Fiction. It's hard to be sentimental about a Cold War Childhood if you grew up on the Soviet side, in the forgotten Belorussian Republic, in a crumbling industrial city like Mogilev. But it's even harder when your friends kick your ass and piss on your beloved collection of model cars. With USSR—a big title for an intimate story—Vladimir Kozlov offers an unforgettable perspective on the 1980s, when all that matters in a boy's life are rock and roll, fistfights, and clumsy attempts at masturbation. With Gorbachev and Reagan lurking in the background and the Soviet economy on the verge of collapse, Kozlov presents life on the streets of Mogilev through the raw emotions and diabolical slang of kids who cannot fathom a world outside their own. Like a fucked-up Soviet spin on The Wonder Years, USSR reminds us that to be young is to be ruled by embarrassment and terror. But it wouldn't bother you to grow up on the crumbling edge of the Soviet Union, if only your friends would stop kicking your ass.

USSR: Diary of a Perestroika Kid

Literature & Fiction

Kozlov, Vladimir

Contemporary

Fiction Advocate

Fiction. Not long ago, Will Fordham was a charismatic young preacher on the rise. But a family trip to the beach cost him everything. Will was struck by an unexpected seizure while wading in the ocean, drowning his young son. In the aftermath of the child's death, Will lost his marriage, his sobriety, and his faith. Once the pastor of his own church, Will is now little more than a groundskeeper. When Will is offered a new assignment at a small church on one of Georgia's barrier islands, he reluctantly accepts the opportunity to put his life back together. Owned by a wealthy heiress and accessible only by ferry, this unspoiled island is home to an artists' colony and only a handful of permanent residents. But once on the island, Will befriends a young boy who tells him unsettling stories about the other islanders. Are they merely products of the boy's overactive imagination, or does something sinister lie beneath the island's peaceful facade? "A twisty, spooky Southern tale of religion and loss, full of strange visions, dripping with Spanish moss, and haunted by characters who are either predators or victims or both." —Thomas Mullen, author of The Last Town on Earth and The Revisionists "Frank Reddy conjures up a page-turning tale of a man of God in a godforsaken place, where old evil on a troubled island waits to challenge an already-challenged faith. Reddy is a revelation—this debut novel foreshadows a tidal wave of a career." —Charles McNair, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Land O'Goshen and Pickett's Charge

Eyes on the Island

Reddy, Frank

United States

A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an unorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back. In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case ('breathes new life into the relationship between art and life' —New York Times), the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet-inspired satire—#GODS is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. "#GODS is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of gay literature-it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance." —Mark Doten "Matthew Gallaway's #GODS is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous things, I couldn't stop writing OMG WTF I

#gods

Gallaway, Matthew

Growing up queer in the deep South, Genevieve Hudson has to build an archive of literary heroes to understand stories like her own Literary Nonfiction. Growing up queer in the deep South, Genevieve Hudson longed for stories about lives like her own. So she turned to Alison Bechdel's groundbreaking graphic memoir, FUN HOME. In its panels, she found sly references to Bechdel's personal influences. A Little in Love with Everyone is Hudson's journey down a rabbit hole of queer heroes like Audre Lorde, Eileen Myles, and Adrienne Rich, who turned their stories into art and empowered future generations to embrace their own truths. This book is part of a new series from Fiction Advocate called Afterwords. "I adore this book."—Karla J. Strand

A Little in Love with Everyone: Alison Bechdel's FUN HOME (...AFTERWORDS)

Hudson, Genevieve

History & Criticism

Reflecting on his brother's death from opioid addiction, Jacob Bacharach turns Didion's masterpiece into a blueprint for grief and self-discovery Literary Nonfiction. Essay. Reading Joan Didion's iconic memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, Jacob Bacharach's thoughts are never far from his brother, Nate, who died of an opioid addiction. Although he tries to be a "a cool customer" like Didion, he finds Nate's story breaking through the text, stirring memories of their tight-knit childhood and defying his attempts to find "the truth" about a tragic death. In A COOL CUSTOMER, Bacharach turns The Year of Magical Thinking into a blueprint for grief and self-discovery that anyone can follow. This book is part of a new series from Fiction Advocate called Afterwords. "Bacharach smartly weaves his family story with a literate discussion of Didion's narratives and cultural position to make a snappy and inviting book you could easily read in one sitting."—Rebecca Foster

A Cool Customer: Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING (...AFTERWORDS)

Bacharach, Jacob

Does Bolaño's masterpiece hint at his own life, or is the author himself a literary invention? Literary Nonfiction. After Devouring 2666 by Roberto Bola�o on the New York City subway, Jonathan Russell Clark does what any good literary critic would do�he reads everything by Bola�o he can get his hands on. But the more he learns about the writer's unlikely life, the less it makes sense. Bola�o cultivated ambiguities and false identities, almost as if he were laying a trap for his future biographers. Clark's investigation into Bola�o's magnum opus is a stumble through a labyrinth where fiction and self-mythologizing converge. This book is part of a new series from Fiction Advocate called Afterwords. "A Sontag-worthy encapsulation of another writer."—Christopher Wood, The Quarterly Conversation "If you have read 2666 and loved it, like most people who've read 2666, then AN OASIS OF HORROR IN A DESERT OF BOREDOM is something of a must-read."—D. F. Lovett

An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom: Roberto Bolano's 2666 (...AFTERWORDS)

Clark, Jonathan Russell

Stephanie Reents explores the strange absence of perspective and morality at the heart of Blood Meridian Literary Nonfiction. After teaching Cormac McCarthy's bloodiest, most challenging novel to her students for years, Stephanie Reents feels no closer to the strange void at the heart of Blood Meridian than when she began. So she journeys west, following the trail of the historical Glanton Gang across the desert landscape that McCarthy loves. In his archives, she discovers an obscure note about the kid�the novel's enigmatic protagonist�that might explain why this infamous novel is so hard to shake. This is part of Fiction Advocate's Afterwords series.

I Meant to Kill Ye: Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN (...AFTERWORDS)

Reents, Stephanie

A quick-witted "how to" manual for anyone who wants to understand autofiction Literary Nonfiction. A brave new mode of literature has been emerging in the work of Sheila Heti, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others. Call it what you will; Adam Colman calls it essayistic fiction. In this sharp, playful book, Colman dives deep into Ben Lerner's 10:04 to create a "how to" manual for anyone who wants to write, or simply understand, essayistic fiction. A manifesto, a critical analysis, and a winking work of satire, NEW USES FOR FAILURE marks the arrival of a sparkling new genre. This is part of Fiction Advocate's Afterwords series. "Adam Colman writes about writing with a unique take on literature and in a fresh voice. His criticism is lively, witty, and has an engaging style more usually seen in a novel. Colman is a thoughtful narrator of his ideas, and a playful reader: he approaches Ben Lerner's writing on its terms, and on his own. NEW USES FOR FAILURE is calling for a different kind of criticism, in which its writer is self-conscious and knows himself/herself to be unreliable, also. Bravo!"�Lynne Tillman

New Uses for Failure: Ben Lerner's 10:04 (...AFTERWORDS)

Colman, Adam

Is gentrification the supervillain of our time? Literary Nonfiction. As a black woman and a comics geek, Stacie Williams identified strongly with one aspect of The Fortress of Solitude�its portrayal of gentrification. For Jonathan Lethem's characters, and for Williams in her own life, gentrification is a stand-in for racism�the "Big Bad" that affects education, policing, and housing policy. Tracing her experience of living in Chicago, Boston, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Lexington, Kentucky, Williams tests the limits of how far Lethem's superhero narrative frames the most American of experiences. This is part of Fiction Advocate's Afterwords series. "I want to read this."—Jonathan Lethem "Made me think more deeply about where I live and why."—Laura Maylene Walter

Bizarro Worlds: Jonathan Lethem's THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE (...AFTERWORDS)

Williams, Stacie

Literary Nonfiction. Writing. Composition. You've got a great story, but do you have great sentences? Stylish sentences have their own powerful energy that mesmerizes and even rearranges a reader's world. Think of this book as a private lesson with Nina Schuyler--award-winning author and professor of creative writing at the University of San Francisco--featuring guest appearances by the masters, including James Baldwin, Grace Paley, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Toni Morrison. They've arrived to show you the mechanics of their magic. With 25 essays and over 100 writing prompts, HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES is the best way to expand your writing style."Nina Schuyler's HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES is like a Kama Sutra for sentences: it describes the positions and passions of her artful love, and through sharp analyses and generous prompts suggests how you too, writer, may become such an artful lover...Read it and the pleasure will be yours."--Aaron Shurin"With its elegantly curated examples of stunning prose, HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES offers luminous insight into the elements of language as they relate intimately to content. Reading this book can transform your awareness and your practice, line by line and page by page, with glorious results."--Elizabeth Rosner"Passionately intense and exquisitely precise, Nina Schuyler's brilliant readings of gorgeously disparate sentences by a wide spectrum of innovative writers illuminate the subversive pleasures of suspension and subordination, the joys of complexity and extravagance, and the potent, piercing delights of language distilled to spare perfection."--Melanie Rae Thon"In this wonderful book, Nina Schuyler not only explores how syntax and diction can embody the meaning of a sentence but also how they can enrich subtext and capture the sensibility of a character. The pleasure of looking so closely at the power and intricacy of sentences is present on every page and richly evident in the plentiful writing exercises that Schuyler provides. Each chapter has the potency of a daily meditation from which any writer would benefit."--Catherine Brady"Nina Schuyler is an alchemist of style, with a brilliant eye for the secret inner workings of language. This book is a treasure trove for anyone wishing to harness the power of rhythm and syntax, meaning and music, in their own sentences or in the ones they read. This book is a fantastic contribution to the literature of craft."--Carolina de Robertis"There are books to read and then there are books to own, and Nina Schuyler's wonderful volume is of the latter category. As a writer, it offers nifty inspiration at a moment's notice. As a teacher, it offers clear proof that the blood, sweat, and tears behind beautiful writing is worth it. Even if I didn't write or teach, HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES would still be a graceful reminder that our ability to communicate deep emotions through the art of writing is one of the best things about being human."--Tom Molanphy, Academy of Art University

How to Write Stunning Sentences: 100 Simple Exercises from Beloved Authors to Improve Your Sentence Writing Style

Schuyler, Nina

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