Literary Fiction | Prepub Alert, November 2024 Titles

Several award–winning authors offer new novels, including Sergio De La Pava, Haruki Murakami, and Banana Yoshimoto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chambers, Clare. Shy Creatures. Mariner. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780063258228. 400p. $30. LITERARY FICTION

Chambers (Small Pleasures, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction) offers a touch of the gothic in this novel set in postwar Britain, where Helen, an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital, is having an affair with a married colleague. When a mysterious man is discovered living in a derelict Victorian house and becomes Helen’s patient, her life begins to unravel.

De La Pava, Sergio. Every Arc Bends Its Radian. S&S. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9781668056707. 288p. $27.99. LITERARY FICTION

De La Pava (author of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award–winning A Naked Singularity) writes a literary and existential detective novel. Riv goes to Colombia, hoping for a break. Instead, he is asked to find the missing daughter of a family friend, but it is clear that the cops do not want the girl found and are in the pocket of a very dangerous man.

Moschovakis, Anna. An Earthquake Is A Shaking of the Surface of the Earth. Soft Skull. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9781593767839. pbk. NAp. $16.95. LITERARY FICTION

Booker Prize winner for translation and James Laughlin Award winner for poetry, Moschovakis (Participation) writes a hallucinatory dystopian novel set on Earth after seismic activity upends the world. An unnamed narrator, obsessed with her housemate, feels the impulse to kill and travels across the alienated landscape.

Murakami, Haruki. The City and Its Uncertain Walls. tr. from Japanese by Philip Gabriel. Knopf. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780593801970. 432p. $35. LITERARY FICTION

Bestselling and multi-award-winning Murakami, who most recently won the Cino Del Duca World Prize, offers his first novel in six years. It revisits the otherworld known as the City, which was first introduced in Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The story is being described as a quest, a parable, and an ode to books and libraries.

Newlands, Tom. Only Here, Only Now. HarperVia. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780063393455. 368p. $28.99. LITERARY FICTION

Newland sets his debut in postindustrial Scotland, where teenager Cora Mowat comes of age. Wandering and at loose ends, she wants more than the city of Fife offers. When family strife resolves into grief, her yearnings will resolve into her future—if only she can find it.

Peace, David. Munichs. Norton. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9781324086260. 480p. $29.99. LITERARY FICTION

Peace, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, offers a new work centered on a 1958 plane crash that killed 23 passengers, including eight players and three officials on the Manchester United soccer team. Peace explores the traumatizing event and its impact on Britain, the city of Manchester, the team, and beyond.

Price, Richard. Lazarus Man. Farrar. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780374168155. 352p. $29. LITERARY FICTION

Price, a novelist (Lush Life) and screenwriter (The Outsider), sets his newest in 2008 East Harlem. When a tenement building collapses, residents of the community are dead, injured, and missing. The novel unfolds through a range of characters, including a survivor, a witness, a funeral home owner, and a detective.

Roy, Nayantara. The Magnificent Ruins. Algonquin. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9781643755847. 448p. $29. LITERARY FICTION

Lila travels back to India from the United States when she inherits her huge ancestral home—which is still filled with her relatives, who resent her return. Layered upon her home coming, she navigates romance, faces a lawsuit, and deals with deep conflict, past and present. Playwright and short story writer Roy (author of the prize-winning “8C”) debuts as a novelist.

Wood, Naomi. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. Mariner. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780063399723. 256p. $28. LITERARY FICTION

Wood (Mrs. Hemingway), who has garnered award attention and won the BBC Short Story Prize for “Comorbidities,” includes that story among the others in this collection. The stories explore women who break the bounds of societal expectations and refuse to comply, including an ex-wife who intentionally introduces stress during her ex-husband’s wedding.

Yoshimoto, Banana. Mittens and Pity: Stories. tr. from Japanese by Asa Yoneda. Counterpoint. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9781640096516. NAp. $27. LITERARY FICTION

Multi-award-winner Yoshimoto (Dead-End Memories) offers a six-story collection centered on loss and realization. In one story, a couple goes on their honeymoon following the death of both of their mothers. In another, a daughter who took care of her mother goes on a trip after her mother dies, where she finds solace.

Yun, Jungyeun. The Marigold Mind Laundry. tr. from Korean by Shanna Tan. Dial. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780593733936. 272p. $22. LITERARY FICTION

A huge bestseller in Korea, Yun writes a work of healing fiction about a magical laundromat that can wash away painful memories, one created by the mysteriously talented Jieun. When she accidentally causes her family to vanish, she vows to keep living until she can fix it, only to learn that what will bring her solace is helping others.

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