Notable new releases
compiled by Sally Brewster
House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home by John T. Edge
In this unflinching and moving memoir, John T. Edge takes us on a quest for home in a South that has both held him close and pushed him away, as he tries and fails and tries again to rewrite the stories he inherited. Born in a house where a Confederate general took his first breath and the Lost Cause narrative was gospel, troubled by the violence he witnessed as a boy, Edge ran from his past, searching for a newer and better South. As founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and an acclaimed food writer, he told stories that showcased those possibilities. Edge became one of the most visible and powerful voices in American food … until he found himself denounced by the audience he once guided, faced down the limits of his work, and returned to his origins to find himself once again.
Amity by Nathan Harris
New Orleans, 1866. The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico, where he hoped to escape the new reality of the postbellum South. Coleman stayed behind to serve the Harper family, clinging to the hope that one day June would return. When Mr. Harper unexpectedly summons Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. When disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper’s daughter, Florence. As Coleman and June separately navigate a perilous, parched landscape, the siblings learn quickly that freedom isn’t always given — sometimes, it must be taken by force.
Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood
Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together — of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She’s afraid of her own floorboards, and she hates her friends — or more accurately, she doesn’t know who they are. Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she’ll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? Time and memories pass straight through her body. Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman’s dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive them apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, the couple embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, “A Corona for Vivien.” Little does anyone know that for generations to come, people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery.
2119: More than a century later, much of the Western world is submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Survivors are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early 21st century as he chases the ghost of the mysterious poem. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era. When he finds a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroys his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well. SP
Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books, 4139 Park Rd..
