Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by
Staff
From the November/December 2015 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

That day I woke up from a dream the way I always woke up: pressed against my mom’s back, my face against her and her turned away.” The Mare (Pantheon Books, November 2015) by Mary Gaitskill. Sixth book, third novel. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Deborah Garrison. Publicist: Michiko Clark.
                                                            
“I only wanted one thing on tour: to slam my hand in a door and break my fingers.” Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (Riverhead Books, October 2015) by Carrie Brownstein. First book, memoir. Agent: Jud Laghi. Editor: Geoffrey Kloske. Publicist: Jynne Martin.

“A drowned kingdom rises at daybreak / & we keep trudging on.” The Emperor of Water Clocks (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2015) by Yusef Komunyakaa. Seventeenth book, sixteenth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Jill McLaughlin.
                                                                       
“Of all the events of 1945, there was one Wilhelmine recalled with particularly painful clarity.” The Weight of Things (Dorothy, October 2015) by the late Marianne Fritz, translated from the German by Adrian Nathan West. First book, novel. Agent: Petra Hardt. Editor: Danielle Dutton. Publicist: Danielle Dutton.

“Back then, / we were always talking / about the bird.” Empty Chairs (Graywolf Press, November 2015) by Liu Xia, translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeff Shotts. Publicist: Erin Kottke.

“In the seventh hour of my ascent I begin to weep.” Fragile (Red Mountain Press, November 2015) by Jeffrey Thomson. Fifth book, first memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Susan Gardner. Publicist: Susan Gardner.

“In New York, you can get anything delivered.” City on Fire (Knopf, October 2015) by Garth Risk Hallberg. Second book, first novel. Agent: Chris Parris-Lamb. Editor: Diana Miller. Publicist: Maggie Southard.

“Dear patriot / Dear catastrophe / None of this means what we thought it did” Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Copper Canyon Press, November 2015) by Camille Rankine. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michael Wiegers. Publicist: Kelly Forsythe.

“Mr. Baxter was the only private resident on a London street of men’s tailors and barbershops.” Tales of Accidental Genius (Harper Perennial, November 2015) by Simon Van Booy. Fifth book, third story collection. Agent: Carrie Kania. Editor: Cal Morgan. Publicist: Gregory Henry.

“The mind must / set itself up / wherever it goes / and it would be / most convenient / to impose its / old rooms—just / tack them up / like an interior / tent.” Erratic Facts (Grove Press, October 2015) by Kay Ryan. Eighth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Joan Bingham. Publicist: Justina Batchelor.

“Occasionally, Juan Diego would make a point of saying, ‘I’m a Mexican—I was born in Mexico, I grew up there.’” Avenue of Mysteries (Simon & Schuster, November 2015) by John Irving. Seventeenth book, fourteenth novel. Agents: Dean Cooke and Janet Turnbull. Editor: Jonathan Karp. Publicist: Anne Pearce.
                                                                           
“Leave the dead alone.” Beautiful Wall (BOA Editions, October 2015) by Ray Gonzalez. Twentieth book, fifteenth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Peter Conners. Publicist: Jenna Fisher.