October 1, 2022
In former lawyer/current TV writer Cauley's The Survivalists, perpetually single Black lawyer Aretha is laser-focused on her career until she becomes involved coffee-entrepreneur Aaron and moves in with him and his doomsday roommates, prepping for the end of the world. Mirabella's Brother & Sister Enter the Forest, whose title hints at fairytale or horror (maybe both?), is a queer coming-of-age novel about emotionally shattered Justin and his sister, Willa, who's struggling to care for him--or to leave and claim her own life. Imbued with mythic figures--the ocean-dwelling Mama Dglo, the butcher-hunting Rolling Calf--Palmer's The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter & Other Essential Ghosts plumbs the lives of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters in Brooklyn who find themselves at odds even as their parents' marriage becomes untethered. In Wandering Souls, London Writers Award winner Pin depicts three Vietnamese siblings struggling to survive in the UK without their parents, lost in the family's escape from Vietnam after the war (80,000-copy first printing). In Winn's In Memoriam, Henry Gaunt escapes his strong feelings for boarding-school classmate Sidney Ellwood by enlisting during World War I--but then Sidney enlists, too, and they find love amid battle.
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January 9, 2023
Palmer weaves folktales and magical realism in her moving debut, about a splintered Brooklyn family. Beatrice, a proud but troubled mother originally from Trinidad, raises daughters Sasha and Zora with her Jamaican husband, Nigel, in the late 1990s. West African fables play an important role in shaping the family’s relationships and understanding of their culture. Beatrice gives Zora a book called The Anansi Stories for a school writing project, and teenaged Sasha helps Zora understand the tales and myths. As Nigel and Beatrice’s relationship falls apart, a pregnant Beatrice develops debilitating headaches, Nigel falls in love with a German woman, and Sasha discovers she’s not interested in boys and might prefer to appear masculine. Zora, meanwhile, dreams of becoming a writer. The more the two sisters explore their identities, the more they grow apart, and after Beatrice dies from cancer, they’re haunted by her ghost. Palmer brings whimsy to her portrayal of the family even in painful moments—such as when Beatrice tells the girls fables to cheer them up—and nuance to the evolving attitudes of the Black American and Caribbean people in Sasha’s orbit toward her exploration of sexuality and gender identity. This will stick with readers. Agent: Laura Usselman, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency.
February 1, 2023
Palmer's fascinating first novel weaves together folklore and realism, while moving among Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Brooklyn, to tell the story of the two very different Porter sisters, adventurous Sasha, who has a girlfriend, and introvert, writer-wannabe Zora. Their coming-of-age experiences in Brooklyn as the children of immigrants facing serious difficulties leads to an examination of the resilient bonds of sisterhood and a beautiful exploration of the power of stories. As Palmer presents the family drama of violent Nigel and ailing Beatrice, their daughters, and their secrets, she creates stories within stories, stories considering notions of beginnings and ends, stories that change course, stories that are ignored, stories that grow and flourish, and stories that are retold, all compelling variations on a theme. Vivid and otherworldly, this masterfully told novel brings together many threads of family history, personal memory, collective choices, sexuality, and a realm of mysteries and mythic creatures with deep origins and powers. In all, a striking and imaginative debut.
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February 15, 2023
Two Brooklyn sisters are raised on the Anansi stories and then realize their parents lived them. Sasha and Zora Porter are growing up in Brooklyn at the turn of the millennium. They exchange HitClip cartridges and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But their main cultural touchstones are the Afro-Caribbean folkstories their parents have raised them on. Their Jamaican father, a failed writer and abusive husband named Nigel, claims he once slayed a spirit called the Rolling Calf with just a penknife. Their Trinidadian mother, the titular Beatrice, recites the Anansi stories with her own interpretations: Anansi, in Beatrice's telling, is a woman. The family is pulled apart as each member must walk their own path. Sasha explores her attraction to girls and starts to bind her chest; Zora struggles to make good on the literary promise suggested by her first name; Nigel starts a new family with a White woman; and, finally and heartbreakingly, Beatrice develops brain cancer and goes back to Trinidad to be with her Shango healer grandmother. Their story is told from different points of view: Some chapters are matter-of-fact diary entries, while others take on the dramatic tone of fables. Then, thrillingly, Palmer collapses that distance. Nigel really did face down the Rolling Calf, but the truth isn't as heroic as he would like it to be. Palmer is playful as a stylist without undermining her themes of family, identity, and belonging. However, not all of the book's sections are equally strong, and Palmer sometimes struggles with dialogue. Nigel's attempts to speak "White," for example, are often played for comedy ("Their coconut lattes are out of this world") but can sometimes make him sound like an AI chatbot. Yet when the family breaks bread at the novel's end, it's clear that Palmer has threaded her narrative web successfully, using a cast of unique characters as her spider's silk. This uneven but promising debut tells a family fable that rides on its well-developed protagonists.
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