Writing about writers, marry-me fiction, a story of sheepherding, imagining the end of the United States as we know it—there’s a lot of literature to get excited for this year. I spoke with Lauren Harris and Victoria Uren, two of our books editors, about the buzziest upcoming releases.
Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
What book, publishing this year, are you most excited to read?
L.H.: I’m currently reading and enjoying “A Parish Chronicle,” by the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness, which just came out in English for the first time. It’s about sheepherders and a stubborn church that just won’t quit. It is, as I’m sure you can already guess, hilarious.
V.U.: Oh, Merve Emre was just telling me how much she is loving him right now. Top of mind for me is Helen Garner’s collected stories, out on March 3rd. Garner is an Australian writer, now in her eighties, who is the author of the life-changingly magnificent “Children’s Bach,” which I think of as the be-all and end-all of anti-monogamy monogamy novels.
Let’s be honest, are there really any pro-monogamy novels?
L.H.: Riverhead just announced that they’re publishing a new book by Hernan Diaz, the author of “Trust,” which famously won a Pulitzer Prize and—more famously—brought together the celebrity power couple Dua Lipa and Callum Turner. Nothing says “Marry me, I’m a sexy intellectual” like a new Diaz novel.
Good fodder for the argument that books can really change your life.
V.H.: Another book I’m also very excited for is actually all about how that can happen. It’s a new novel in English by the Chinese writer Can Xue, called “The Enchanting Lives of Others.” It focusses on a book club in Shanghai.
Her work is very philosophical without feeling high-handed. In an interview, she once said that writing experimental fiction “takes a special ability to make out the structure of the soul (which is also the structure of both literature and philosophy) from the diverse confusion of human affairs.” If that’s not a sell, I don’t know what is. I guess the jacket copy does claim that it’s her “most accessible work yet.”
That is a very funny selling point—you might actually understand this one! The book-club plotline puts me in mind of a trend I’m seeing for spring: writing about writing. Ann Patchett has a new book coming in June, called “Whistler,” which features an editor; Tom Perotta’s “Ghost Town,” out in April, is about a novelist. What is all this? Are we navel-gazing?
V.U.: Yes, probably. Gwendoline Riley’s much-anticipated “The Palm House,” coming in March, also has an editor in it. And Ben Lerner has a tiny book arriving in early April, called “Transcription,” which has a funny premise involving writers. I don’t mind writers writing about writing. I do think that writers should avoid only being friends with other writers, though. That’s fatal.
L.H.: Let’s say, instead, your friends are unrepentant oil executives. You might really enjoy George Saunders’s “Vigil,” which is about a ghost trying to persuade such a man of the error of his ways.
What book are you hearing scuttlebutt about?
V.U.: Well, I learned on the digital water cooler that is Instagram that Gideon Lewis-Kraus is really excited about Harriet Clark’s novel “The Hill,” coming in May. And, actually, it is probably the upcoming novel that I’ve heard about the most.
The story follows a woman whose mother is incarcerated when she is a baby. I think it’s drawn from real life—Clark’s mom is a radical left-wing activist who was in the Weather Underground, and in 1981 she was sentenced to life in prison. The Paris Review ran an excerpt a few years ago that I found quite beautiful, which is one of the reasons I’m excited.
H.J.: Maggie O’Farrell, who wrote “Hamnet,” has a book out in June that keeps coming up in conversation. I have a soft spot for stories set in Ireland, especially historical fiction.
Let’s do a speed round. If I am a woman in my late thirties, what book is going to be the subject of all my group chats? And what should it be?
V.U.: In May, there is a very fun-looking novel called “Honey,” by a writer named Imani Thompson. It seems to be about a disillusioned Ph.D. student who goes on a killing spree against entitled men. I’m imagining it as “John Tucker Must Die,” but with more Luce Irigaray.
L.H.: Every woman in her late thirties should be reading about the sheepherders.
H.J.: You’re so right. I was imagining Lena Dunham’s memoir “Famesick,” coming April 14th, would probably make the rounds—but sheep first, I think. And people, Dunham included, are already talking a lot about “Half His Age,” by Jennette McCurdy, which looks like a very timely tale.
If I am an avid, longtime New Yorker reader of indeterminate age, what would you recommend to me?
V.U.: The new Colson Whitehead, “Cool Machine.” You’ve probably read the first two Ray Carney novels and are eager to see what happens next. You only have to wait until July. And if you enjoyed Patrick Radden Keefe’s investigation into the mysterious death of Zac Brettler, then you’ve got “London Falling,” in April. I suspect that one could be devoured in a sitting.
