What makes a novel like Irritant so exciting—not that there are many novels like Irritant—is it widens the range of narrative possibility to include both information and exformation.
Peter Mattei's The Deep Whatsis has a rich, self-centered misogynist snob as its main character, delivers a narrative filtered through the male gaze, and promises a transformation that its conclusion fails to deliver. Despite those unlikable ingredients, reading the book is very satisfying experience.
The Longings of Wayward Girls embodies several known genres: it is alternately a literary thriller, a coming-of-age novel, and a complex domestic drama.
Reading God Is Disappointed in You, I began to question the wisdom of letting violent prisoners spend any time at all in their cells reading the real Bible. And should we really leave copies in hotel drawers, where innocent children could find them? This thing is bloody.
Slouka turns ambiguity into an asset, recreating the uncertainty of a boy trapped on thin ice who can hear the surface starting to snap but can’t see where the cracks are forming.