Stewart ONan's award-winning fiction includes Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, Last Night at the Lobster, and Emily, Alone. His novel, The Odds, was hailed by The Boston Globe as a gorgeous fable, a stunning meditation and a hope-filled Valentine.
Granta named him one of Americas Best Young Novelists. He was born and raised and lives in Pittsburgh.
Again and Again (2023) Jonathan Evison "Who is Eugene Miles? Visigoth thief, prisoner, centenarian, slave, janitor, decorated Marine - even, for a life, Oscar Wilde's cat - or just a lonely old yarnspinner, a liar? Jonathan Evison's shapeshifting narrator may be stuck in a nowhere nursing home, yet he transports the reader to Seville under the Moors, Victorian London and every era of 20th century L.A. Spanning a thousand years and one timeless love, Again and Again is a fantastical tale of longing and regret, and maybe also a sneaky fable of both how fallible and how hopeful we can be."
Perpetual West (2022) Mesha Maren "With its corrupt world of maquiladoras and drug cartels, Mesha Maren's Juarez may seem familiar, but the truly dangerous borders her characters have to cross are within themselves. Perpetual West recalls no other novel so much as The Sheltering Sky, as its innocents cast aside their masks and surrender to more elemental truths."
A Little Hope (2021) Ethan Joella "A Little Hope is a sweet and tender take on small town heartbreak, where everybody hurts, and everybody finds some saving comfort, whether in the world or in one another."
Silent Winds, Dry Seas (2021) Vinod Busjeet "Whether navigating the rigid caste society of Mauritius, where reputation and family honor mean everything, or learning the ropes of American academia and high finance, where money and power rule, Vishnu Bhushan is a picaresque hero worthy of Dickens. Silent Wind, Dry Seas is a complex, honest coming of age story."
One Year Gone (2021) Avery Bishop "Avery Bishop’s done it again. After a high school girl disappears from her small town, her mother is left to sift through her secrets and discover the terrible truth. Part whodunit, part cozy, One Year Gone is a page-turner with enough twists and turns to satisfy mystery readers of all stripes."
Damnation Spring (2021) Ash Davidson "Unavoidable, maybe, but Damnation Spring recalls Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion, a big, rollicking crowd pleaser of a family saga set in hardscrabble logging country. Ash Davidson's homespun characters aren't just local color. Like their community, they face a reckoning as their lives and livelihoods collide with the wider world."
The War Nurse (2021) Tracey Enerson Wood "The War Nurse is a rich, gripping history of one woman's lifelong battle against systemic prejudice. As Tracey Enerson Wood's heroine says of herself, 'I wasn't a man, for whom the things I wanted to do would have been easy. I was meant to break down the wall in between."
The Stone Loves the World (2021) Brian Hall "In its patient, heartbreakingly comic evocation of loneliness across several generations, The Stone Loves the World recalls no novel so much as The Corrections. Jam-packed with Boomer iconography and scientific arcana, this long-awaited new novel shows off Brian Hall’s immense talents. A deep and moving portrait of an unforgettable, very American family."
The Killing Hills (2021) (Mick Hardin, book 1) Chris Offutt "Like the late, great Larry Brown and the late, great William Gay, Chris Offutt delivers a hardscrabble, mythic South with a laconic voice that turns sly to describe the follies of Man . . . Country Dark is a smart, rich country noir."
Astrid Sees All (2021) Natalie Standiford "A new wave, coming-of-age story, Astrid Sees All is a blast from the past, taking the reader back to the ratty Bohemia of the Lower East Side of the early ‘80s, complete with squatters, cold-water sublets, white punks on dope in the trashed bathrooms of trendy clubs, and even a cameo by the king of downtown, Lou Reed. Sharp-eyed and light on her feet, Natalie Standiford is the perfect tour guide for one young woman’s leap from the ivied halls of college into another, even more unreal world."
A Ritchie Boy (2020) Linda Kass "From Vienna during the Anschluss to booming post-war Columbus, Linda Kass has done her homework. Half historical novel, half family saga, A Ritchie Boy will charm readers who loved All the Light We Cannot See."
The Heebie-Jeebie Girl (2020) Susan Petrone "The simple, desperate act that opens The Heebie-Jeebie Girl quickly turns complicated and dangerous. Susan Petrone has penned an open-hearted love letter to a still-proud city whose mills and bars used to operate around the clock, where jobs are scarce and people dream of hitting the lottery. A novel of magic and miracles, contrition and forgiveness, it's fitting that its hero, who can pick lucky numbers out of thin air, is named Hope. As Youngstown itself says: 'Some cities will chew you up and spit you out. Not me.'"
Afterlife (2020) Julia Alvarez "From the very beginning, Julia Alvarez has proven herself a wise and funny writer with a sharp eye and ear for the joys and obligations of love and family. Now, in Afterlife, she applies her gifts to last things, as her Antonia struggles to move beyond the consolations of poetry and embrace the buzzing, blooming confusion of the world again."
The Girl From Blind River (2018) Gale Massey "Smart, sharp and fast, Gale Massey's thriller ratchets up the action, making the reader lean forward till the turn of her last card."
The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) Paul Tremblay "Think The Desperate Hours meets 10 Cloverfield Lane, but way, way stranger. With The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay gives us a gloriously claustrophobic and gory tale of faith and paranoia. Signs and wonders and homemade battle-axes, oh my!"
Fury From the Tomb (2018) (Institute for Singular Antiquities, book 1) SA Sidor "Steven Sidor keeps the pacing piano-wire taut and selects his words with a vivisectionist’s diabolical care."
How to Be Safe (2018) Tom McAllister "Vicious, hilarious, shocking and sad, How to Be Safe is biting political satire that levels its targets, soft and hard. Tom McAllister's vision of a violent, pious, hysterical America is worthy of Denis Johnson, Margaret Atwood and, yes, Mark Twain."
Where the Dead Sit Talking (2018) Brandon Hobson "Weird and intimate, like Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen, Where the Dead Sit Talking takes us to a strange, dangerous place normally kept hidden. From the opening hook, with the unhurried authority of a master, Brandon Hobson initiates the reader into the secret lives of lost and unwanted teenagers trying to survive in an uncaring world. Creepy, sad, yet queerly thrilling."
The Talented Ribkins (2017) Ladee Hubbard "The Talented Ribkins is a quest, a treasure hunt, an unearthing of the hopeful and terrible past in service of the future. Wry, with a deft sense of metaphor, Ladee Hubbard delivers a familiar yet uncharted America in which her characters need their superpowers just to survive."
Haven (2016) Tom Deady "A big, generous, Stephen King-like small town boys vs. monster epic."
Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2014) Tom Sweterlitsch "Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a rich, absorbing, relentlessly inventive mindfuck ... a wild mashup of Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick and William S. Burroughs, and, like their work, utterly visionary."
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (2011) Ben Loory "Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is that rare find--a book that excites the reader. These tales are hilarious and vertiginous in the calmly absurd manner of Lydia Davis, Jack Handey and Etgar Keret. With his first book, Ben Loory proves he's already a master of the sleight of hand."
No Space for Further Burials (2010) Feryal Ali Gauhar "In writing through the eyes of an American captive in Afghanistan, Feryal Ali Gauhar has fashioned a fascinating two-way mirror in which we see the author creating an Other confronting Otherness. As in Richard Powers' hostage novel Ploughing in the Dark, the mask of character reveals as much as it conceals."
The Painted Darkness (2010) Brian James Freeman "The tone and building dread reminds me of classic Stephen King. Great velocity and impact, and super creepy. Don't go in the basement!"
Dizzy City (2007) Nicholas Griffin "From the trenches of the Great War to Tin Pan Alley and the Great White Way... this is the best sort of historical drama."
Hidden (2004) Paul Jaskunas "'All a lie needs is telling,' Paul Jaskunas writes, and his thoughtful narrator, Maggie Wilson, is living proof. She peels away the layers surrounding her own near-murder and resurrection so calmly it gives you chills. Hidden is a shifty, low-key thriller, half Spellbound, half Daphne du Maurier."
(b.1961)
