Fiction Archive

History. A Mess. by Sigrún Pálsdóttir

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Sigrún Pálsdóttir’s new novel is an enlightening critique of the constraints and pressures of modern scholarship. The book makes no claim to providing any answers but instead settles comfortably in the personal. In other words, it’s a diagnosis, not a treatment.

Costalegre by Courtney Maum

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Maum’s coming-of-age novel probes the hypocrisy of the art world, the challenges of being a child of artists, and the dangers of not being loved. 

The Wind that Lays Waste by Selva Almada

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There is a bit of incompleteness in every human soul, Almada seems to suggest.

Maggie Brown & Others: Stories by Peter Orner

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In his latest collection of short stories, Peter Orner stays true to his talent: elucidating life through character, one snippet at a time.

The Gone Dead by Chanelle Benz

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Chanelle Benz’s haunting debut novel interrogates memory, race, and the way that stories define our lives.

Bunny by Mona Awad

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Awad’s leap into the unreal summons new life to the familiar woes of academia and art making.

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

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In Kristen Arnett’s debut novel, the dead resemble the living, and the living seem to be on the brink of death.

Tears of the Trufflepig by Fernando A. Flores

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An ill-fated expedition entangles the protagonist of Fernando A. Flores’ new novel in a powerful syndicate whose tentacles of influence sprawl in all directions, and whose sinister and audacious ambitions materialize a trufflepig with the body of a pig, the hide of a crocodile, and the beak of an

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

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There is pleasure to be had in reading Julia Phillips’ debut novel, even in the midst of such grief and despair. Phillips is a beautiful, assured writer, one who knows how to create fully-developed characters, a marvelous sense of place, and a constant forward momentum.

China Dream by Ma Jian

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In Ma Jian’s new novel, the traumatic dream is one where “the past and the present form a tangled web from which it becomes impossible to break free.”