Fiction in September 2003…

Coming in September 2003.big names from Forsyth and Grimes to Lahiri and Naslund, but look for a surprising number of new fiction writers for the busy fall season. History and politics dominate nonfiction; note that Jonathan Rosenberg and Zachary Karabell's Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, originally listed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/02, has been rescheduled for this month.

BAXTER, Charles.
Saul and Patsy.
Pantheon. Sept. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-375-41029-5. $24.
Newlyweds Saul and Patsy are a real team-until Patsy is distracted by motherhood and Saul finds that one of his male students has become dangerously obsessed with him. From the author of The Feast of Love, a National Book Award nominee; with a ten-city author tour.

CHOI, Susan.
American Woman.
HarperCollins. Sept. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-06-054221-7. $24.95.
Having triumphed with her debut, The Foreign Student, Choi is back with a novel of the Sixties whose protagonist is charged with the care of three fugitives-one of whom sounds suspiciously like Patty Hearst.

CLARK, Carol Higgins.
Popped.
Scribner. Sept. 2003. 272p. ISBN 0-7432-4937-2. $23.
lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-7432-4937-2. $23.
Audio: abridged. S. & S. Audio. ISBN 0-7435-2985-5. $25.
CD: abridged. S. & S. Audio. ISBN 0-7435-2986-3. $30.
Regan Reilly's latest clients are full of hot air-she's been asked by organizers of the nine-day Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta to find out who's threatening the event with disaster.

COWELL, Alan S.
A Walking Guide.
S. & S. Sept. 2003. 288p. ISBN 0-7432-4470-2. $23.
Since Cowell is a Polk Award-winning journalist, he should bring just the right touch to protagonist Joe Shelby, war correspondent extraordinaire. Threatened with a nerve disorder that could end his life, Shelby decides to risk all on one last attempt to climb England's highest peak. There's good word on this fiction debut.

DEXTER, Pete.
Train.
Doubleday. Sept. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-385-50591-4. $26.
Noir straight from the Fifties-and set in Los Angeles, no less. Dexter brings together a black caddy named Train, the police detective whom he calls the 'Mile Away Man,' and Norah Still, the only survivor of a bloody boat hijacking, whom the detective must keep tabs on-even as he is falling in love. Better catch this train.

FORSYTH, Frederick.
Avenger.
Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin's. Sept. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-312-31951-7. $26.95.
Unassuming attorney Calvin Dexter bumps around his empty suburban home, waiting for a chance to exact horrible revenge for wrongs done to him years ago. It's up to CIA Agent Kevin McBride to stop him.

FREUDENBERGER, Nell.
Lucky Girls.
Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2003. 240p. ISBN 0-06-008879-6. $22.95.
In case you haven't caught Freudenberger's work in The New Yorker, here's a chance to discover how good she is.

GRIMES, Martha.
Foul Matter.
Viking. Sept. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-670-03259-X. $25.95.
Taking a break from her Richard Jury mysteries, Grimes goes right for publishing's jugular. Her protagonist, mega-selling novelist Paul Giverney, is about to sign with a new house. His only request? It must cut the gifted Ned Isaly from its list and reassign Isaly's editor to him.

ITANI, Frances.
Deafening.
Atlantic Monthly. Sept. 2003. 368p. ISBN 0-87113-902-2. $24.
Though deaf after a bout with scarlet fever, Grania finds abiding love with a hearing man-who must head off to World War I's trenches just after their wedding. The acclaim for Canadian novelist Itani's U.S. debut has indeed been 'deafening.' A hit at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair, it was readily purchased by 12 publishers. The 17-city author tour and 100,000-copy first printing say the rest.

JONES, Edward.
The Known World.
Amistad: HarperCollins. Sept. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-06-055754-0. $24.95.
The author of National Book Award nominee Lost in the City, Jones ventures into fiction with this story of antebellum Virginia, where freed slave Henry Townsend has a plantation-and slaves of his own.

KEILLOR, Garrison.
Love Me.
Viking. Sept. 2003. 400p. ISBN 0-670-03246-8. $24.95.
Having lost his job at The New Yorker and his wife as well (she discovered him in flagrante delicto), former hotshot Larry Wyler returns to Minnesota and learns humility while writing a lonely-hearts column.

LAHIRI, Jhumpa.
The Namesake.
Houghton. Sept. 2003. 304p. ISBN 0-395-92721-8. $24.
Freshly arrived from India in 1960s Cambridge, MA, the Gangulis are so culture-shocked that they name their firstborn Gogol. This first novel hardly feels like a debut; Lahiri won a rafter of prizes (including a Pulitzer) for her story collection, Interpreter of Maladies.

LANDAY, William.
Mission Flats.
Delacorte. Sept. 2003. 384p. ISBN 0-385-33614-4. $23.95.
Another former district attorney writes a novel? At least this one has been sold in eight countries. Following a brutal murder in tiny Versailles, ME, chief of police Ben Truman follows a lead to Boston-and confronts some secrets he has tried to bury.

LENNON, J. Robert.
Mailman.
Norton. Sept. 2003. 448p. ISBN 0-393-05731-3. $24.95.
Only Lennon, the irrepressible author of books like The Funnies, could hang a tale on a brilliant if off-kilter mailman in search of love.

LEON, Donna.
Uniform Justice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery.
Atlantic Monthly. Sept. 2003. 280p. ISBN 0-87113-803-0. $24.
Even the parents of a cadet found hanged aren't cooperating with Venetian detective Brunetti's efforts to determine whether the death was suicide-or murder. Librarians interested in a free trip to Venice should check out www.groveatlantic.com for contest details.

MARTIN, George R.R.
A Feast for Crows.
Spectra: Bantam. Sept. 2003. 1024p. ISBN 0-553-80150-3. $27.95.
A Game of Thrones. A Storm of Swords. And now A Feast of Crows, the continuation of Martin's epic fantasy series. With the bad old king dead, who will occupy the Iron Throne?

NASLUND, Sena Jeter.
Four Spirits.
Morrow. Sept. 2003. 480p. ISBN 0-06-621238-3. $26.95.
Audio: unabridged. HarperAudio. ISBN 0-06-056942-5. $39.95.
Naslund did well with Ahab's Wife, selling 400,000 copies and racking up lots of honors, including the Alabama Library Association Author Award of 2000. Her new work, set in 1960s Birmingham, features a naïve young white woman who comes into her own when she joins the Civil Rights Movement.

ORRINGER, Julie.
How To Breathe Underwater.
Knopf. Sept. 2003. 240p. ISBN 1-4000-4111-2. $21.
Having been featured everywhere from the Yale Review to Zoetrope, Orringer's stories shine-even as her characters, feeling swamped by life, struggle 'to breathe underwater.'

POTTINGER, Stan.
The Last Nazi.
St. Martin's. Sept. 2003. 352p. ISBN 0-312-27676-1. $24.95.
A little too au courant for comfort: Melissa Gale, a lawyer with the Office of Special Investigations, is tracking a Mengele protégé named Adalwolf who has resurfaced after 50 years, ready to unleash his weapon of mass destruction: a virus.

PROUST, Marcel.
Swann's Way.
Viking. Sept. 2003. 496p. ISBN 0-670-03245-X. $27.95.
Much-honored translator Lydia Davis launches a new rendering of Proust's magisterial A la recherche du temps perdu. Expect the second volume next year.

RABAN, Jonathan.
Waxwings.
Pantheon. Sept. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-375-41008-2. $24.
Acclaimed for his nonfiction (e.g., Bad Land, Passage to Juneau), Raban returns to fiction with a tale set in Seattle. Here, professor and NPR commentator Tom Janeway, a Hungarian-born Englishman, forges a relationship with his handyman, an illegal alien from China.

REICH, Christopher.
The Devil's Banker.
Bantam. Sept. 2003. 448p. ISBN 0-385-33727-2. $25.95.
CD: abridged. Random Audio. ISBN 0-7393-0689-8. $29.95.
If you want to track down terrorists, you need to track down their money. Which is exactly what the CIA and British intelligence intend to do here.

REYNOLDS, April.
Revelations.
Metropolitan: Holt. Sept. 2003. 320p. ISBN 0-8050-7346-9. $23.
Helene Strickland's family doesn't seem to have a past, so finally she starts asking questions. This debut won a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award for unpublished work, so you can let your expectations soar.