histories—personal and collective. Out in the desert in…
a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay—playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized—has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns , which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories—moments of joy and oblivion—and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures? Inspired by Kiss of the Spider Woman , Pedro Páramo , Voodoo Macbeth , the book at its own center and the woman who created it, oral histories, and many more texts, images, and influences, Justin Torres's Blackouts is a work of fiction that sees through the inventions of history and narrative. An extraordinary work of creative imagination, it insists that we look long and steady at the world we have inherited and the world we have made—a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Endpapers
By Jennifer Savran Kelly. 2023
In this page-turning novel set in 2003 New York City, a genderqueer book conservator feels trapped by her gender presentation,…
her ill-fitting relationship, and her artistic block-until she discovers a decades-old hidden queer love letter and becomes obsessed with tracking down its author. It's 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city's street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And art isn't the only thing that feels wrong: wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship, once anchored by shared queerness, is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she's at her most masculine. Meanwhile at work, Dawn has to present as female, even on the days when that isn't true. Either way, her difference feels like a liability. Then, one day at work, Dawn finds something hidden behind the endpaper of an old book: the torn-off cover of a '50s lesbian pulp novel, Turn Her About . On the front is a campy illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man's face. And on the back is a love letter. Dawn latches onto the coincidence, becoming obsessed with tracking down the note's author. Her fixation only increases when her best friend Jae is injured in a hate crime, for which Dawn feels responsible. As Dawn searches for the letter's author, she is also looking for herself. She tries to understand how to live in a world that doesn't see her as she truly is, how to get unstuck in her gender, and how to rediscover her art, and she can't shake the feeling that the note's author might be able to help guide her to the answers. A sharply written, deeply evocative story about what it means to live authentically-even within an identity whose parameters have not yet been defined- Endpapers will appeal to readers of queer, nonbinary, or trans fiction like Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby as well as anyone who loves character-driven, setting-rich stories like Tell the Wolves I'm Home or The Immortalists
Brother & sister enter the forest
By Richard Mirabella. 2023
After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister's doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made…
for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother's protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she's reluctant to let him in. Willa lives a carefully ordered life working as a nurse and making ornate dioramas in her spare time. As Justin tries to connect with the people she's closest to-her landlord, her boyfriend, their mother-she begins to feel exposed. Willa and Justin's relationship has always been strained yet loving, frustrating and close. But it hits a new breaking point when Justin spirals out of control, unable to manage his sobriety and the sustained effects of a brain injury. Years earlier, in high school, desperate to escape his home life and his disapproving, troubled mother, Justin falls into the hands of his first lover, a slightly older boy living on his own who offers Justin some semblance of intimacy and refuge. When Justin's boyfriend commits a terrifying act of violence, the two flee on a doomed road trip, a journey that will damage Justin and change his and his family's lives forever. Weaving together these two timelines, Brother & Sister Enter the Forest unravels the thread of a young man's trauma and the love waiting for him on the other side
All-night pharmacy: A novel
By Ruth Madievsky. 2023
On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los…
Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions-nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears. Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator's spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics. With prose pulsing like a neon sign, All-Night Pharmacy is an intoxicating portrait of a young woman consumed with unease over how a person should be. As she attempts sobriety and sexual embodiment, she must decide whether to search for her estranged sister, or allow her to remain a relic of the past
Organ meats: A novel
By K-Ming Chang. 2023
"In the phenomenal Organ Meats , two friends are bound by a red string, dog bloodlines, and the violence that…
is being a girl" ( Ms. magazine)-from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want. " Organ Meats possesses something of the febrile intensity of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, their laser focus on female friendship, but instead of Naples, K-Ming Chang's wild girls inhabit a magical universe of talking dogs and shape-shifting body parts."- The New York Times (Editors' Choice) LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST • AN AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita's body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita's body and keep her friend from being lost forever. Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang's signature poetic and visceral lore
Biography of x: A novel
By Catherine Lacey. 2023
When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, CM, wild with grief and refusing…
everyone's good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM knows where X was born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora's box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, and which finally, in the present day, is being forced into an uneasy reunification. A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X's widow, Biography of X follows CM as she traces X's peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. At last, when she finally understands the scope of X's defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife's deceptions were far crueler than she imagined. Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves
Big swiss: A novel
By Jen Beagin. 2023
NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND CULT FAVORITE Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker , Time , NPR,…
Vogue , Elle , Cosmopolitan , Huffington Post , NBC News, Lit Hub, theSkimm, Condé Nast Traveler , Town & Country , and more! "One of the funniest books of the last few years" ( Los Angeles Times ) about a sex therapist's transcriptionist and her affair with one of the patients. Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss's voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she'll do anything to sustain the relationship... "A fantastic, weird-as-hell, super funny novel" ( Bustle ), Big Swiss is both a love story and a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more-from an amazingly talented, singular voice in contemporary fiction
Family meal: A novel
By Bryan Washington. 2023
"A stunning look at what it really means to be family." -Michael Schaub, NPR From the bestselling, award-winning author of…
Memorial and Lot , an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss. Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time? When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel
Biography of X: A Novel
By Catherine Lacey. 2005
Named a Best Book of March by Apple Books and Amazon, and a Most Anticipated Book by The New York…
Times, Esquire, The Guardian, TIME, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, Lit Hub and Chicago Review of Books"A major novel, and a notably audacious one." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times "It feels fairly rare for a novel to be hugely intelligent and moving and fun in equal measure, but with Biography of X, Catherine Lacey somehow—magically—makes the nearly impossible look easy." —Lauren GroffFrom one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification. A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.
Organ Meats: A Novel
By K-Ming Chang. 2023
Two girls are bound by red string and canine heritage in this vivid tale about female companionship and loyalty, from…
the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want.&“[K-Ming Chang has the] ability to take a common, decidedly earthbound, experience and transform it through her lens into a fantastical, otherworldly encounter.&”—San Francisco ChronicleBest friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita&’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita&’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever. Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang&’s signature poetic and visceral lore.
Family Meal: A Novel
By Bryan Washington. 2023
&“Tender and poignant, Washington&’s latest hits the spot.&” – PEOPLE Magazine From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot,…
an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel.
Endpapers: A Novel
By Jennifer Savran Kelly. 2023
In this page-turning novel set in 2003 New York City, a genderqueer book conservator feels trapped by her gender presentation,…
her ill-fitting relationship, and her artistic block—until she discovers a decades-old hidden queer love letter and becomes obsessed with tracking down its author. It's 2003,and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she spends all day repairing old books but hasn&’t created anything of her own in years. What&’s more, although she doesn&’t have a word for it yet, Dawn is genderqueer, and with a partner who wishes she were a man and a society that wants her to be a woman, she&’s struggling to feel safe expressing herself. Dawn spends her free time scouting the city&’s street art, hoping to find the inspiration that will break her artistic block—and time is of the essence, because she&’s making her major gallery debut in six weeks and doesn&’t have anything to show yet. One day at work, Dawn discovers something hidden under the endpapers of an old book: the torn-off cover of a lesbian pulp novel from the 1950s, with an illustration of a woman looking into a mirror and seeing a man&’s face. Even more intriguing is the queer love letter written on the back. Dawn becomes obsessed with tracking down the author of the letter, convinced the mysterious writer can help her find her place in the world. Her fixation only increases when her best friend, Jae, is injured in a hate crime for which Dawn feels responsible. But ultimately for Dawn, the trickiest puzzle to solve is how she truly wants to live her life. A sharply written, page-turning, and evocative debut, Endpapers is an unforgettable story about the journey toward authenticity and the hard conversations we owe ourselves in pursuit of a world where no one has to hide.
Bellies: A Novel
By Nicola Dinan. 2023
&“Smart, hilarious and deeply moving.&” –ELLIOT PAGE"The most hotly anticipated novel of the summer." ?HARPER'S BAZAAR &“Triumphant and humane.&” —ELLEIt begins…
as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom&’s awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming&’s orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he&’s already mapped out their future together. But shortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition.From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming&’s transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funny as the cast of characters it centers, Bellies is an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires.
All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel
By Ruth Madievsky. 2023
*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER*Winner of the California Book AwardWinner of the National Jewish Book Award for Debut FictionFinalist for the Lambda…
Literary AwardsRachel Kushner meets David Lynch in this fever dream of an LA novel about a young woman who commits a drunken act of violence just before her sister vanishes without a traceOn the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears.Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator&’s spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics.With prose pulsing like a neon sign, Ruth Madievsky&’s All-Night Pharmacy is an intoxicating portrait of a young woman consumed with unease over how a person should be. As she attempts sobriety and sexual embodiment, she must decide whether to search for her estranged sister, or allow her to remain a relic of the past.
Brother & Sister Enter the Forest: A Novel
By Richard Mirabella. 2023
Finalist for the Lambda Literary AwardsA New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceOpening like a fairy tale and ending like…
a nightmare, this cannonball of a queer coming-of-age novel follows a young man's relationship with a violent older boyfriend—and how he and his sister survive a terrible crimeAfter years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister&’s doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother&’s protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she&’s reluctant to let him in.Willa lives a carefully ordered life working as a nurse and making ornate dioramas in her spare time. As Justin tries to connect with the people she&’s closest to—her landlord, her boyfriend, their mother—she begins to feel exposed. Willa and Justin&’s relationship has always been strained yet loving, frustrating and close. But it hits a new breaking point when Justin spirals out of control, unable to manage his sobriety and the sustained effects of a brain injury.Years earlier, in high school, desperate to escape his home life and his disapproving, troubled mother, Justin falls into the hands of his first lover, a slightly older boy living on his own who offers Justin some semblance of intimacy and refuge. When Justin&’s boyfriend commits a terrifying act of violence, the two flee on a doomed road trip, a journey that will damage Justin and change his and his family&’s lives forever.Weaving together these two timelines, Brother & Sister Enter the Forest unravels the thread of a young man&’s trauma and the love waiting for him on the other side.
Big Swiss: A Novel
By Jen Beagin. 2023
NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND CULT FAVORITENamed a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, Time, NPR, Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan,…
Huffington Post, NBC News, Lit Hub, theSkimm, Condé Nast Traveler, Town & Country, and more!&“One of the funniest books of the last few years&” (Los Angeles Times) about a sex therapist&’s transcriptionist and her affair with one of the patients.Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss&’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she&’ll do anything to sustain the relationship… &“A fantastic, weird-as-hell, super funny novel&” (Bustle), Big Swiss is both a love story and a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more—from an amazingly talented, singular voice in contemporary fiction.