Tag: novel

book list, Recommendations

Seven Novels About Trips Gone Wrong Recommended by Vincent Chu

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Seven Novels About Trips Gone Wrong Recommended by Vincent Chu

The fantasy of leaving home for a faraway place has always held my imagination. As a boy, I dreamed of running away from our comfortable home to find new joys in the woods behind the Safeway. As an adult, I’ve twice sold my furniture and moved overseas. In novels, we know that when a character leaves for a trip, things are bound to go sideways. Still, there are levels to it, and it’s those travel novels that don’t just surprise, but unravel into something wholly bizarre and subversive and painfully human, that I love and come back to.

In my debut novel, Nice Places, a thirty-something named Georgie decides to travel the world for one year to escape the “daily existential discomfort” of his conventional life. But before he can even make it to the airport, a meditation guru robs him and he finds himself at a guesthouse in the bad part of his city, just miles from home. With only his phone and an unexpected community of guests and locals, his trip quickly takes a turn.

Here are some of my favorite novels that also feature trips going wrong.

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Interviews, my reading life

P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

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P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

P.C. Verrone’s debut novel, Rabbit, Fox, Tar, is a fable-like story about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in a tightly knit neighborhood threatens to unravel its foundations. When Baby appears in Original Hill and begins a romance with the ambitious Lucius “Lucky” Foote, her presence upends a contentious city council race and intensifies long-simmering tensions over a Black neighborhood destroyed decades earlier to make way for a highway. As Baby becomes entangled in the lives of the community’s residents and begins questioning her origins, the novel explores race, power, belonging, memory, and the stories communities tell about themselves.

Verrone’s work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, a Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and a WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner.

We asked Verrone to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

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Interviews

Boyhood, Bruce, and Boots: Steven Pfau Discusses Say Nephew

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Boyhood, Bruce, and Boots: Steven Pfau Discusses Say Nephew

When I received my galley of Steven Pfau’s Say Nephew: On Boyhood, Unclehood and Queer Mentorship. I was really excited to read it. Book covers are my love language, so when I saw the cover of Steven’s book, I thought, This is going to be a good read. I chatted with Steven over Zoom about being under the tutelage of his loud, humorous, and swagger-filled Uncle Bruce. We chatted about nephews, guncles, and cowboy boots. 

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Interviews

Joe Bond on Hope House, Psychology, and the Troubled Boys of 1980s Kentucky

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Joe Bond on Hope House, Psychology, and the Troubled Boys of 1980s Kentucky

Hope House, Joe Bond’s debut novel, dares to wish for more than the world can offer to the “troubled boys” at its center. The boys – AWOL who runs away, Karvel who’s in charge, and Damico who just had a child – are limping towards adulthood and the five phases needed to graduate from their treatment home in 1980s Kentucky. Together their interweaving narratives paint a picture of a home that is on the verge of closing, a father who would sacrifice everything for his court-ordered sons, and a world where hope can be written on the nametag of a fast food uniform.

Joe Bond grew up in these places and gives them an earnestness that no other writer could. He can make a story turn in one five-letter sentence, revealing a morsel of information that demolishes what you previously thought about a character, a situation, a worldview.

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Interviews

Exploring Body, Queerness and Music with The Maidenheads Author Benny Peterson

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Exploring Body, Queerness and Music with The Maidenheads Author Benny Peterson

If Kate Bush and Björk had a baby, it would be The Maidenheads, the debut book from Benny B. Peterson. This novel is a queercore punk symphony of the human heart and limbs. Benny and I discuss trans resilience, art, and the soundtrack of our lives. This book is front row to the concert where you are checked out, and move with body and soul. We dive deep into queer history, and hope for the trans youth of today. 

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Interviews, my reading life

Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child

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Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child

Canon, the debut novel from poet Paige Lewis, is about two damaged outsiders trying to earn God’s favor in a violent world split between “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys.” Yara, isolated after family rejection and a toxic relationship, is chosen for a divine mission to kill a feared army leader, while Adrena, a prophet desperate for heaven and recognition, pursues her own dangerous vision of heroism. As their paths converge, the novel becomes an irreverent, emotionally charged exploration of faith, destiny, power, and what it means to deserve salvation.

We asked Lewis, who previously released the poetry collection Space Struck and is the coeditor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance, to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped their life and influenced their writing.

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Interviews

Finding Company Elsewhere: Emily Haworth-Booth Discusses Mare

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Finding Company Elsewhere: Emily Haworth-Booth Discusses Mare

Emily Haworth-Booth’s novel, Mare, explores the intricacies and dynamics of relationships with others, yes, but more specifically, with a horse. The unnamed protagonist is emotionally struggling with loss; loss of her dog, loss of the expectations of her body, loss of a life imagined. To cope, she lets a horse as a way to fill her time and her emotions. She learns the difference between need and obsession as she navigates learning and loving her new companion. Mare is a soulful ride that will pull at your heart if you let it.

I talk with Emily about writing for children versus adults, what having a strong literary community means to her, and what’s next from her pen.

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