Ben Fountain is the author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. He has received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Writers' Award, among other honors and awards. He and his family live in Dallas.
The Madstone (2023) Elizabeth Crook "The Madstone is a wonderful book. The tale that Elizabeth Crook conjures out of the most basic materials--a man goes on a trip, things happen, and the trip becomes a quest--should take its place alongside the very best novels of the American West, a top rank that includes Lonesome Dove, Little Big Man, News of the World, and Blood Meridian. Yes, it's that good; I didn't want it to end. Benjamin Shreve and his compatriots affected me as few characters have in recent years, and I think of them still."
Holler, Child (2023) LaToya Watkins "With her debut book Perish, LaToya Watkins proved herself to be a masterful novelist right out of the gate. Now, with Holler, Child, Watkins shows herself to be a master of the short story as well. Each of these gorgeous, note-perfect stories packs the full-bodied punch of a novel, but with an economy and compression that are nothing short of miraculous. How does she do it? I don't know, but what I do know is that I very much want her to keep doing it."
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs (2022) Sidik Fofana "Every once in a while a new writer comes along and refreshes our notions of what fiction can do. Sidik Fofana is one of those rare and wonderful writers . . . nothing short of revelatory. Buy this book, and prepare to be blasted by the brilliance inside."
Nobody's Pilgrims (2022) Sergio Troncoso "The castoffs and castaways of Nobody's Pilgrims hit the road in search of the American Dream, a long shot made longer by the pack of human devils hot on their trail. In this superb novel, Sergio Troncoso gives us a fresh take not only on the great American road trip, but on the American Dream itself in all its glorious and increasingly fragile promise. The propulsive force of this novel, and the destination it ultimately brings us to, left me wanting more, and yet feeling completely satisfied. As only the best novels do."
Pay Dirt Road (2022) (Annie McIntyre Mystery, book 1) Samantha Jayne Allen "Samantha Allen has delivered a beauty of a debut novel with Pay Dirt Road. This is the best kind of literary thriller, every bit as compelling and hard-edged as we'd expect of a Tony Hillerman Prize winner, with real heart--and a scrapper of a heroine--at its core. Allen prowls this territory with the smarts and savvy of a seasoned veteran, and I look forward to seeing what this fine young writer does next."
Fire in the Blood (2020) Perry O'Brien "Perry O'Brien's Fire in the Blood is the opening blast of what I expect will be a long, strong career in American fiction. Through all the twists and turns of this riveting, fast-paced novel, O'Brien's sure grasp of human experience never falters. It's all here, the heartbreak and hoping, the fear and confusion, the rare moments of mercy and meaning. A powerful debut, and a harbinger of more good things to come."
Inheritors (2020) Asako Serizawa "This splendid story collection is a sword through the heart. Asako Serizawa depicts with rare acuity and nuance several generations of one far-flung family as it's buffeted by the forces of war, migration, displacement, and that ultimate crucible, time. There are no easy answers or clean resolutions in Serizawa's stories, but what you will find is the genuine stuff of human experience, rendered with precision and honesty. Inheritors is debut fiction delivered with the verve of a master."
Lost and Wanted (2019) Nell Freudenberger "Gorgeous, brainy, and passionate. Lost and Wanted is the best kind of big American novel: a majestic book that takes on nothing less than the nature of the universe-literally-while probing that similarly infinite mystery known as the human heart. Nell Freudenberger's writing is fearless and profound, as it absolutely must be in order to pull off this very modern ghost story that unfolds in the life of an MIT physicist. Freudenberger is one of our best novelists, and she's delivered a real powerhouse of a novel."
Such Good Work (2019) Johannes Lichtman "Johannes Lichtman has given us a powerful, unsparingly honest portrayal of a soul in torment, trying to find his way to a decent life. How to love, how to work--how to live, however modestly, with meaning and purpose inside a self that for too long has used booze and drugs to avoid the hard work of being human. Building a genuine self, that's an inside job, and in Such Good Work Lichtman delivers a deeply affecting novel of one young man's struggle to be whole."
The Far Field (2019) Madhuri Vijay "I had to remind myself while reading The Far Field that this is the work of a debut novelist, and not a mid-career book by a master writer at the height of her powers. Madhuri Vijay astonishes with her wisdom, her fearlessness, her sure handling of a desperately loaded narrative that's equal parts love story, war story, and family intrigue. Such is the power of Vijay's writing that I finished the book feeling like I'd lived it. Only the very best novels are experienced, as opposed to merely read, and this is one of those rare and brilliant novels."
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen (2018) Sarah Bird "Sarah Bird takes a few scant lines from history--fragments, really, the barest of bones that have come down to us of Cathy Williams, slave, freedwoman, U.S. Calvary trooper--and spins from them this magnificent imagining of a flesh-and-blood, heart-and-soul Cathy Williams who fears and loves and wants and hurts just as fiercely as any of us. This wonderful novel is as rich in the telling as Thomas Berger's Little Big Man and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, but Bird is breaking new ground, staking out a whole different territory. Cathy Williams, a black woman in history; what's been lost to time and neglect is surely regained in good measure by this brilliant, powerful novel."
Red, White, Blue (2018) Lea Carpenter "Why does the stuff of espionage lie so close to essential matters of the human heart? Love, loyalty, lies, betrayal—Lea Carpenter plumbs the depths of all these in this brilliant, very possibly flawless book. I can think of no novel in recent memory that blends the personal and intimate so truly with power and conflict on the grand geopolitical scale. Red, White, Blue is a marvel and a masterpiece."
The Secrets Between Us (2018) (Bhima, book 2) Thrity Umrigar "The Secrets Between Us broke me open as thoroughly as any novel I've read in recent years. Bhima and Parvati, two proud, aging women hard-used by life, are as unlikely a pair of heroes as one could imagine, and yet they jump from these pages big and true as life, striving, surviving, learning to hope and even love long past the point where such things have come to seem like a cruel joke. Thrity Umrigar has given us yet another brilliant powerhouse of a novel."
Woman No. 17 (2017) Edan Lepucki "I firmly believe that Edan Lepucki is on the cusp of a long, strong career in American letters."
War Porn (2016) Roy Scranton "Dire, savage, and brilliant, a simmering fever-dream of a novel that's as pure and true in its vision of the long war as anything I've read."
See How Small (2015) Scott Blackwood "In prose that's as fine as any being written today, Scott Blackwood plumbs the depths of a story that is alternately haunting, terrifying, and achingly tragic."
Bobcat and Other Stories (2013) Rebecca Lee "Nothing short of brilliant...This extraordinary story collection is sure to confirm its author as one of the best of her generation."
(b.1958)
