Bound Together 2023: Fiction: Novels
Alta Journal contributors including Michael Cunningham, Andrew Sean Greer, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Straight released extraordinary new works. Check out our roundup of must-read novels.
THE HEART OF IT ALL, By Christian Kiefer
MELVILLE HOUSE • SEPTEMBER 2023 • 368 PAGES • $19.99 PAPERBACK
The author of The Animals and The Infinite Tides has set his fourth novel in a poor Ohio town where three families struggle with loss, the search for a sense of purpose, and financial insecurity. As the families come to life in Christian Kiefer’s thoughtful prose, they are able to transcend sociopolitical divides.
THE PINK HOTEL, By Liska Jacobs
MCD • JULY 2022 • 336 PAGES • $18 PAPERBACK
Liska Jacobs’s third novel follows a young married couple, Keith and Kit, who are invited to stay at the Pink Hotel, a luxurious vacation spot in Los Angeles for the world’s most affluent, because Keith is up for hire. A wave of wildfires quickly traps the couple in the hotel, and they must navigate the rest of their stay amid the neuroses of the extremely rich guests and the emotional distress of the staff. Jacobs brilliantly illuminates the precarity of one’s socioeconomic class as environmental catastrophe looms in the backdrop.
MY NEMESIS, By Charmaine Craig
GROVE PRESS • FEBRUARY 2023 • 208 PAGES • $26 HARDCOVER
Two bicoastal couples find themselves intimately entwined as the wife of one pair, Tessa, strikes up a friendship with the husband of the other, Charlie. He and Tessa’s husband get along fine, but Tessa and Charlie’s wife, Wah, are immediately at odds, and their differences lead Tessa to an inappropriate outburst. Author Charmaine Craig reflects on identity and feminism as Tessa confronts the fallout of her actions.
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: THE WOMAN WARRIOR, CHINA MEN, TRIPMASTER MONKEY, HAWAI’I ONE SUMMER, OTHER WRITINGS, By Maxine Hong Kingston • Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen
LIBRARY OF AMERICA • MAY 2022 • 1,053 PAGES • $45 HARDCOVER
Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of several groundbreaking books and is well-known for her debut work, The Woman Warrior, a memoir—and 2021 Alta Journal California Book Club selection—that uses folktales, familial stories both remembered and imagined, and metaphor to chart her experiences growing up in Stockton as a Chinese American. This new anthology (with an introduction by Viet Thanh Nguyen) paints a satisfying picture of Kingston’s oeuvre by including The Woman Warrior, a novel, nonfiction writing, an essay collection, and other short work.
A TINY UPWARD SHOVE, By Melissa Chadburn
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX • APRIL 2022 • 352 PAGES • $27 HARDCOVER
An aswang is a maleficent creature in Filipino mythology, and in Melissa Chadburn’s fierce novel, one of these supernatural beings is the narrator, inhabiting the protagonist, Marina, in the moment of her murder. The story of Marina’s life unfolds through the eyes of the aswang, and we learn of her childhood abuse, first at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend’s brother and then in the foster care system, as the novel addresses the injustices and harsh realities that affect poor women. The life of Marina’s killer (and rapist) is also examined as the aswang explores the concepts of vengeance and mercy.
MECCA, By Susan Straight
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX • MARCH 2022 • 384 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
A kaleidoscope of characters fills the pages of this thrilling novel, and at its center is Johnny Frías, a CHP officer hiding a murder he committed decades ago. As Johnny patrols the highway, we meet his family and witness his past, and we also get to know Ximena, a Mexican immigrant who works at a spa and ends up with a burden of her own. Susan Straight’s characters reveal the multiplicities of Southern California and its people and the power of language and belonging.
THE SWIMMERS, By Julie Otsuka
KNOPF • FEBRUARY 2022 • 192 PAGES • $23 HARDCOVER
The Swimmers—a 2022 Alta Journal California Book Club selection—is about a group of people who find solace in the water of their local swimming pool. At the heart of the novel is Alice, an older woman with dementia. The pool helps her enter her past, offering a reprieve from the suffocating nursing home where she lives. Julie Otsuka begins the book with a collective narration from the swimmers, before transitioning perspectives (twice) to offer a statement about community and all it can offer.
A SELF-PORTRAIT IN THE YEAR OF THE HIGH COMMISSION ON LOVE, By David Biespiel
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN UNIVERSITY PRESS • OCTOBER 2023 • 250 PAGES • $24 PAPERBACK
After a huge win by the Houston Astros, Jon “Duke” Wain, a Jewish teenager from the Houston neighborhood of Meyerland, heads out in search of celebration and adventure along the coast of Texas with his gay, religiously raised Latino best friend (and partner in the kind of debauchery frowned on by their respective communities). The year is 1981, and on the September night in question, Duke meets a girl who has run away from home and who will lead him down a winding path of choices and consequences.
DAY, By Michael Cunningham
RANDOM HOUSE • NOVEMBER 2023 • 288 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham’s book takes place on the same date, April 5, over three years, from 2019 to 2021. Day follows a young family of five as they navigate the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic. On their own timelines, the characters experience loss, cope with forbidden love, and desperately exert their independence.
FORBIDDEN CITY, By Vanessa Hua
BALLANTINE BOOKS • MAY 2022 • 368 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
The author of the novel A River of Stars returns with a tale about a 16-year-old girl named Mei who desires to become a critical agent of China’s Cultural Revolution. When presented with an opportunity to execute a secret mission for the Communist Party, Mei leaps at the chance and soon finds herself navigating a world of party elites, political rivals, lovers, and enemies.
WAKING BEAUTY, By Rebecca Solnit • Illustrated by Arthur Rackham
HAYMARKET BOOKS • NOVEMBER 2022 • 40 PAGES • $19.95 HARDCOVER
Rebecca Solnit—author of A Paradise Built in Hell, a 2021 Alta Journal California Book Club selection—delivers a new spin on a classic tale by telling the story of Sleeping Beauty (whose name here is Ida) in conjunction with those of her creative, adventurous sister, Maya, and a boy named Atlas. This follow-up to Cinderella Liberator shows Solnit again blending genres and placing unlikely characters together.
LESS IS LOST, By Andrew Sean Greer
LITTLE, BROWN • SEPTEMBER 2022 • 272 PAGES • $29 HARDCOVER
Arthur Less returns for more adventures in Andrew Sean Greer’s follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, Less, a 2023 Alta Journal California Book Club selection. This time, Less is over 50 and moderately happy until a series of misfortunes leaves him grieving and financially devastated. Less responds as he has before when faced with tragedy—by accepting various literary assignments—except that this time he is not sent abroad but plunged into three of America’s own regions. There, he confronts unresolved pain caused by his father as well as his own privilege in a manner that is both poignant and humorous.
