Ocean Vuong

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | Mathias Enard |André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong

Mathias Énard, trans. from the French by Charlotte Mandell. New Directions, $16.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8112-3901-1This brilliant interlocking diptych from Énard (Compass) begins with a soldier emerging from a battlefield into a nightmarish future. What has become of the world is a mystery, as is the identity of this haunted survivor.

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch

Rob Franklin. Summit, $28.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-6680-7743-6In Franklin’s radiant debut, a queer Black man reckons with his class privilege and drug use in the aftermath of his best friend’s mysterious death. David Smith, a 25-year-old tech worker and aspiring writer, is partying with old friends in the Hamptons when he’s arrested for cocaine possession. After returning to his Brooklyn apartment, Smith is jolted by memories of his best friend and roommate’s tragic death three weeks earlier.

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch

Adelaide Faith. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-60866-8In Faith’s witty and irreverent debut, a British woman develops an unshakable obsession with her therapist. Sylvie, a veterinarian nurse, scrolled through 23 pages of therapists before choosing the “only one...

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch

Knapp’s intriguing and nuanced debut comprises three alternate story lines for a British family. After giving birth to a baby boy in 1987, Cora goes to the registry office to record his name. Her abusive husband, Gordon, wants the baby named after himself, her nine-year-old daughter thinks Bear would be a good name, and Cora prefers Julian.

2 months ago | publishersweekly.com | Ocean Vuong |Andy Anderegg |Sulaiman Addonia |Guadalupe Nettel

Ocean Vuong. Penguin Press, $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-593-83187-8Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. “The hardest thing in the world is to live only once,” 19-year-old Hai narrates in the opening line, but there’s a dark edge to the sentiment. The reader first meets Hai on a bridge in East Gladness, Conn., where he’s about to jump to his death.