Jordy Rosenberg is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches eighteenth-century literature and queer/trans theory. He lives in New York City and Northampton, Massachusetts.
All the World Beside (2024) Garrard Conley "A richly textured, thrilling and scandalous romance, All the World Beside is a mesmerizing read. Skillfully paced and completely gripping from its first page, Conley gives us historical fiction at its most delicious and absorbing."
I Love You So Much it's Killing Us Both (2024) Mariah Stovall "Mariah Stovall's I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both turns up the volume on contemporary literary fiction in the best, most mesmerizing way. This book is a blazing riff, completely on fire from the first propulsive chord. Khaki Oliver leads us on a captivating ride; she is, simply put, one of the most compelling narrators we have seen in quite some time."
City of Laughter (2024) Temim Fruchter "Temim Fruchter's City of Laughter is deeply ambitious, deeply fun, queer mythological storytelling at its finest. A powerful, profound, beautifully-told and thought-provoking debut."
The New Earth (2023) Jess Row "Riveting and brilliant, The New Earth throws down a gauntlet around Jewishness, diaspora, and the historical production of whiteness in America with such tremendous force that the novel feels epochal. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that the American literary landscape will be quite the same after the effects of this work are felt. A novel at once sprawling and deeply intimate, I had to stop reading many times simply to marvel at Row's creation of this family and the book that holds them."
The Night Burns Bright (2022) Ross Barkan "Captivating from the very first page, The Night Burns Bright is a consummate thriller from the pen of a philosopher-poet. Barkan has done something wonderful, subtle, and brilliant here: in the character of Lucien - a young boy whose subjectivity is cast in the fires of 9/11 - we find a contemporary Virgil, a trusted guide to the sweep of time, ruin, and the small beauties that have defined the early 21st century. Rarely has a character been such a fully-fleshed out, heartfelt, addictively readable historian of our times."
Dead Collections (2022) Isaac Fellman "A moving and provocative novel, that caresses the decay nibbling at the hard edges of postmodern officescapes, exposing a sexy, neurotic, cinematic vampire love story bubbling up from the ruins."
Summer Fun (2021) Jeanne Thornton "There is no way to prepare for Summer Fun; we can only submit to Thornton's surreal, captivating and startlingly sui generis world. Summer Fun is a fully realized vision so strange and compelling that even in writing this blurb I still can't quite shake the sensation of having genuinely known these characters, if only for a short and magical while."
Future Feeling (2021) Joss Lake "Future Feeling marks a delightful contribution to the ultra contemporary sci-fi canon. Like (and unlike) the best of cyberpunk, Lake transforms the alienation and flatness of technoculture into a fully dimensional and absorbing alternate reality complete with sprawling queer resistance movements, t4t flirting/obsessions, and sexy magic plant life. And like the best humor writing, Future Feeling is ridiculously fun and smart, and accomplishes that rare and difficult goal: the conversion of anxiety into laughter. I loved this book. It is about the internet, but it is more fun than the internet!"
Sorrowland (2021) Rivers Solomon "A furious utopia. Utterly compelling, brilliant and terrifying. Sorrowland seizes the history of white supremacy, racist medical experimentation, and the dream - and danger - of the commune and gnashes it into something magnificent and truly reparative. An epic fantasy that interweaves righteous, large-scale confrontations with power, extremely sexy and moving erotic gothic horror, and exquisite, meticulous renderings of the daily life of parenting. This is a fairy tale for adults, spangled in the wreckage of the world. A gorgeous, singular, and profound work."
The Recent East (2021) Thomas Grattan "An epic that blossoms more than sprawls, The Recent East is capacious in its scope and generously, exquisitely controlled in its pacing and language. This is not a novel that falls through on its promises; every sentence renews the possibility of entering the world of this book, every page offers a new seduction."
Detransition, Baby (2021) Torrey Peters "Torrey Peters just took everything that couldn't be done, and did it ... Plenty of books are good; this book is alive."
It Is Wood, It Is Stone (2020) Gabriella Burnham "An absorbing and remarkably assured debut, It Is Wood, It Is Stone marries taut, cinematic suspense with intimate, textured domestic realism. Hits a major refresh button on the genre of psychological thriller and gives us something immensely satisfying and new."
The Thirty Names of Night (2020) Zeyn Joukhadar "Stunning...vivid, visceral, and urgent....This clarifying and moving tale has far-reaching significance and appeal."
