New Literary Fiction

Tony Grams comes to America at the start of the 20th century, set on becoming a new man. Driven to leave poverty behind, he lands a job at the Ford Motor Company that puts him at the center of a daring social and economic experiment.

THE SIGN OF THE TOOTH: A BEAUTIFUL, YOUNG WOMAN ENTERS 221B BAKER STREET. HER FATHER, HIS CLOSEST FRIEND, AND A YOUNG MEDICAL STUDENT HAVE ALL DIED IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS Each body was found soon after death but with rigor mortis already set in. She believes they were murdered and seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes. The mystery that led to their deaths began fifteen hundred years ago when the sacred tooth of the Buddha was brought to Ceylon. Since then it has never left the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy where it has been guarded and worshiped.

In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor.

An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a young Black woman bereft after the loss of her newborn child, this hill becomes more than a safe haven—it becomes a place to start over. She convinces her husband to help her construct a society underground, somewhere everyone can feel safe, loved, and accepted.

When the story opens, the eponymous hero of Rudolfo Anaya's novel is in an ambulance en route to a hospital for crippled children in the New Mexican desert. A poor boy from Albuquerque, 16-year-old Tortuga takes his name from the odd, turtle-shaped mountain that is rumored to possess miraculous curative powers. Tortuga is paralyzed, and not even his mother's fervent prayers can heal him. But under the mountain's watchful gaze, with the support of fellow patients, he begins the Herculean task of breaking out of his shell and becoming whole again.

For crooked politicians and white-collar criminals looking to avoid either prison or a deadlier form of payback, there’s Exit Strategy. With just one call, they can fake your death, give you a new name and face, and launder whatever ill-gotten funds you need to establish a new life on the other side of the world. When Jordan Parrish, the brilliant founder of a medical technology start-up, made the call, he thought he had no other way out. But after his exit, he began to wonder about the circumstances that led him to make that decision: Was someone working against him?

Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company’s sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he’s nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech startup’s user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret—and wondering whether her death really was an accident.

One day, Emilio learns the shocking secret: He is undocumented. His parents, who emigrated from Guatemala to California, had never told him. Emilio slowly adjusts to his new normal. All is going well, he’s in his second year at UC Berkeley...then he gets into a car accident, and - without a driver’s license or any ID - the policeman on the scene reports him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The National Book Award finalist for Refund returns with a new collection of stories that boldly examines the changes in American culture over the last two years through the increasing presence of violence, bigotry, sexual harassment, and the emotional costs of living under constant threat. In the title story, the competition between two middle school cellists is affected by a shooting at their school, and it is only years later that they realize how the intrusion of violence affected the course of their lives.

Down on his luck and still pining for his ex-wife, South Carolina taxidermist Romie Futch spends his evenings drunkenly surfing the Internet before passing out on his couch. In a last-ditch attempt to pay his mortgage, he replies to an ad and becomes a research subject in an experiment conducted by the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ninety-year-old Margaret Riley is content hiding from the world, finding comfort in the mystery novels that keep her company - that is until she spots a woman who's moved into the long-empty house across the pond. Jennifer Young is also looking to hide. On the run from her old life, she and her four-year-old son, Milo, have moved to a quiet town where no one from her past can find her. In Jennifer, Margaret sees both a potential companion in her loneliness and a mystery to be solved.

Doctorow returns with an enthralling collection of brilliant, startling short fiction about people who, as the author notes in his Preface, are somehow “distinct from their surroundings—people in some sort of contest with the prevailing world”.

In the New England university town of Elm Harbor, a murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial complications of the town's past, the secrets of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. At the center is Lemaster Carlyle, the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school - African Americans living in "the heart of whiteness".

This story collection by one of the preeminent writers of this generation traces the arc of an entire career and - in this manifold exploration of delusion, fame, and experience - displays anew McInerney's rare ability to unveil and recreate the manic flux of our society.

When Sy Levin, a high school teacher beset by alcohol and bad decisions, leaves the city for the Pacific Northwest to start over, it's no surprise that he conjures a vision of the extraordinary new life awaiting him there: "He imagined the pioneers in covered wagons entering this valley for the first time. Although he had lived little in nature Levin had always loved it, and the sense of having done the right thing in leaving New York was renewed in him."

Journalist Paige Keller, while recovering at a remote resort from an overseas assignment, is drawn into a community dominated by a fundamentalist church, a family of real estate developers, and a group of environmentalists, all in conflict over control of the valley's future. She goes undercover to discover what lies beneath the church's rituals and sacred ceremonies, but the more she learns, the deeper the valley's mysteries and seductions become.

Calamity is confronting two big transitions: the death of her beloved father and the beginning of menopause, a physical shift that has rekindled her gift for finding lost things. Suddenly, she is getting hot flashes that seem to forge objects out of thin air, most notably a four-year old boy. As Calamity takes the child into her care, she discovers that all is not as it seems. Then, Calamity must reawaken to the mysteries surrounding her own childhood and the early disappearance of her mother.

The three linked novellas that comprise Josh Weil's masterful debut bring us into America's remote and often unforgiving backcountry, and delicately open up the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.

Elizabeth Blau upended her life in the city to move to the Middle of Nowhere and start over. She reconnects with her estranged brother and begins her new life. First, Elizabeth lands a great job, then a date, and her luck seems to change for the better. But when the man’s body is found mangled in a ravine, the murder rocks the small town as fault descends upon the Blau Family.

Sissily is driving cross-country with a much older man called Ezzy. On their way to California to begin a life together, he insists on stopping at his family ranch outside Liberty, Kansas, to visit his mother, Mrs. Svoboda. This family reunion is a painful reminder for Sissily of the rumors about the scandal that led to her running away from home, but while Mrs. Svoboda is a domineering figure, Sissily sees a woman who harbors secrets of her own.