“Pure,” by Andrew Miller
The central question of Andrew Miller’s novel Pure, set in Louis XVI’s pre-revolutionary France, mirrors that of the recent American presidential election—“yes on progress, but at what cost?”
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Leland Cheuk
22 posts
Leland Cheuk is an award-winning author of three books of fiction, most recently No Good Very Bad Asian (2019). Cheuk’s work has appeared in publications such as NPR, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Salon, among other outlets. You can follow Cheuk on Twitter at @lcheuk.
“Hush Hush,” by Steven Barthelme
Steven Barthelme’s new collection of short stories Hush Hush plays like the best of saddest love songs. These are elegiac, yet hopeful stories about characters who bumble through existence, struggle…
The Vanishers
Heidi Julavits’ latest novel The Vanishers is provocative and full of hefty, even academic ideas—at its best, a nouveau feminist manifesto.
Lost in Space
Both rhetorically playful and plot driven, Tom McCarthy’s first novel, Men in Space, now out in the U.S., floats in between his other novels Remainder and C.
The Surreal Nature of Real Life
Edited and illustrated by Arthur Jones, Post-It Note Diaries collects 20 mundane but evocative tales by storytellers ranging from Chuck Klosterman to Andrew Bird.
A Tall Tale Too True
Set in the 1840s Midwest, Kris Saknussemm’s second novel, Enigmatic Pilot, delivers unexpected characters in a surreal interpretation of American history.
I am a Japanese Writer
With wit and insight, Dany Laferriere, the Haitian-Canadian novelist, explores national identity and cultural authenticity in his latest book, I Am a Japanese Writer.
Serious Men
Manu Joseph’s satirizes contemporary India, “pounding away at the caste system like a pitcher repeatedly throwing his best fastball.”