By Carole Reedy
If, like Julian Barnes and Gustave Flaubert, you believe that anticipation is the greatest form of pleasure, then (like me) you love looking forward to the new year’s forthcoming selection of novels and non-fiction, when we meet new authors and continue to treasure our trusted favorites. To whet your literary appetite, here are ten new books ready for publication in the first six months of 2024.
January
The Promised Party: Kahlo, Basquiat and Me, by Jennifer Clement
Clement, former president of Pen International, is especially familiar to expats and dual citizens in Mexico. Clement was born in the US but has lived between the US and Mexico during different life stages, as many of us have.
The latest novel from this highly respected international figure reflects the cultures of the grand old Mexico City of the 1970s – filled with artists and communists – and the equally scintillating New York of the 1980s, where Clement rubbed elbows with the likes of Jean Basquiat and William Burroughs.
In Mexico, Clement lived next door to the Casa Azul, the blue house lived in by Frida Kahlo, the iconic figure of the bohemian neighborhood of Coyoacán. From there Clement moved to New York. This is her memoir of the two majestic cities.
Clement has captivated us in the past with a disturbing young girl’s story of Mexico in Prayers for the Stolen (2012, film version 2021), as well as in the New York saga of the Widow Basquiat: A Love Story (2014).
February
Wandering Stars, by Tommy Orange
Avid readers discovered a new voice in 2018 when Orange wrote his well-regarded and eye-opening novel, There There.
As a young man, Orange played roller hockey at the national level for ten years. He was also a musician, receiving his bachelor’s degree in sound arts. His passion for reading, and thus writing, evolved when he began working at Greywolf Books in California, but the idea to tell stories about his Native American heritage grew out of his work at a digital storytelling sound booth and at a story center at the University of California at Berkeley.
Orange’s newest novel continues relating the history and stories of the Native American community. Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 through three generations of a family, and includes some of the characters we met in his debut novel.
March
James, by Percival Everett
Move over Barbara Kingsolver, author of blockbuster Demon Copperhead (2022), the successful takeoff of Dickens’ beloved David Copperfield. Now with his latest novel, James, Percival Everett has turned Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) topsy turvy.
We reveled in Huck’s and Jim’s adventures in that classic novel, but this time the story is told by Jim, the slave’s point of view replacing Huck’s entertaining vision. Action-filled as well as humorous, any lover of literature will be delighted by this innovative work by a prestigious figure of modern literature.
Everett is the author of Dr. No: A Novel (2022), finalist for two awards – NBCC Award for Fiction, PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; The Trees: A Novel (2021), finalist for five book awards, including the Booker Prize, and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; and Telephone: A Novel (2004), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Anita de Monte Laughs Last, by Xóchitl Gonzalez
In the December 2023 issue of The Eye, I listed Xóchitl Gonzalez’s brilliant novel Olga Dies Dreaming (2021) as one of my top-ten reads of the year.
Her latest novel offers a glimpse into the art world of two women, one present and one past. The rising artist Anita de Monte of the title is found dead in 1985 in New York City, where her death is the talk of the town. The event is forgotten for a while, but years later another young artist, Rachel, stumbles on the story, which proves to be similar to her own.
The storyline straddles the lives of both women with, I’m sure, the same intensity Gonzalez told the story of the Puerto Rican family in her first novel, Olga Dies Dreaming. If so, it also should be memorable.
American Spirits, by Russell Banks
Russell Banks was an admired author of novels and short stories that address the social dilemmas and moral struggles of American society. The most popular of his many creations are Rules of the Bone (1995) and Continental Drift (1985).
He died early in 2023 of cancer before this latest collection was published.
American Spirits consists of three novellas that take place in a rural American town, three dark stories about the comings and goings and undercurrents in our communities.
Writing in the Journal of American Studies, University of Nottingham Lecturer Anthony Hutchison argues that, “Aside from William Faulkner, it is difficult to think of a white twentieth-century American writer who has negotiated the issue of race in as sustained, unflinching and intelligent a fashion as Russell Banks.”
April
Table for Two, by Amor Towles
Towles’ diversity is evident in his novels, from the entertaining romp that takes place in the United States, The Lincoln Highway: A Novel (2021), to the historical Russian tale of A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel (2016).
In his latest we are entertained by six short stories that take place at the turn of the millennium in New York City and a novella set in Los Angles.
All of Towles’ books prove to be best sellers, and I imagine the same for Table for Two.
Mania, by Lionel Shriver
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003), Shriver’s most memorable book and winner of the Orange Prize in 2005, was made into an equally popular film in 2011. Since then, Shriver has written many significant novels, my favorites being the recent Should We Stay or Should We Go: A Novel (2021), sorting through decisions surrounding dying with dignity, and So Much for That: A Novel, a rant on the American medical system.
Shriver always entertains, with her sharp eye on society, so her newest book, which shows us a world filled with absolute equality of intelligence, is no surprise.
Her publisher writes: “With echoes of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain [2000], told in Lionel Shriver’s inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.”
The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez
Many of us remember Alvarez’s most popular book, In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its Big Read program. In 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling.
Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the US when she was just 10, but she continues to write about the place she spent her youth.
Her newest is a tribute to books and storytelling. On a plot of inherited land, the protagonist buries her untold stories, only for their characters to return to tell their tales.
Books, stories, and magical realism: a satisfying buffet!
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, by Salmon Rushdie
Salman Rushdie stands as an icon of bravery. Despite living through threats and a brutal physical attack on his life, he continues to exercise his freedom to write and entertain for a worldwide public.
Rushdie has survived a 20-year fatwa imposed by religious leader, revolutionary, and politician Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as a recent brutal knife attack that almost took his life. Since the attack, which left him blind in one eye and unable to use one hand, he has said he feels that until he writes about the incident, he will not be able to return to creating the marvelous fictions we so love.
In Knife, Rushdie recounts enduring the attack and surviving afterwards. By February 6, 2023, Rushdie had recovered enough do an interview with The New Yorker, in which he said, “I’m lucky. What I really want to say is that my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude.”
The literary world hopes that this book will contribute to the spiritual healing Rushdie needs to continue creating his insightful, entertaining works of art.
June
Parade, by Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk’s publisher describes her new novel, Parade, as one that “expands the notion of what a novel can be and do. She turns language upside down to show us our world as it really is.”
The main character, G, is an artist who has lived many lives, as many of us have.
Avid readers will remember Cusk’s recent Outline trilogy: Outline (2014), Transit (2016), and Kudos: A Novel (2018). We look forward to Cusk’s new creation, in which she tosses away the reins of perception in her writing.
There will be countless new books for this year’s reading. On that happy note, enjoy these with the promise of more to come.