First Novelists 2005: Winter Wonders, Spring Hopefuls
By Barbara Hoffert with Ann Burns -- Library Journal, 3/15/2005
Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell may have been the only debut that lingered long on the best sellers lists last fall, but rarely has the season seen so many promising first novels. From Lorraine Adams's politically charged Harbor to Cintra Wilson's acidulously funny Colors Insulting to Nature, there's good reading here for everyone.
ADAMS, LORRAINE. Harbor. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4233-X. $23.95. This former journalist's fiction debut was an in-house favorite, but the publisher still trod lightly with a modest first printing. Then the bookgot end-of-the-year kudos from the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times and revisited the printer's twice. Observed LJ's reviewer, "The ripped-from-the-headlines subject matter will draw in readers, who will find more depth and complexity here than they might have expected." (LJ 6/15/04)
BARBIERI, HEATHER. Snow in July. Soho, dist. by Consortium. ISBN 1-56947-384-6. $24. Barbieri's tale of two sisters, one trying to save the other from drug addiction, offers "insights into family dynamics [that] are solid and true" (Washington Post). A Book Sense pick. (LJ 11/1/04)
BRAF, JOSHUA. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. Algonquin. ISBN 1-56512-420-0. $23.95. Some accomplishment. Braf manages to transform "a commonplace coming-of-age tale into a believable depiction of family strife" (LJ 8/04). The result: a nod from Discover Great New Writers and a trip to the San Francisco Chronicle's best sellers list.
BURKE, SHANNON. Safelight. Random. ISBN 1-4000-6201-2. $23.95. Here's a small book that carries a big punch. Minimalist it may be, but this tale of Harlem's mean streets still "manages to move the reader with unexpected swells of feeling" (LJ 9/15/04) to "[tell] a surprisingly potent story" (New York Times).
BYNUM, SARAH SHUN-LIEN. Madeleine Is Sleeping. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-101059-5. $22. It's every neophyte's dream—write a first novel and have it nominated for a National Book Award. Bynum achieved the dream, but it was bittersweet; this year's fiction nominations were controversial. Bynum's fabulist reworking of Sleeping Beauty "is not an easy book to read" (LJ 7/04), but many readers agreed with USA Today that "this small, enchanting novel…appeals to the naughty, insolent child in each of us." Definitely not the book you would expect People to award three-and-a-half stars.
CADWALLADR, CAROLE. The Family Tree. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-94842-2. $23.95. What novelist (first or otherwise) could complain about comparisons to David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, and Jonathan Franzen? Surely not British journalist Cadwalladr, whose heroine is trying to sort out her off-kilter family. Even a hard-to-please New York Times reviewer was charmed into concluding, "[This is] an ambitious debut by a novelist with a wicked sense of humor." A Discover Great New Writers and a Book Sense pick. (LJ 10/1/04)
CLARKE, SUSANNA. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Bloomsbury, dist. by St. Martin's. ISBN 1-58234-416-7. $27.95. Clarke's exploration of magic in Great Britain is indeed magical: it hit nearly two dozen best books lists (including LJ's), outranked in number of lists only by Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. A Discover Great New Writers and a Book Sense pick, naturally. (LJ 8/04)
CUNNINGHAM, M. ALLEN. The Green Age of Asher Witherow. Unbridled. ISBN 1-932961-00-3. $24.95. Unbridled, the new press launched by Fred Ramey and Greg Michalson, late of Penguin's BlueHen imprint, started out big with this saga of the California coal country in the late 1800s. It got a starred LJ review (the "heartfelt characters and stunning descriptions…will haunt readers"), went back to press before publication, and was the #1 Book Sense pick for October. (LJ 8/04)
DESMEDT, BILL. Singularity. Per Aspera. ISBN 0-9745734-4-2. $25.95. Another first book from a new press, this sf thriller makes the way-out assumption that a 1908 explosion in Siberia called the Tunguska Event resulted from Earth's very close encounter with a tiny black hole. The book grabbed the #5 position on Barnes & Noble's top ten list in sf and fantasy and the #7 position on Mysterious Galaxy's best sellers list.
DOERR, ANTHONY. About Grace. Scribner. ISBN 0-7432-6182-8. $25. Could Doerr follow up the astounding success of his story collection, The Shell Collector? You bet. This tale of a man whose dreams foretell the future was a Book Sense pick, a Borders Original Voices pick, and an end-of-the-year Book Rave at the Washington Post Book World. (LJ 10/15/04)
DRUETT, JOAN.A Watery Grave. Minotaur: St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-33441-9. $23.95. Druett's five-star salute from The Mystery Reader echoes LJ's assessment that this whodunit, starring a 19th-century Maori sleuth, "blends strong plotting and scads of authentic maritime detail in an impressive debut." (LJ 8/04)
KALLOS, STEPHANIE. Broken for You. Grove. ISBN 0-8021-1779-1. $24. "A compelling, richly layered story reminiscent of works by John Irving and Anne Tyler," observed LJ's reviewer. "Carol Shields also comes to mind for the sharp attention to domestic detail and insight into the tenuous relationships of contemporary life." That's some compliment, and plenty of reviewers agreed. A Book Sense pick. (LJ 8/04)
HILLHOUSE, RAELYNN. Rift Zone. Forge: Tor. ISBN 0-7653-1013-9. $24.95. "Hillhouse's much ballyhooed debut is going to create quite a stir, and justly so," predicted LJ's reviewer of this international thriller. Ballyhooed is right; a former black market smuggler between East and West Berlin, Hillhouse got plenty of ink for her exploits, but the novel is great reading, too. (LJ 7/04)
KORYTA, MICHAEL. Tonight I Said Goodbye. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-33245-9. $21.95. Even before publication, Koryta's book was a winner: it copped the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Prize for Best First PI Novel for its 21-year-old author. "It looks like we've got a brave new voice in the private eye genre" (Mystery Scene). (LJ 9/1/04)
LINDSAY, JEFF. Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51123-X. $22.95. Yes, he's a serial killer, but Dexter Gordon goes after very specific prey: other serial killers. This "macabre tour-de-force" (New York Times) was a #1 Book Sense pick for August.
LYCHACK, WILLIAM. The Wasp Eater. Houghton. ISBN 0-618-30444-1. $21. It's not every debut that gets praise from both Ploughshares ("deceptively small…yet overflow[ing] with emotional tension") and People("the simplicity and clarity are effective in the precise portrayal of a child's mind"). This little stunner proves that Lychack is someone to watch. (LJ 6/15/04)
MILLS, MARK. Amagansett. Putnam. ISBN 0-399-15184-2. $24.95. Murder stalks a small fishing village on post–World War II Long Island, and the results are felt worldwide: foreign rights for this book were sold to 11 countries. "Like a powerful undertow, Mills's tale gently yet persistently pulls readers in" (Los Angeles Times). (LJ 7/04)
MORRIS, BOB. Bahamarama. Minotaur: St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-32889-3. $21.95. Plenty of first mysteries were published last year, but this one managed to make LJ's Best Genre Fiction list. "Abundant Caribbean descriptions, amazing characters, unremitting wry humor, and a strong protagonist flavor this tempting first novel." (LJ 9/1/04)
REISMAN, NANCY. The First Desire. Pantheon. ISBN 0-375-42308-7. $24. As Reisman's saga of a Jewish family in Buffalo was a Book Sense pick, a Critics' Choice at Entertainment Weekly, and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, one would have to agree with the Detroit Free Press that this debut was definitely "a triumph." (LJ8/04)
SCHICKLER, DAVID. Sweet and Vicious. Dell. ISBN 0-385-33568-7. $23. With the good-guy bad guy and his sweet new girlfriend on the run from the real bad guys, this book certainly sounds wild and wacky, but the three-star People review also proclaimed it "a thoughtful read." Schickler launches himself as a full-scale novelist after his acclaimed story debut, Kissing in Manhattan.
SCHUYLER, NINA. The Painting. Algonquin. ISBN 1-56512-441-3. $23.95. "Every so often, you start a novel that you can't put down. Schuyler's debut is such a book" (LJ 9/1/04). This picture-perfect work about a mysterious painting that travels from Japan to Europe as wrapping for a ceramic bowl went into a second printing and is a finalist for the Northern California Book Reviewers Award.
SHAFFNER, GEORGE. In the Land of Second Chances. Algonquin. ISBN 1-56512-440-5. $21.95. With Entertainment Weekly declaring, "Chances morphs from Fried Green Tomatoes into a wisecracking It's a Wonderful Life," it's no surprise that this sunny first novel became an Ingram best seller and ran into five printings.
SHERMAN, DAYNE. Welcome to the Fallen Paradise. MacAdam/Cage. ISBN 1-931561-73-7. $24. When Sherman isn't serving as reference librarian in Ponchatula, LA, he's busy whipping up topnotch fiction. This tale of blood feuds in Baxter Parish swept through its first printing, popped up on Book Sense's "We Also Recommend" list months after publication, and was proclaimed one of four top debuts by the Times-Picayune. There's a "bloody battle worthy of Cormac McCarthy," opined Emerging Writers Forum—and you don't have to be Southern to appreciate it.
WARD, LIZA. Outside Valentine. Holt. ISBN 0-8050-7598-4. $23. No valentines here. Instead, Ward reconstructs the murderous rampage of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1950s Nebraska. The result? "As vivid as anything filmmakers have fashioned from the same raw material" (Washington Post). (LJ 9/1/04)
WILSON, CINTRA. Colors Insulting to Nature. Fourth Estate, dist. by HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-715460-7. $24.95.US Weeklythought it was hysterical. Harper's Bazaar opted for hilarious. And as the Portland Oregonian intoned, this is "an impressive, maybe even great, comic novel." You get the picture. With her first novel, Salon's pop-culture queen shot barbed arrows at the entertainment industry and brought down a Discover Great New Writers prize as well.
Barbara Hoffert is Editor and Ann Burns is Associate Editor, LJ Book Review
|
