Fiction Realism

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.

On a languid midsummer's day in the countryside, old Adam Godley, a renowned theoretical mathematician, is dying. His family gathers at his bedside: his son, young Adam, struggling to maintain his marriage to a radiantly beautiful actress; his 19-year-old daughter, Petra, filled with voices and visions as she waits for the inevitable; their mother, Ursula, whose relations with the Godley children are strained at best; and Petra's "young man" - very likely more interested in the father than the daughter - who has arrived for a superbly ill-timed visit.

One phone call, five words, and I’m back in the town I swore I’d never return to. Going home was never part of the plan, but when my dad calls because he needs help to solve a murder, I can’t say no. Running into the three men I thought I would spend my entire life with has me questioning why I ever picked up the phone.

In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.

In a Seoul slum marked for demolition, residents’ shadows have begun to rise. No one knows how or why—but, they warn each other, do not follow your shadow if it wanders away. Employees of a small electronics repair shop, Eungyo and Mujae can only watch their tight-knit community begin to fade as the landscape of their lives is torn apart, building by building. Their growing connection with one another provides solace, but against an uncaring ruling class and the inevitability of the rising shadows, their relationship may not be enough.

In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.

Una comunidad dividida por la codicia, la cobardía y el miedo. Un hombre perseguido por el fantasma de un pasado doloroso. Una joven en busca de la felicidad. Siete días, un breve periodo durante el cual el bien y el mal librarán una batalla decisiva y cada personaje decidirá a cuál de los dos bandos pertenece.

For Lydia, Jenny, and Selene, au pairing in Korea is the opportunity of a lifetime. Lydia wants nothing more than to transform into a leading lady; Jenny is determined to swear off love for good 5,955 miles away from her ex; and Selene is convinced working in Korea will finally lead her to her biological mother. The girls find comfort in the magic of instant companionship when their host families introduce them. During a combined family vacation, they visit an enchanted waterfall on Jeju Island and make a wish under a full moon. Overnight, everything changes.

Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.

The story begins with a dark connection in Paddock’s ancestry and moves quickly into the criminal life of his mobster father, Bingo Bruce, and his father’s “Bonnie and Clyde” style mistress, who cast long shadows over the killer’s life. It is also the inspiring story of a girl named Theresa, and her best friend, both country music fans, who suddenly find themselves caught up in a life or death situation they never imagined. But will they survive?

The year: 1936. Europe dances while an invidious dictator establishes himself in Portugal. The city: Lisbon-gray, colorless, chimerical. Ricardo Reis, a doctor and poet, has just come home after sixteen years in Brazil.

Ixtepec se ubica en la tierra caliente del corazón de México, en un sitio que es todos y es ninguno, pues se trata del pueblo imaginario en que Elena Garro ambientó su representación de los convulsos años posrevolucionarios de un México en el que la injusticia del despojo de tierras, el racismo y la violencia contra las mujeres eran, como lo son hoy, un asunto de todos los días. Fábula poderosa de las heridas históricas de un país y una época, Los recuerdos del porvenir está llamada a ocupar, finalmente, su sitio como un clásico indiscutible de la literatura hispanoamericana.

The epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan's gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation's troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism....

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything. Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day.

Septimania, la primera novela de Jonathan Levi tras su aclamado libro A Guide for the Perplexed, es una gran obra: una historia al mismo tiempo personal y mítica, con temas tan grandes como el universo y tan pequeños como una semilla de manzana.

Convencido de que morirá dentro de una hora, Tobías ni siquiera se tomó el tiempo para vestirse para una visita de emergencia a su homeópata, el Dr. Svarsky. Por lo tanto, es en su bata y zapatillas que accidentalmente se encuentra con la suegra del médico frente al edificio Mignón. Alto y fuerte, de casi cincuenta años, Tobías vive con su madre, una viuda espiritual, y pasa su vida luchando contra una serie interminable de males imaginarios mientras busca con ella, a través de medios más o menos extraños, comunicarse con el padre fallecido.

Una joven estudiante de biología emprende un viaje a Tierra del Fuego para trabajar en un museo con restos de cetáceos. Su novio naturalista se interna en Misiones para trabajar con el loro vinoso. La separación, la lejanía y el aislamiento repercuten en la relación. Ella, joven e inexperta, pero con avidez por aprender, será testigo de acontecimientos rayanos al realismo mágico y será, también, receptora de los relatos de cada uno de los personajes que irá conociendo en su viaje.

"Están a punto de asistir a un espectáculo de fuegos (o juegos) artificiales (es decir, profunda e inequívocamente literarios) que les dejará boquiabiertos y arrancará sus más encendidos aplausos", reza el exordio de Sara Mesa al presente volumen. Y es que Fricciones es, en efecto, una brillante exhibición del endiablado sentido del humor, la finísima ironía y la envidiable inteligencia de un escritor en estado de gracia.

Set in Denmark in the here and now, The Quiet Girl centers around Kaspar Krone, a world-renowned circus clown with a deep love for the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, and an even deeper gambling debt. Wanted for tax evasion and on the verge of extradition, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve from the international authorities in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities - abilities that Krone also shares.

When Nathan goes to visit his grandma, Nali, at her mobile summer home on the Navajo reservation, he knows he’s in for a pretty uneventful summer, with no electricity or cell service. Still, he loves spending time with Nali and with his uncle Jet, though it’s clear when Jet arrives that he brings his problems with him. One night, while lost in the nearby desert, Nathan finds someone extraordinary: a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story - a Water Monster - in need of help.