What I'm Looking Forward to in 2008
As 2007 winds down, and I look forward to recapping the year that was in EWN-land, I find myself getting excited about the books that I know will be published in 2008, and damn there are plenty of them. This is just those that I know of. And it doesn't count the books coming from Dzanc, OV Books or Black Lawrence that you KNOW I'll be reading, and hyping and pushing.
January
Future Tense Press has a two story chapbook from future Dzanc Books author, Suzanne Burns, entitled DoubleHeader. I've liked all of Kevin Sampsell's selections for chapbooks so far, and knowing how much I'm looking forward to publishing Burns' work in 2009, I'm anxious to see this one in print.
Rose Metal Press is publishing a set of chapbooks of short short stories from four women - and as I'm a huge fan of three of them: Elizabeth Ellen, Claudia Smith and Kathy Fish, I'm planning on reading all four.
Counterpoint has the next Lydia Millet novel, How the Dead Dream, coming out. I hope to make this the year I finally catch up on her work as the bit I've read was great, and if Richard Nash is plugging it as hard as he is, it must be all that.
Europa Editions has Carmin Abate's Between Two Seas being translated from the Italian by Anthony Shugaar. This novel is set just after World War II and looks like just one more winner from Europa.
Random House has a pair that look interesting - two novels - The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Raverte, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peder, and Charles Bock's Beautiful Children. Both are getting plenty of early publicity from the folks at Random House and quick scans of the first few pages look promising indeed.
Livingston Press has their annual story anthology, Tartts Three, with stories from EWN'ers such as Xujun Eberlein, Jacob M. Appel, and Bonnie Roop Bowles. I typically find myself liking fiction that editor Joe Taylor publishes. I'm also looking forward, I believe later in the year, to the full collection Livingston will publish from Xujun Eberlein.
Lastly in January, the long awaited novel from Karl Iagnemma, The Expeditions, from Dial Press. I loved his story collection from a few years back and was excited to hear that this was on the way.
February
The Monsters of Templeton, from Lauren Groff, is the first Hypeion title of 2008 I'll be reading. Having loved a few of Groff's short stories last year in Hobart and the Atlantic Fiction Issue, she's another one I've been waiting to see a full book from.
Casperian will publish Without Wax by William Walsh. This is deemed a documentary novel on the cover, looking at the life of fictional porn star, William Waxxx.
Tyrants, a short story collection from Marshall Klimasewiski will be published by Norton. Much as I enjoyed his novel, The Cottagers, I'm looking forward to these smaller woks.
Another short story collection to be published in February will be Elizabeth Crane's third effort, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, from Akashic Books. Having thoroughly enjoyed Crane's first two collections, and knowing the Zombie story she read recently in Chicago is in this collection, it's pretty certain I'm going to love this one!
Samantha Hunt's latest novel, The Invention of Everything Else, from Houghtin Mifflin also looks interesting. A quick search of the subjects listed at Powells for this novel are: literary, inventors, electric engineers - what could be more interesting than that?
Felicia C. Sullivan's memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible From Here, will be published by Algonquin and as I've already read and raved about it, you should all just go find a copy as soon as it's available.
Coffee House Press has a story collection, Night Train, from Lise Erdich coming that I've skimmed and enjoyed the few stories and look forward to finishing it up.
Another I've already raved about, Terese Svoboda's award winning non-fiction from Graywolf, Black Glasses Like Clark Kent, is just one to look for and enjoy.
March
Doubleday will publish the debut story collection, Knockemstiff from Donald Ray Pollack. This one is good folks. Dzanc was looking at an early version when Doubleday snagged it, and good as it was then, Pollack has tightened it up even more.
Milkweed has another Gary Amdahl book to follow his great short story collection, Visigoths. This time around, a two novella collection titled I Am Death. Should be right up my alley.
Plants Don't Drink Coffee, a novel from Unai Elorriaga, translated from the Basque by Amaia Gabantxo will be published by Archipelago Books, and appears to be Rashomanesque with its four tales from different perspectives.
Another effort from Algonquin, this time a novel, Mudbound, from Hillary Jordan, and it appears to be a bit of a southern gothic novel, which as you all know slides nicely into my reading wheelhouse!
Lastly in March, the aforementioned Kevin Sampsell drops his editor hat and puts on his writer hat. Chiasmus will publish his latest collection of stories, Creamy Bullets.
April
A new collection of poetry from Beth Ann Fennelly from Norton, Unmentionables. Any time there's a new full collection from Fennelly is a time to get excited!
Akashic Books has a novel from Nina Revoyr, The Age of Dreaming. I'm pretty much solely relying on publicist Johanna Ingalls recommendation on this one as I've not previously heard of Ms. Revoyr. This is the first, but not last time you'll see me looking forward to a title solely due to a publicist - the ones that know their business are worth thei weight in gold, and Johanna certainly is one of those.
Keith Gessen's debut novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men, hits stores courtesy of Viking. While he may currently be best known as a co-editor of the literary journal n+1, his translation of Voices from Chernobyl ranks as one of the best ten books I've read the past five years.
Perhaps my favorite new publisher of 2007, Hotel St. George, will publish Bicycle by Paul Fattaruso. Based on their first two titles from Aaron Petrovich and Alex Rose, I'm willing to give anything the folks at HSG publish this year.
One more from Coffee House Press this spring, Raymond McDaniel's poetry collection, Saltwater Empire. I'm fortunate enough to get to see McDaniel every so often in Ann Arbor at Shaman Drum Bookstore where he's cemented his position as THE best reader introducer, possibly ever. I enjoyed his earlier collection, Murder, and can't wait to dip into this new one.
From Bloomsbury comes the debut novel from Mark Sarvas, Harry, Revised. This one's a hot one, with sales into many foreign languages already. I'm sure it's been revised quite a bit, but I've read one or two excerpts that were previously published and have enjoyed the bits and pieces of Mark's writing I've been able to scare up the past few years.
May
Frank Turner Hollon's latest novel, The Wait, comes from his long-term publisher, MacAdam/Cage. I've read each of Hollon's novels and even his short fiction from the Blue Cafe collections and he's just a top-notch writer. Typically his works has something to do with our legal system, but not always and it appears this one will not. Last time around that he didn't dip into the legal system, Life is a Strange Place, just might be my favorite of his until now.
Another publicist recommendation, this time from Unbridled Books' Caitlin Hamilton Summie - a novel from Stephen Evans, The Marriage of True Minds. It's going to take four or five years in a row of Caitlin giving me bum recommendations before I lose my faith in her taste she's been so dead on for so long. I can't wait to see this new one from Unbridled.
Jim Krusoe's novel, Girl Factory, from Tin House has a black comedy feel to it from the descriptions and I do enjoy black comedy. I've not dipped too deeply into the Tin House pile, but they hit solidly last year with Jeff Parker and Lucy Corin.
Dalkey Archive is probably responsible for my earliest delving into translated material, and I plan to go back to them this year to read Mati Unt's Diary of a Blood Donor, which was translated from the Estonian from Ants Eert.
July
Somewhat similar to the earlierr mentioned Iagnemma novel, Hannah Tinti published a fantastic short story collection a few years back and rumblings of a great novel have been following it since. Ironically, like Iagnemma, this is published by Dial Press - The Good Thief.
MacAdam/Cage will publish Jack Pendarvis' debut novel, Awesome. I'm a big fan of much of Jack's short fiction and look forward to seeing his take on the novel.
August
Jefferson Press will publish the debut story collection of Arlene Sanders, Tiger Burning Bright. I've read a few of Arlene's stories this past year or two and look forward to seeing them all in one collection.
Houghtin Mifflin will publish Erin McGraw's second novel, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard. Seeing as I consider her debut novel, The Baby Tree, near perfect, I suppose it makes sense that I'd be really excited this one was coming out! Her long awaited "California" novel.
September
Ron Rash's next novel will find stores thanks to Ecco. It's titled Serena, and based on the fantastic work he's published to date, how can you not be excited to hear about this?
October
Open Letter will be publishing their first catalogue in the fall and Bragi Olafsson's novel, The Pets, translated from the Icelandic by Janice Balfour, looks very interesting.
November
Another from Open Letter, this time a very dark looking story collection, The Taker and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca, translated from the Portuguese by Clifford Landers. Absolutely nothing wrong with dark stories.
Miscellaneous
Press 53 will be publishing an anthology of their open awards sometime in the fall, and Gival Press will be publishing A Tomb on the Periphery, the next novel from John Domini, whose recent Earthquake ID we enjoyed quite a bit recently, but don't have a specific month listed yet.
And for some very selfish reasons, I'm looking greatly forward to seeing the new Dzanc titles in print: Yannick Murphy's In a Bear's Eye, Peter Markus' Bob, or Man on Boat, The Best of the Web 2008, Hesh Kestin's novellas, Based on a True Story, and Kyle Minor's story collection, In the Devil's Territory. Not to mention Steven Gillis' Temporary People from Black Lawrence Press in April, OV Books collection from Allison Amend due in October, and November's anthology, Visiting Hours from Press 53, edited by some guy named Dan Wickett.
dan,
you're so unbelievably kind :)
thank you & happy new year.
cheers, f.
Posted by: felicia Sullivan | January 01, 2008 at 09:23 AM
Dan (again), you are awesome. Thanks for this.
Posted by: Rachel Cantor | January 01, 2008 at 12:28 PM
Dan,
Thanks so much for mentioning my book. You've got to be one of the most generous and diligent people in the literary world! Happy New Year!
Best,
Don Pollock
Posted by: Don Pollock | January 01, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Dan,
I can hardly think of a better gift than a list such as this. Happy New Year!
Posted by: Kyle | January 01, 2008 at 03:05 PM
Great list, Dan. Many thanks. I've been keeping an eye out for Hannah Tinti's novel. Good to know it's coming soon. Now it's just a matter of finding the time to do all that reading...
Posted by: Andy Roe | January 01, 2008 at 03:55 PM
Well, now the rest of us don't need to blog for the remainder of the year. What a survey! Happy New Year, Dan.
Posted by: Erika D. | January 02, 2008 at 08:15 PM
Dan, I too must add my deepest thanks -- grazie mille, as my people say. More than that, you & EWR have my respect. You can bet I'll get my hands on Visiting Hours as soon as possible.
Congratulations, John D
Posted by: John Domini | January 03, 2008 at 11:27 AM
This is a fantastic list and gives me high hopes for this year's reading! So many new books that seem to good to pass up.
Thanks for taking the time to compile and share. "Mudbound" and "The Painter of Battles" top my list.
Posted by: trav | January 03, 2008 at 12:05 PM
Great list. I'll be referencing it later...
Posted by: Katrina Denza | January 03, 2008 at 12:41 PM
Good to see there's nothing wrong with dark literature. Now tell it to the agents and the editors and the publishers in America.
Posted by: Chris Rice | March 14, 2008 at 06:02 AM