Notes from No Man's Land and Geoff Dyer in 2011 for Otherwise Known as the
Human Condition. In addition, Deborah Baker s The Convert was a finalist for a ...
G RAYWOLF P RESS
Celebrating 40 Years
New Titles & Selected Backlist Spring 2014
W
e’re feeling celebratory here, as we mark Graywolf’s fortieth anniversary of independent publishing. We have come a long way since the early days of our letterpress poetry chapbooks. In particular, it has been very gratifying over the last decade to see the success of our titles across all genres: s )N lCTION Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson was a New York Times Book of the Year for 2007, Salvatore Scibona’s The End WAS A lNALIST FOR A .ATIONAL "OOK !WARD IN AND +EVIN "ARRYS exuberant City of Bohane WON THE )NTERNATIONAL )-0!# $UBLIN ,ITERARY !WARD IN s )N POETRY -ARY *O "ANGS Elegy WON THE .ATIONAL "OOK #RITICS #IRCLE !WARD FOR POETRY IN AND $ ! 0OWELL WON IT IN FOR Useless Landscape. %LIZABETH !LEXANDER READ AT 0RESIDENT /BAMAS INAUGURATION IN 4OMAS 4RANSTRÚMER WON THE .OBEL 0RIZE IN AND 4RACY + 3MITH WON THE 0ULITZER 0RIZE IN FOR Life on Mars. s )N NONlCTION !GAIN WE HAVE TWO .ATIONAL "OOK #RITICS #IRCLE WINNERS—Eula Biss in 2009 for Notes from No Man’s Land AND 'EOFF $YER IN FOR Otherwise Known as the Human Condition. In ADDITION $EBORAH "AKERS The Convert WAS A lNALIST FOR A .ATIONAL "OOK !WARD IN !S ONE AGENT RECENTLY REMARKED 'RAYWOLF IS PUNCHING ABOVE ITS WEIGHT /UT OF THE THIRTY TITLES WE PUBLISHED IN FOUR WERE LISTED IN THE New York Times one hundred notable books of the year: Steve Stern’s The Book of Mischief, +EVIN 9OUNGS The Grey Album, $ANIEL 3ADAS Almost Never, AND +EVIN "ARRYS City of Bohane. $URING THIS TIME WE LAUNCHED OUR NONlCTION PRIZE TO ATTRACT BOOKS SUCH AS %ULA "ISSS EXTRAORDINARY Notes from No Man’s Land, and we have also been building our list of craft books, the Art of series, EDITED BY #HARLES "AXTER 4HIS CATALOG ANNOUNCES THE TENTH IN THIS VERY POPULAR SERIES /UR INTERNATIONAL LIST HAS BEEN GROWING TOO WITH WRITERS FROM 3CANDINAVIA +ENYA 'ERMANY &RANCE -EXICO "RITAIN and Ireland. I’m also delighted by the number of writers who have published multiple books with us: %LIZABETH !LEXANDER 2OBERT "OSWELL 0ERCIVAL %VERETT .ICK &LYNN 4ESS 'ALLAGHER !LBERT 'OLDBARTH !LYSON (AGY -ATTHEA (ARVEY 4ONY (OAGLAND *ESSICA &RANCIS +ANE AND * 2OBERT ,ENNON 7E ARE SO proud to have these singular writers—and many more—in the Graywolf stable (or should that be den?). The whole team here joins me in sending forty thousand thanks to everyone who supports Graywolf through generous donations, which give us the freedom to take risks that perhaps other publishers canNOT !ND ANOTHER FORTY THOUSAND THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO WRITE BUY REVIEW TEACH AND READ 'RAYWOLFS books: you are our lifeblood. —Fiona McCrae Director and Publisher
A Note from the Author )T ALL STARTED WITH A FOREST lRE AT THE BEGINNING OF -AY ! FEW
a connection between the pyromaniac and my own . . . hot
weeks later two old stables burned down. In the end, there
seat, so to speak, which in the end is what shapes Before I Burn.
WERE IN TOTAL TEN lRES THREE OF WHICH WERE HOUSES AND ALL
!S FAR AS THIS NOVEL IS CONCERNED EVERYTHING STARTED
WERE RAZED TO THE GROUND &OUR PEOPLE WERE A HAIRS BREADTH
with the pyromaniac, and charting what actually happened
FROM DEATH !LL THIS OCCURRED WITHIN A RADIUS OF TEN KILOME-
IN THE SPRING OF $URING MY RESEARCH ) FOUND MYSELF
ters from my childhood home. I was only a few months old
becoming more and more involved, not least through the
AT THE TIME SO YOU COULD SAY WITH SOME JUSTIlCATION ) WAS
PEOPLE ) SPOKE TO WHO TOLD ME THEIR lRE STORIES PEOPLE )
BORN INTO THIS DRAMA !LL OF A SUDDEN A SMALL PARISH OF EIGHT
have known all my life and who appear to varying degrees
hundred inhabitants became national front page news. Even
in the novel. In that way my story became a part of the
the national TV news carried a big splash when things were
story about the pyromaniac, and cast a new light over both
at their peak. The investigation involved the murder squad,
him and me.
and the police set up a base in the local village hall. In the
I write about my landscape, my people. This is what has
weeks of the arson attacks people were likening the situation
shaped me; this is what I have grown up with. But the same is
to wartime, and it really was like being at war. People sat
TRUE FOR THE PYROMANIAC !ND IN FACT THE MORE ) EXAMINED HIS
guarding their houses, the church, with guns. Most assumed
background, the more it struck me that we had very similar
the perpetrator was someone from outside the area—after
starting points. We were both good boys, clever and well
all who would do this type of thing to their own?
liked. We could become whatever we wanted; the future lay
%IGHT OF THE lRES WERE STARTED OVER THREE DAYS OVER A WEEK-
AT OUR FEET !ND IN THE END THINGS WENT AWRY FOR BOTH OF US
END FROM A &RIDAY MORNING UNTIL THE 3UNDAY NIGHT 4HAT SAME
in different ways, but nonetheless they did. That is what the
3UNDAY ) WAS CHRISTENED IN &INSLAND #HURCH 4HERE HAD BEEN
novel is about, I think, the flames we all carry, an insanity
big question marks as to whether there would be any christen-
that can threaten us at any time. The thin veneer of rational-
ing. The night after was also the worst night of all. So there is
ity that separates insanity from sanity.
h,UMINOUSLY WRITTEN (EIVOLLS UNHURRIED PROSE SATISFYingly addresses the mysteries of memory and the precariousness of human existence.”—The Times (UK) h4HANKS TO (EIVOLLS ADROIT AND SENSITIVE HANDLING OF HIS THEMES ¥ 0AAL !UDESTAD
this semi-autobiographical account of old crimes is elevated and transformed into a great novel.”—The Glasgow Herald h(EIVOLL HAS WRITTEN IN THIS NOVEL ABOUT IDENTIlABLE PEOPLE and this high-risk strategy has been enormously worth the risk.
Gaute Heivoll’s Before I Burn was a best seller in Norway.
It is existence itself—its mental and physical pains, its blood-
The novel won the Brage Prize and was nominated for the Critics Prize
lust offset by the many beauties of natural forms and natural
and the Booksellers’ Prize, and it has been sold to more than twenty
affections—that is the writer’s subject, not the nailing of par-
countries.
ticularities to persons.”—The Independent (UK)
Based on a true account: An international literary sensation about an arsonist on the loose in rural Norway and of the young man haunted by the story “One of the best books I have ever read.” , author of the Inspector Sejer crime series
“Gaute Heivoll is one of the finest voices of his generation. Before I Burn is a glowing depiction of the darkness in an isolated human being’s mind.” , author of My Struggle
Before I Burn A Novel GAUTE HEIVOLL T R A N S L AT E D F RO M T H E N O RW E G I A N B Y D O N B A RT L E T T A L A N N A N T R A N S L AT I O N S E L E C T I O N
)N S .ORWAY AN ARSONIST TARGETS A SMALL TOWN FOR ONE
STORY !T THE NOVELS APEX AT A LITERARY FESTIVAL IN )TALY THE LIVES
long, terrifying month. One by one, buildings go up in flames.
OF (EIVOLLS FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS MIX WITH HIS OWN LIFE AS THE
Suspicion spreads among the neighbors as they wonder if one of
identity of the arsonist and his motivations are slowly revealed.
their own is responsible. But as the heat and panic rise, new life
"ASED ON THE TRUE ACCOUNT OF .ORWAYS MOST DRAMATIC ARSON
lNDS A WAY TO EMERGE !MID THE CHAOS ONLY A DAY AFTER THE LAST
case, Before I Burn is a powerful, gripping breakout novel from
HOUSE IS SET AlRE THE COMMUNITY DRAWS TOGETHER FOR THE CHRIS-
an exceptionally talented author.
TENING OF A YOUNG BOY NAMED 'AUTE (EIVOLL !S HE GROWS UP
Brit., trans., 1st ser., audio, dram.: Atlantic Books c/o Inkwell Management
STORIES ABOUT THE TIME OF FEAR AND lRE BECOME DEEPLY INGRAINED in his young mind until, as an adult, he begins to retell the
Fiction, 320 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Hardcover (978-1-55597-661-3), $26.00, January / Ebook Available
Now in paperback, “an achingly gorgeous heartbreaker” about the families on one street during the buildup to Sri Lanka’s civil war ( )
“A lovely portrait of Sri Lanka in the lead-up to the country’s civil war.” “A rich sensory novel. . . . Freeman never strays far from the neighborhood’s youngest inhabitants. They are wondrous to behold, with their intelligence, imagination and innocence. I don’t know that I’ve seen children more opulently depicted in fiction since Dickens.” “Piercingly intelligent and shatter-your-heart profound, Ru Freeman’s /N 3AL -AL ,ANE is as luminous as it is wrenching, as fierce as it is generous. This is a riveting, important, beauty of a book.” , author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
On Sal Mal Lane A Novel RU FREEMAN
“The menacing backdrop of inevitable war illuminates
h;&REEMANS= INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS ARE NUANCED AND RICHLY WRIT-
&REEMANS DEPICTION OF CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE AND EVERYDAY LIFE
ten—you wish you could stay on their peaceful lane forever,
in this well-written, heart-wrenching novel.”—USA Today
but of course you can’t, and neither can they.”—Oprah.com, “Book of the Week”
h&REEMANS POWERFUL SECOND NOVEL FOCUSES ON ORDINARY CHILDREN living their lives as war clouds build.”—People, “Great Reads”
Ru Freeman is the author of ! $ISOBEDIENT 'IRL a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature that has been translated into seven languages. An activist and journalist whose work appears internationally, she calls both Sri Lanka and America home.
“On Sal Mal Lane succeeds, gathering gravitas and emotional DEPTH &REEMAN MAKES IT A CHOICE READING DESTINATIONv —Newsday
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Barer Literary
h)T THRUMS WITH VITALITY /N THIS ONE STREET WE CAN lND LIFE
4HIS BOOK IS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE #OLLEGE OF St. Benedict, and honors the legacy of S. Mariella Gable, a distinguished TEACHER AT THE #OLLEGE
in all its joy and pain, life lived by people who are so alive.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Fiction, 424 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback (978-1-55597-676-7), $16.00, May / Ebook Available
“Intricately imagined and timely. . . . Maazel is an entertaining writer with a dry, droll sense of humor.” %DITORS #HOICE
“Hilarious and heartbreaking.” “Brilliantly imagined.” “Maazel’s insights are as sound as her imagination is wild.” ., “The talented Maazel has plenty of imagination.” “Uniformly entertaining. . . . It’s thrilling to imagine what Fiona Maazel might do next.”
Wo ke U p L o n e l y A Novel FIONA MAAZEL
Woke Up Lonely follows a cult leader, his ex-wife, and the four
h/NE OF THE BEST PIECES OF lCTION AND SOCIAL SATIRE OF THE
PEOPLE HE TAKES HOSTAGE )TS ABOUT LONELINESS IN !MERICA .ORTH
year.”—The Millions
+OREA ESPIONAGE A CITY UNDERNEATH #INCINNATI CLOUD SEEDING
h-AAZEL TAKES A CUE FROM +URT 6ONNEGUT BY CREATING A NOVEL
and eavesdropping. It’s also a big, sweeping love story.
that blends the plot of a dramatic thriller with wacky humor AND BITS OF SCIENCE lCTIONv—Bust
h;!= FUN FARCEv—Cosmopolitan
Fiona Maazel is the author of ,AST ,AST #HANCE She is winner of the Bard Prize for Fiction and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. She teaches at Brooklyn College, Columbia, New York University, and Princeton. She lives in Brooklyn.
“Woke Up Lonely is another wunderkammer, a deeply felt and wildly original novel that repays the attention it demands, and once read won’t soon be forgotten.”—Bookforum
Brit., trans., dram.: Donald Maass Literary Agency Audio: Dreamscape
Fiction, 352 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback (978-1-55597-672-9), $15.00, April / Ebook Available
A Note from the Author ) lRST LEARNED OF "LIND 4OM IN THE PAGES OF /LIVER 3ACKSS
THE #ONFEDERATE CAUSE OR WAS HE AS ONE
An Anthropologist on Mars. To illustrate the phenomenon of
chronicler wrote, “fortunate because
the autistic savant, Sacks recounts the life of Tom Wiggins,
his blindness and idiocy did not
BORN A SLAVE IN 'EORGIA IN "EFORE HE WAS TEN YEARS OLD
allow him to know that he was
4OM BECAME THE lRST !FRICAN !MERICAN TO PERFORM AT THE
EITHER A .EGRO OR A SLAVEv These were not questions
7HITE (OUSE AND HE WENT ON TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL DECADES long career that took him to stages around the world. I was
that a novel had to answer.
taken by Tom’s ability to play and sing three songs at once,
Indeed, my imagination flour-
each in a different key; by his abstract compositions that
ished in the spaces between
mimicked the sound of natural and man-made phenomena
the skeletal facts of Tom’s
such as rainwater and sewing machines; by his ability to
life. My greatest challenge
reproduce any melody or composition he heard; and by his
WAS lNDING MY OWN STORY
prodigious memory.
in Tom’s and constructing
!LTHOUGH "LIND 4OM WAS PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS STAGE
an engaging narrative that
pianist of his era and highly regarded by contemporary
would do more than reflect
REVIEWERS AND WELL KNOWN PUBLIC lGURES—NOTABLY 5LYSSES
the historical record. That
'RANT -ARK 4WAIN AND 7ILLA #ATHER—by the twentieth
process took over nine years
century he had largely disappeared from history, victim of
of trial and error, of failure and
THE SAVANT LABEL *UST WHO WAS THIS "LIND 4OM 7AS HE A MUSI-
triumph. But I am all the better for
CAL GENIUS WHO HAD BEEN FORCED TO GIVE CONCERTS TO BENElT
it, for Tom.
Praise for Holding Pattern: “Imaginative, empathic, brave and beautifully told, these are astonishing and transcendent stories.”—Chicago Tribune h;!LLENS= CONSIDERABLE POETIC GIFTS OF OBSERVANCE HELP KEEP ¥ -ARK (ILLRINGHOUSE
aloft stories that might crash and burn in lesser hands.” —Paste Magazine h4HE PRODIGIOUSLY TALENTED *EFFERY 2ENARD !LLEN IS WITHOUT question one of our most important writers.”—Junot Díaz
Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of the novel 2AILS 5NDER -Y
h*EFFERY 2ENARD !LLENS POETIC VISION IS STUNNING TRAGIC
Back, the story collection (OLDING 0ATTERN and two collections of
WILDLY FUNNY AND MOST OF ALL ALIVE (E IS THE RARE WRITER
poetry. Raised in Chicago and now living in New York, he teaches at
who borrows from no one and doesn’t pander to anyone.”
Queens College and in the Writing Program at the New School.
—Mary Gaitskill
A contemporary American masterpiece about music, race, an unforgettable man, and an unreal America during the Civil War era Praise for Rails Under My Back: A .EW 9ORK 4IMES Notable Book “Powerful stuff.” “[Allen’s] language . . . demonstrates extraordinary poise. . . . Besides Joyce and Faulkner, other 20th-century novelists whose work Allen’s calls to mind are Dos Passos, Ellison and Henry Roth—an indication of the remarkable literary company in which this novel may be seen to move.” “Big, ambitious, picaresque, and beautiful.”
“A novel of immense power.”
Song of the Shank A Novel J E F F E RY R E N A R D A LLE N
!S THE NOVEL RANGES FROM 4OMS BOYHOOD TO THE HEIGHTS OF HIS
!T THE HEART OF THIS REMARKABLE NOVEL IS 4HOMAS 'REENE Wiggins, a nineteenth-century slave and improbable musical
performing career, the inscrutable savant is buffeted by oppor-
genius who performed under the name Blind Tom.
tunistic teachers and crooked managers, crackpot healers and MILITANT PROPHETS )N HIS SYMPHONIC NOVEL !LLEN BLENDS HISTORY
Song of the Shank OPENS IN AS 4OM AND HIS GUARDIAN Eliza Bethune, struggle to adjust to their fashionable apartment
and fantastical invention to bring to life a radical cipher, a man
IN THE #ITY IN THE AFTERMATH OF RIOTS THAT HAD DRIVEN THEM AWAY
who profoundly changes all who encounter him.
a few years before. But soon a stranger arrives from the myste-
Brit., audio: Graywolf Press
rious island of Edgemere—INHABITED SOLELY BY !FRICAN SETTLERS
Trans., 1st ser., dram.: Cynthia Cannell Literary Agency
and black refugees from the war and riots—who intends to !LSO AVAILABLE
reunite Tom with his now-liberated mother.
Holding Pattern &ICTION 0APERBACK
Fiction, 608 pages, 6 x 9, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-680-4), $20.00, June / Ebook Available
G E O F F DY E R ’ S F I R S T T WO N OV E L S , N E V E R
“A short, brilliant novel, The Search offers more in 150 pages than most books twice that length.”
“So it’s farewell my lovely and we’re off, on a package tour through gumshoe thriller, film noir, road movie . . . and chivalric romance. . . . An ambitious, stylish novel.” “If any British writer can try on the mantle of Calvino, Dyer can. He has a poet’s gift with metaphor as well as an ability to grasp ideas, hold them, pass them on.” “As elegant as a mathematical theorem correctly expressed.” “Dyer injects an almost magical randomness into what ought to be the most conventional of tales, and gives us Surrealism where we might have expected Dirty Realism. . . . Its after-image is hard to erase.”
The Search A Novel G EOFF DYE R
7ALKER MEETS 2ACHEL AT A GLAMOROUS PARTY BY THE "AY 7HEN she turns up at his apartment two days later, there is a hint of erotic promise in the air. But it isn’t Walker she wants—at least NOT YET (ER HUSBAND -ALORY HAS GONE MISSING AND SHE WANTS 7ALKER TO lND HIM © Matt Stuart
So begins Walker’s quest, as well as this beautiful novel that takes our hard-boiled knight across the vast landscape of an imagiNARY MIDDLE !MERICA THAT BEGINS SUBTLY TO MORPH INTO SOMETHING STRANGER 7ALKERS SEARCH INTENSIlES AND SOON IT SEEMS THAT SOME-
Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and several genre-defying books, including /THERWISE +NOWN AS THE (UMAN #ONDITION winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; /UT OF 3HEER 2AGE; and *EFF IN 6ENICE $EATH IN 6ARANASI He lives in London.
body else is searching for him. In this, his second novel, Geoff $YER CONCOCTS A SOPHISTICATED AND ENTHRALLING NARRATIVE PUZZLE Brit., trans., audio, dram.: The Wylie Agency
Fiction, 176 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-678-1), $16.00, May / Ebook Available
B E F O R E P U B L I S H E D I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S
The first novel, in revised form, from “possibly the best living writer in Britain” ( )
Praise for The Colour of Memory: “Of all the hyped novels of 1980s London, it remains one of the most genuine.” “Dyer writes crisp, Martin Amis-inflected prose, full of acute perceptions and neat phrases. . . . The book abounds in colourful descriptions of familiar aspects of London life.”
Praise for Geoff Dyer: “What I find most remarkable about Dyer [is] his tone. Its simplicity, its classlessness, its accessibility and yet its erudition—the combination is a trick few British writers ever pull off. . . . [Dyer’s humor is] what separates him from Berger and Lawrence and Sontag.” ,
The Colour of Memory A Novel G EOFF DYE R
Also available, winner of the NBCC Award
In The Colour of Memory, six friends plot a nomadic course through their mid-twenties as they scratch out an existence in NEAR DESTITUTE CONDITIONS IN S 3OUTH ,ONDON 4HEY WILE away their hours drinking cheap beer, landing jobs and quickly squandering them, smoking weed, dodging muggings, listenING TO #OLTRANE lNDING AND LOSING A FACSIMILE OF LOVE COLLECTING unemployment, and discussing politics in the way of the besotted young—as if they were employed only by the lives they chose. In his vivid evocation of council flats and pubs, of a life lived IN THE TEETH OF ROMANTIC IDEALS $YER PROVIDES A SHOCKINGLY RELEVANT SNAPSHOT OF A DIFFERENT ,OST 'ENERATION
Otherwise Known as the Human Condition Nonfiction, 432 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-579-1), $18.00
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: The Wylie Agency
Fiction, 288 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-677-4), $16.00, May / Ebook Available
An enthralling, internationally best-selling portrait of an East German family through the long years of communism and its aftermath “Mr. Ruge’s novel is a pulsing, vibrant, thrillingly alive work, full of formal inventiveness, remarkable empathy and, above all, mordant and insightful wit. . . . You can see that from the ruins of the former Eastern bloc something has emerged with the power to survive and outlast the world from which it came: the art represented by Mr. Ruge’s book, which has torn down the wall between Russian epic and the Great American Novel.”
In Times of Fading Light A Novel EUGEN RUGE T R A N S L AT E D F RO M T H E G E R M A N B Y A N T H E A B E L L A L A N N A N T R A N S L AT I O N S E L E C T I O N
)N THIS REMARKABLY INTIMATE AND VIVID NOVEL %UGEN 2UGE MASTER
h0OWERFUL 2UGE HAS MANAGED TO WEAVE THE PERSONAL INTO
fully brings to life a country that is vanishing into memory and
the political in a book that functions as an ethnography of a lost
history.
time as much as it does a novel.”—San Francisco Chronicle
h!N IMPORTANT HIGHLY ACCOMPLISHED DEBUT NOVEL 4HIS
In 2011, Eugen Ruge came to international acclaim when he won the German Book Prize for )N 4IMES OF &ADING ,IGHT his debut novel, which went on to be translated into more than twenty languages.
splendid, beautifully translated novel becomes richer as it acquires a logic of its own. . . . We must be even more grateful
Audio: HighBridge
FOR 2UGES VISION AND TALENT OUT OF THAT GLOOMY BLEAK PLACE
Brit.: Faber and Faber Ltd
and time, he has given us such a unique and evocative novel.”
Trans., dram.: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH
—The Boston Globe
Fiction, 344 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback (978-1-55597-679-8), $16.00, June / Ebook Available
The first book available in English by an acclaimed Danish writer, “beautiful, faceted, haunting stories . . . [from] a rising star” ( )
“Readers of Nors’s stories are reminded of the thrills and dangers of living: never are we far from the dark undercurrent—nor exempt from the demands—of routine existence. Memories, laughter, a gesture: everything casts a shadow, meaningful or mysterious. These stories prove that no loss is too small, and each moment counts.” “This collection is a marvel—droll, compassionate, and just really smart. It takes only one story—and really just a paragraph—to note the excellence of this work in its unsentimental and forthright account of people slogging through their lives.”
Karate Chop Stories DORTHE NORS T R A N S L AT E D F RO M T H E D A N I S H B Y M A RT I N A I T K E N A L A N N A N T R A N S L AT I O N S E L E C T I O N
Karate Chop, $ORTHE .ORSS ACCLAIMED STORY COLLECTION IS THE
imagined) and mundane contemporary life, these stories
debut title in the collaboration between Graywolf Press and
encompass the complexity of human emotions, our capacity
A Public Space. 4HESE lFTEEN COMPACT STORIES ARE METICULOUSLY
FOR CRUELTY AS WELL AS COMPASSION .OT SO MUCH MINIMALIST AS
observed glimpses of everyday life that expose the ominous
stealthy, Karate Chop delivers its blows with an understatement
lurking under the ordinary: while his wife sleeps, a husband
that shows a master at work.
prowls the Internet, obsessed with female serial killers; a
Dorthe Nors is the author of five novels, and the recipient of the Danish Arts Agency’s Three Year Grant for “her unusual and extraordinary talent.” Her stories have appeared in !'.) "OSTON 2EVIEW %COTONE &ENCE ! 0UBLIC 3PACE and the .EW 9ORKER
bureaucrat tries to reinvent himself, exposing goodness as ARTIlCE WHEN HE CONVERTS TO "UDDHISM IN SEARCH OF POWER a woman sits on the edge of the bed where her lover lies,
Trans., dram.: The Gyldendal Group Agency
attempting to locate a motive for his violence within her own
1st ser., Brit., audio: Graywolf Press
self-doubt. Shifting between moments of violence (real and
Fiction, 104 pages, 5¼ x 8, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-665-1), $14.00, February / Ebook Available
Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia—em (into) and
the “air of unconcern displayed by some patients toward
pathos (feeling)—a penetration, a kind of travel. It suggests
their physical symptoms.” It is a common sign of con-
you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another coun-
version disorder, a front of indifference hiding “physi-
try, through immigration and customs, border crossing by
CAL SYMPTOMS ;THAT= MAY RELIEVE ANXIETY AND RESULT IN
way of query: What grows where you are? What are the laws?
secondary gains in the form of sympathy and attention
What animals graze there?
given by others.” La belle indifférence—outsourcing emo-
I’ve thought about Stephanie Phillips’s seizures in terms of
tional content to physical expression—is a way of invit-
possession and privacy—that converting her sadness away from
ing empathy without asking for it. In this way, encounters
DIRECT ARTICULATION IS A WAY TO KEEP IT HERS (ER REFUSAL TO MAKE
with Stephanie present a sort of empathy limit case: the
eye contact, her unwillingness to explicate her inner life, the
clinician must excavate a sadness the patient hasn’t identi-
very fact that she becomes unconscious during her own expres-
lED MUST IMAGINE DEEPLY INTO A PAIN 3TEPHANIE CANT FULLY
sions of grief and doesn’t remember them afterward—all of
experience herself. &OR OTHER CASES WE ARE SUPPOSED TO WEAR OUR ANGUISH MORE
these might be a way to keep her loss protected and pristine,
openly—LIKE A TERRIBLE SEETHING GARMENT -Y lRST TIME PLAY-
unviolated by the sympathy of others. “What do you call out during seizures?” one student asks.
ING !PPENDICITIS !NGELA )M TOLD ) MANAGE hJUST THE RIGHT
“I don’t know,” I say, and want to add, but I mean all of it.
amount of pain.” I’m moaning in a fetal position and appar-
I know that saying this would be against the rules. I’m
ently doing it right. The doctors know how to respond. I am
playing a girl who keeps her sadness so subterranean she
sorry to hear that you are experiencing an excruciating pain in your
can’t even see it herself. I can’t give it away so easily. . . .
abdomen, one says. It must be uncomfortable. Part of me has always craved a pain so visible—so irrefut-
One of the hardest parts of playing Stephanie Phillips is
able and physically inescapable—that everyone would have to
nailing her affect—la belle indifférence, A MANNER DElNED AS
notice.
Praise for Leslie Jamison’s The Gin Closet: h%XQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL *AMISON WRITES LIKE A POET HER imagery breathtaking, her sentences unfurling unpredictably.”
¥ #OLLEEN +INDER
—San Francisco Chronicle ! hKEENLY FELT ;EXPLORATION OF= LOVES MORE COMPLEX GEOMETRIESv —Vogue h*AMISON IS NO COWARD SHE WRITES COURAGEOUSLY ABOUT disease, sex and perils of the flesh without flinching.”
Leslie Jamison is the author of a novel, 4HE 'IN #LOSET
—Time Out New York
Her essays have appeared in the "ELIEVER (ARPERS /XFORD !MERICAN ! 0UBLIC 3PACE, and 4IN (OUSE She currently
h$EFT PORTRAITS LIKE THIS WILL MAKE *AMISON A VOICE TO PAY
lives in Brooklyn, New York.
attention to in the years to come.”—Bookforum
From personal loss to phantom diseases, a bold and brilliant collection, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize “A profound exploration into how empathy deepens us, yet how we unwittingly sabotage our own capacities for it. . . . This riveting book will make you a better writer, a better human.” “Brilliant. . . . The Empathy Exams earns its place on the shelf alongside Sontag.” ’ “Risky, brilliant, and full of heart. . . . Jamison’s words, torqued to a perfect balance, shine brightly, allowing both fury and wonder to open inside us.”
The Empathy E xams Essays LESLIE JAMISON
territory—from poverty tourism to phantom diseases, street
Beginning with her experience as a medical actor, paid to act OUT SYMPTOMS FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS TO DIAGNOSE ,ESLIE *AMISONS
violence to reality television, illness to incarceration—in its
visceral and revealing essays ask essential questions about our
search for a kind of sight shaped by humility and grace. The
BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERS (OW SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT ONE
Empathy Exams is a brilliant and forceful book by one of this
ANOTHER (OW CAN WE FEEL ANOTHERS PAIN ESPECIALLY WHEN PAIN
country’s vital young writers.
can be assumed, distorted, or performed? Is empathy a tool by
Trans., 1st ser., audio, dram.: The Wylie Agency
which to test or even grade each other? By confronting pain—
Brit.: Granta Books
real and imagined, her own and others’—*AMISON UNCOVERS A 4HE 'RAYWOLF 0RESS .ONlCTION 0RIZE IS FUNDED IN PART BY ENDOWED GIFTS FROM THE !RSHAM /HANESSIAN #HARITABLE 2EMAINDER 5NITRUST AND THE 2UTH %ASTON &UND OF THE %DELSTEIN &AMILY &OUNDATION
personal and cultural urgency to feel. She draws from her own experiences of illness and bodily injury to engage in an exploration that extends far beyond her life, spanning wide-ranging
Nonfiction, 256 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-671-2), $15.00, April / Ebook Available
A searing novel about two friends on opposite sides of the law, from the author of 2UST AND "ONE “a writer of immense power” ( )
Praise for Craig Davidson: “Davidson smudges the line between comedy and horror, cruelty and mercy. His remarkable stories are challenging and upsetting. Don’t look for comfort here.” “Craig Davidson’s sentences flash like punches, clean and fast and brutally beautiful, and within a few pages you’ll find yourself off-balance and cornered, unable to defend yourself, bruised by this gripping, dangerous knockout of a novel about a town and a friendship divided.” “Craig Davidson asks—and answers—some big, uncomfortable questions about the nature of our humanity.”
Cataract City A Novel C R AIG DAVI DSON
/N THE #ANADIAN SIDE OF .IAGARA &ALLS LIFE BEYOND THE TOURIST
can’t look the other way any longer. Together, they’ll be forced
TRADE ISNT EASY ,OCALS LIKE $UNCAN $IGGS AND /WEN 3TUCKEY
to survive the wilderness once more as their friendship is
HAVE FEW CHANCES TO LEAVE &OR $UNCAN THAT MEANS SHIFT WORK
pushed to the limit in this white-hot novel by a rising star.
ON A PRODUCTION LINE &OR /WEN IT MEANS PINNING IT ALL ON
Craig Davidson is the author of 2UST AND "ONE which was made into a critically acclaimed film; 3ARAH #OURT; and 4HE &IGHTER He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his work has appeared in Esquire, GQ, and the Washington Post. He lives in Toronto.
a shot at college basketball. But they should know better; THEYVE BEEN UNLUCKY BEFORE !S BOYS THEY WERE ABDUCTED and abandoned in the woods. Though they made it out alive, the memory of that time won’t fade. Over the years they drift
1st ser., audio: Graywolf Press
APART BUT WHEN $UNCAN IS DRAWN INTO A CHAOTIC WORLD OF BARE
Brit., trans., dram.: William Morris Endeavor Entertainment
KNUCKLE lGHTING AND OTHER SHADY DEALINGS /WEN NOW A COP
Fiction, 384 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-674-3), $16.00, July / Ebook Available
In paperback for the first time, the muchbeloved satirical novel the .EW 9ORK 4IMES praised as “both a treatise and a romp” “Everett is one of the most gifted and versatile of contemporary writers. . . . His work takes hold of us and won’t let go.” , “Everett [is] a scandalously under-recognized contemporary master.” “A mischievous and very funny satire on poststructuralist thought and literary ‘theory.’ ” ()
Glyph A Novel PERCIVAL E VERET T
"ABY 2ALPH HAS WAYS TO PASS THE TIME IN HIS CRIB—but they
poststructuralism, Glyph has the feverish plot of a thriller and
DONT INCLUDE STARING AT A MOBILE !IDED BY HIS MOTHER HE READS
THE PHILOSOPHICAL DEPTH OF A TEXT BY 2OLAND "ARTHES
VORACIOUSLY h!LL OF 3WIFT ALL OF 3TERNE Invisible Man, Baldwin,
Percival Everett is the author of more than twenty books. He is the recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction. He teaches at the University of Southern California and lives outside Los Angeles.
*OYCE "ALZAC !UDEN 2OETHKE v ALONG WITH A GENEROUS HELPING OF PHILOSOPHY SEMIOTICS AND TRASHY THRILLERS (ES ALSO FOND OF WRITING POEMS AND STORIES IN CRAYON "UT 2ALPH HAS LIMITS
Trans., audio, dram.: Melanie Jackson Agency
(ES MUTE BY CHOICE AND CANT DRIVE SO IN HIS OWN ESTIMA-
Brit.: Graywolf Press
TION HES NOT A GENIUS 5NFORTUNATELY FOR HIM EVERYONE ELSE DISAGREES (IS PSYCHIATRIST KIDNAPS HIM FOR TESTING AND ONCE
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HIS BRILLIANCE IS QUANTIlED )1 A 0ENTAGON OFlCER ALSO
Percival Everett by Virgil Russell &ICTION 0APERBACK
ABDUCTS HIM $IABOLICALLY FUNNY AND LACERATING IN ITS CRITIQUE OF
Erasure &ICTION 0APERBACK
Fiction, 216 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback (978-1-55597-667-5), $15.00, February / Ebook Available
Surfing in Far Rockaway, romantic obsession, and -OBY $ICK converge in this winning and refreshing memoir “This beautiful memoir is beyond cool. A voyage both erudite and affecting.” “This nightshade journey reflects on the inner Ahab inside all of us. . . . Melvillian arcana abounds, leading to a profound journey into -OBY $ICK’s infinitude of meanings, mixed with inopportune break dancing, a harrowing carjacking, and a meditation on the redemptive power of skateboarding and surfing, the allure of waves and the sea, and life itself.” , author of The Answer Is Never
T h e G r e a t F l o o d g a t e s o f t h e Wo n d e r w o r l d A Memoir JUSTIN HOCKING
*USTIN (OCKING DOESNT ADAPT EASILY TO .EW 9ORK #ITY (E
ties, from environmentalism to the Iraq war, and from twelve-
HAS PANIC ATTACKS ON THE TRAIN UNDER THE %AST 2IVER 3TRUGGLES
step meetings to Basquiat. The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld
AS AN ASSISTANT AT A ROMANCE PUBLISHER &EELS POWERLESS AS A
is an affecting portrait of an unsung neighborhood and an
LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP CRUMBLES (E COMES TO SEE HIMSELF
ORIGINAL LOOK AT THE SWIRLING WORLD OF .EW 9ORK
AS A MODERN DAY )SHMAEL AND HES LOOKING FOR A WAY OUT &AR
Justin Hocking is an avid surfer and skateboarder. He edited ,IFE AND ,IMB 3KATEBOARDERS 7RITE FROM THE $EEP %ND and his work has appeared in the 2UMPUS 4HRASHER and the .ORMAL 3CHOOL He is the executive director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center, and lives in Portland, Oregon.
2OCKAWAY IS HIS ESCAPE 4HERE HE DISCOVERS SURlNG AND A COLOR ful circle of friends, both of which prove vital to his sanity, especially in the wake of a traumatic carjacking. But the tides OF THIS MEMOIR PULL IN MORE THAN SURFBOARDS !S HE VENTURES
Trans., 1st ser., audio, dram.: Frances Goldin Literary Agency
FURTHER INTO THE DARK ON HIS OWN hNIGHT SEA JOURNEY v (OCKING
Brit.: Graywolf Press
details his obsessions, from Moby-Dick to Scientology’s naval
Nonfiction, 280 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-669-9), $15.00, March / Ebook Available
A captivating meditation on education from the author of 4HE 9ELLOW ,IGHTED "OOKSHOP Praise for TheYellow-Lighted Bookshop: “A delectable feast for the reader. . . . I cannot remember when I have read a book with such delight.” , #ITY ,IGHTS "OOKSTORE
“A rousing new tome for book lovers . . . 4HE 9ELLOW ,IGHTED "OOKSHOP mixes enthusiastic personal reading recollections with informative passages.” “A fascinating, detailed account of how bookselling has come to be what it is, with detours to Alexandria, classical Rome, and sixthcentury China, among other places. It’s an intimate book about what he calls (aptly) the ‘erotic space of reading.’”
Blackboard A Personal History of the Classroom LEWIS BUZBEE
,EWIS "UZBEE LOOKS BACK OVER A LIFETIME OF EXPERIENCES IN
system and bemoans the terrible price that state is paying as the
schools and classrooms, from kindergarten to college, and
RESULT OF FUNDING BEING CUT FROM TODAYS BUDGETS &OR "UZBEE
BEYOND (E OFFERS FASCINATING HISTORIES OF THE KEY IDEAS INFORM-
the blackboard is a precious window into the wider world,
ing educational practice over the centuries, which have shaped
which we ignore at our peril.
everything from class size to the layout of desks and chairs.
Lewis Buzbee is the author of 3TEINBECKS 'HOST !FTER THE 'OLD 2USH and &LIEGELMANS $ESIRE He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.
Buzbee deftly weaves his own biography into this overview, approaching his subject as a student, a father, and a teacher. In so doing, he offers a moving personal testament to how he,
Brit., trans., 1st ser., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press
“an average student” in danger of flunking out of high school,
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BECAME THE lRST IN HIS FAMILY TO GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE (E
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop "IOGRAPHY !UTOBIOGRAPHY 0APERBACK
CREDITS HIS SUCCESS TO THE WELL FUNDED #ALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOL
Nonfiction, 224 pages, 5 x 7, Hardcover (978-1-55597-683-5), $23.00, August / Ebook Available
The Art of Series SERIES EDITOR: CHARLES BAXTER
The Art of Recklessness
Each book in the Art of series examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, craft issue facing the CONTEMPORARY WRITER OF lCTION NONlCTION OR POETRY The series aims to restore the art of criticism while illuminating the art of writing.
Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction D E A N YO U N G 184 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-562-3, $12.00
The Art of Attention
The Art of Subtext
A Poet’s Eye
Beyond Plot
DONALD REVELL
CHARLES BAXTER
184 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-474-9, $12.00
192 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-473-2, $12.00
The Art of Description
The Art of Syntax
World into Word
Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song
MARK DOT Y 152 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-563-0, $12.00
E L L E N B RYA N T VO I G T
The Art of Intimacy
The Art of Time in Fiction
The Space Between
As Long as It Takes
S TA C E Y D ’ E R A S M O
JOAN SILBER
144 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-647-7, $12.00
128 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-530-2, $12.00
The Art of the Poetic Line
The Art of Time in Memoir
JAMES LONGENBACH
Then, Again
144 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-488-6, $12.00
SVEN BIRKERTS
192 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-531-9, $12.00
208 pages, Paperback 978-1-55597-489-3, $12.00
Award-winning poet Carl Phillips’s invaluable essays on poetry, the tenth volume in the celebrated !RT OF series of books Praise for Carl Phillips’s Coin of the Realm: “Whether he is writing about George Herbert, Sylvia Plath, or Langston Hughes, whether he is making a case for beauty, or thinking about the nature of race and gender, myth and fable, in American poetry, Carl Phillips’s prose is intriguing, learned, and unconventional, filled with insights and surprises, brightened by luminosities.” “Readers of Carl Phillips’s poetry will have some preparation for the pleasures and insights of this volume, particularly in its subtlety, originality, and historical range. . . . Incisive essays on George Herbert, the Psalms, the place of race and identity in habits of perception and reading, and the author’s growth as a writer are unified by central questions of beauty and ethics that will be of interest to anyone who cares about literature.”
The Art of Daring Risk, Restlessness, Imagination CARL PHILLIPS
)N SIX INSIGHTFUL ESSAYS #ARL 0HILLIPS MEDITATES ON THE CRAFT
Phillips writes. “I think it has something to do with revision—
of poetry, its capacity for making a space for possibility and
how, not only is the world in constant revision, but each of us
INQUIRY 7HAT DOES IT MEAN TO GIVE SHAPELESSNESS A FORM (OW
is, as well.”
can a poem at once explore the natural world and the inner
Carl Phillips is the author of a dozen books of poetry, including Silverchest and $OUBLE 3HADOW and a collection of essays, #OIN OF THE 2EALM %SSAYS ON THE !RT AND ,IFE OF 0OETRY He teaches at Washington University in Saint Louis.
world? Phillips demonstrates the restless qualities of the imagiNATION BY READING AND EXAMINING POEMS BY !SHBERY "OGAN &ROST .IEDECKER 3HAKESPEARE AND OTHERS AND BY CONSIDERING other art forms, such as photography and the blues. The Art
Brit., trans., 1st ser., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press
of Daring is a lyrical, persuasive argument for the many ways
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that writing and living are acts of risk. “I think it’s largely
Coin of the Realm ,ITERARY #RITICISM 0APERBACK
the conundrum of being human that makes us keep making,”
Nonfiction, 136 pages, 5 x 7, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-681-1), $12.00, August / Ebook Available
A brilliant combination of poetry and visual artwork by Matthea Harvey, whose vision is “nothing short of blazingly original” ( )
She didn’t even know she had a name until one day she heard the human explaining to another one, “Oh that’s just the backyard mermaid.” “Backyard Mermaid,” she murmured, as if in prayer. On days when there’s no sprinkler to comb through her curls, no rain pouring in glorious torrents from the gutters, no dew in the grass for her to nuzzle with her nose, not even a mud puddle in the kiddie pool, she wonders how much longer she can bear this life.The front yard thud of the newspaper every morning. Singing songs to the unresponsive push mower in the garage. Wriggling under fence after fence to reach the house four down which has an aquarium in the back window. She wants to get lost in that sad glowing square of blue. Don’t you? —from “The Backyard Mermaid”
I f t h e Ta b l o i d s A r e Tr u e W h a t A r e Yo u ? Poems and Images M AT T H E A H A RV E Y
Prose poems introduce deeply untraditional mermaids along-
odd, so riveting and so playful at times that one may forget how
SIDE MER TOOL SILHOUETTES ! TEXT BY 2AY "RADBURY IS ERASED INTO
intricately imagined and deftly articulated they are.”
a melancholy meeting with a Martian. The Michelin Man is
—Paul Muldoon
POSSESSED BY 7ILLIAM 3HAKESPEARE !NTONIO -EUCCIS INVENTION
Matthea Harvey is the author of four books of poetry, including 3AD ,ITTLE "REATHING -ACHINE -ODERN ,IFE winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and a .EW 9ORK 4IMES Notable Book, and /F ,AMB an illustrated erasure.
of the telephone is chronicled next to embroidered images of his real and imagined patents. If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? COMBINES (ARVEYS AWARD WINNING POETRY WITH HER FASCI-
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press
nating visual artwork into a true hybrid book, an amazing and
1st ser.: Author c/o Graywolf Press
beautiful work by one of our most ingenious creative artists.
!LSO AVAILABLE Modern Life 0OETRY 0APERBACK
h4HE POEMS OF -ATTHEA (ARVEY ARE EFFORTLESSLY AND UTTERLY original. They thrive on implication; their disclosures are so
Poetry, 160 pages, 7 x 10, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-684-2), $25.00, August
“In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford.”
Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. —from “Ask Me”
Ask Me 10 0 E s s e n t i a l P o e m s o f W i l l i a m S t a f f o r d E D I T E D BY K I M S TA F F O R D
In celebration of the poet’s centennial, Ask Me collects one
“William Stafford’s quiet presence in the landscape of
HUNDRED OF 7ILLIAM 3TAFFORDS ESSENTIAL POEMS !S A CONSCIEN-
!MERICAN POETRY IN MY LIFETIME HAS BEEN A KIND OF CONTINUING
TIOUS OBJECTOR DURING 7ORLD 7AR )) WHILE ASSIGNED TO #IVILIAN
reassurance.”—W. S. Merwin
Public Service camps, Stafford began his daily writing practice,
William Stafford (1914–1993) was the author of more than fifty books, including 4RAVELING THROUGH THE $ARK winner of the National Book Award. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and Oregon’s Poet Laureate.
A LIFELONG EARLY MORNING RITUAL OF WITNESS (IS POETRY REVEALS the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral deciSIONS AND THE BOUNTY OF ART 3ELECTED AND WITH A NOTE BY +IM
Brit., trans., dram.: Graywolf Press
Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original
Audio: Estate of William Stafford
!MERICAN VOICE
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“Stafford . . . left behind a body of work that represents some
The Way It Is 0OETRY 0APERBACK
OF THE lNEST POETRY WRITTEN DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWEN-
Another World Instead 0OETRY (ARDCOVER
tieth century.”—Library Journal
Poetry, 128 pages, 5½ x 8¼, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-664-4), $16.00, January / Ebook Available
“Hamilton is able to sustain a complex narrative through stripped-down poems . . . leavened by a wry humor.”
I wanted to read an essay in your wrist. The afternoon seemed endless. Out the window, a lane to the right was bending away, taking with it the figure moving down it. Alone for a quarter of an hour, looking in, plotting the argument, all the marks of lucidity and brevity in that attempt, that benefit of rhetoric: the true but unlikely moment. —from “Summered”
Corridor Poems S A S K I A H A M I LTO N
Corridor 3ASKIA (AMILTONS THIRD COLLECTION IS A STUDY OF MOTION
marked by unnecessary ornament or fragility, and it would be
and time. Its glanced landscapes, its lives seen in passing, ren-
a mistake to regard either as anything other than rigorously
der the immeasurable in broken narratives. These poems are
tough.”—Raymond McDaniel, Boston Review
succinct in order to travel quickly—they have unexpected dis-
Saskia Hamilton is the author of two poetry books, !S FOR $REAM and $IVIDE These; editor of 4HE ,ETTERS OF 2OBERT ,OWELL; and co-editor of Words in !IR 4HE #OMPLETE #ORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN %LIZABETH "ISHOP AND 2OBERT ,OWELL She teaches at Barnard College.
tances within their reach. They are dauntless and alert in their apprehension of the natural kingdom at the frontier of so many UNNATURAL ONES !ND THEY INHABIT THE REALM OF CONTEMPLATION WHICH FOR (AMILTON IS CHARGED WITH EROS
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press 1st ser.: Author c/o Graywolf Press
h(AMILTONS WRITING HAS BEEN CALLED SPARE AND DELICATE BUT !LSO AVAILABLE
neither of these quite gets at the effect of her poems, which
As for Dream 0OETRY 0APERBACK
are delicate only in the way a suspension bridge is: neither is
Divide These 0OETRY 0APERBACK
Poetry, 72 pages, 6 x 9, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-675-0), $16.00, May
The new poetry collection by Fanny Howe, whose “body of work seems larger, stranger, and more permanent with each new book she publishes.”
People want to be poets for reasons that have little to do with language. It’s the life of the poet that they want. Even the glow of loneliness and humiliation. To walk in the gutter with a bottle of wine. Some people’s lives are more poetic than a poem, and Francis is certainly one of these. I know, because he walked beside me for that short time whether you believe it or not. —from “Outremer”
Second Childhood Poems FANNY HOWE
h7E CANNOT DO WITHOUT &ANNY (OWEv—The Nation
&ANNY (OWES POETRY IS KNOWN FOR ITS LYRICISM FRAGMENTATION experimentation, religious engagement, and commitment
Fanny Howe is the author of more than twenty books of poetry and prose, including #OME AND 3EE 4HE ,YRICS and 4HE 7INTER 3UN .OTES ON A 6OCATION She received the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. She lives in Massachusetts.
to social justice. In Second Childhood, the observing poet is an IMPERSONAL lGURE WHO ACCOMPANIES (OWE IN HER ENCOUNTERS with chance and mystery. She is not one age or the other, in ONE TIME OR ANOTHER 3HE WRITES h4HE lRST QUESTION IN THE
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press
#ATECHISM IS 7HAT WAS HUMANITY BORN FOR To be happy is
1st ser.: Author c/o Graywolf Press
the correct answer.” !LSO AVAILABLE The Lyrics 0OETRY 0APERBACK
h/NE OF THE BOLDEST LYRIC POETS IN THE 5NITED 3TATESv
Come and See 0OETRY 0APERBACK
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Poetry, 80 pages, 5 x 7, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-682-8), $16.00, July
The anticipated new book by Mark Wunderlich, whose poetry “reminds us how fully the spirit can illuminate the depths” ( )
You hang your lantern in the far window for me to see until the cool blue of night burns and all the world is awake. With your sorghum broom you sweetened my path, pulled the woolen shawl around me while I slept. That the lightning struck the willow and did not fall—for this I am grateful. —from “Heaven-Letter”
The E ar th Avails Poems MARK WUNDERLICH
The Earth Avails evokes an all-but-lost history, when every set-
h! POET IN COMMAND OF ARCHETYPAL THEMES THAT ARE MUCH MORE
ting, thought, and action was imbued with ritual: here’s the
widely inclusive, archetypes that slither with sensual innuendo
prayer said in a time of sickness; here’s the blessing spoken
but that strike at the core of any dream-haunted reader.”
upon entering the house; here’s the letter from heaven that
—The Literary Review
PROTECTS ITS HOLDER FROM HARM AND MISFORTUNE 2ENDERED IN
Mark Wunderlich is the author of two previous poetry collections, Voluntary Servitude and 4HE !NCHORAGE winner of the Lambda Literary Award. He teaches at Bennington College and lives in upstate New York.
part from folkloric and historical sources, Mark Wunderlich’s poems reinvent these traditions with lyrical and emotive force for a new century of readers.
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press 1st ser.: Author c/o Graywolf Press
h.O MATTER THE TOPIC 7UNDERLICH ALMOST INFALLIBLY STRIKES A TONE OF HUMANE FEELING AND AESTHETIC RElNEMENTv
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—Contemporary Poetry Review
Voluntary Servitude 0OETRY 0APERBACK
Poetry, 88 pages, 6½ x 9, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-666-8), $15.00, February
“Nick Lantz writes with elegant simplicity. Most poets take a lifetime to learn as much.”
It’s fast and cool as running water, the way we forget the names of friends with whom we talked and talked the long drives up and down the coast. I say I love and I love and I love. However, the window will not close. However, the hawk searches for its nest after a storm. However, the discarded nail longs to hide its nakedness inside the tire. —from “Fork with Two Tines Pushed Together”
How to Dance as the Roof Caves In Poems NICK LANTZ
How to Dance as the Roof Caves In EXAMINES !MERICA FACING A
the same time, he is a heartbreaker, a poet who’d risk it all
recession of collective mood and collective wealth. In a cen-
for love.”—D. A. Powell
tral sequence, the “housing bubble” reaches its bursting point
Nick Lantz is the author of two previous poetry books, 7E $ONT +NOW 7E $ONT +NOW and 4HE ,IGHTNING 4HAT 3TRIKES THE .EIGHBORS (OUSE He teaches at Sam Houston State University and lives in Texas.
when, with hilarious and biting outcomes, real estate developers hire a married couple and other down-and-out “extras” to stage a fake community to lure perspective investors. In these
Brit., trans., audio, dram.: Graywolf Press
MARVELOUS POEMS .ICK ,ANTZ DESCRIBES THE CHANGING !MERICAN
1st ser.: Author c/o Graywolf Press
landscape with great imagination and sharp wit.
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h.ICK ,ANTZ IS A DARK SATIRIST A SUBVERSIVE EYE TRAINED ON THE
We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, Poetry, Paperback
waste lawns of suburbia and a cunning ear attuned to the frightENINGLY FUNNY BITS OF LANGUAGE THAT ASSAIL US IN MASS MEDIA !T
Poetry, 96 pages, 6 x 9, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-670-5), $15.00, March
The debut poetry collection by actor, director, and writer James Franco I’m a nocturnal creature, And I’m here to cheat time. You can see time and exhaustion Taking pay from my face— In fifty years My sleep will be death, I’ll go like the rest, But I’ll have played All the games and all the roles. —from “Nocturnal”
Directing Herbert White Poems JAMES FRANCO
h4HERES NEVER BEEN A BOOK QUITE LIKE THIS (OLLYWOOD—
#ATHERINE $ENEUVE 3AL -INEO (EATH ,EDGER PASS AND FADE
fame, celebrity, the promise of becoming an artist—is the
The author has a wonderful self-reflexive insouciance about
BEAST AT ITS CENTER &RANCO KNOWS IT LIKE -ELVILLE KNOWS WHAL-
HIS OWN FAME AND ROLES INHABITED FROM (ART #RANE TO !LLEN
ING (OLLYWOOD IN THIS BOOK DEVOURS ITS YOUNG /BSESSED WITH
'INSBERG TO (ARVEY -ILKS LOVER &RANCO IS A GIFTED CONTEMPO-
MYTHS ABOUT ITS OWN PAST IT CAN BE SURVIVED ONLY BY lNDING A
RARY 2ENAISSANCE KIND OF GUY SURVEYING THE WATERFRONT OF ILLU-
VANTAGE POINT THAT IS NOT (OLLYWOOD "OLD YET SUBTLE FEARLESS
sion, suffering, and impermanence. We leave the movie theater
YET DISARMING &RANCO HAS MADE A BOOK YOU WILL NEVER FORGETv
a little wiser.”—Anne Waldman
—Frank Bidart
James Franco is an actor, director, writer, and artist. He has appeared in numerous films, and has directed and adapted many literary works for the screen, including Frank Bidart’s “Herbert White.”
h! STAR STUDDED CAST MOVES LIKE GHOSTS ACROSS THE SCREEN OF *AMES &RANCOS POETIC CONSCIOUSNESS IMBUING THE WRITING with scenes of icons who are also humans replete with sorrow
Brit., trans., 1st ser., audio: Graywolf Press
AND PRESENCE IN OUR OWN PSYCHES *AMES $EAN -ONICA 6ITTI
Dram.: 3 Arts Entertainment
Poetry, 96 pages, 6 x 9, Paperback Original (978-1-55597-673-6), $15.00, April
R E C E N T
B A C K L I S T
Dark Lies the Island
Duplex
Stories
A Novel
K E V I N B A R RY
K AT H RY N D AV I S
Fiction, 192 pages, Hardcover (978-1-55597-651-4), $24.00 Ebook Available
Fiction, 208 pages, Hardcover (978-1-55597-653-8), $24.00 Ebook Available
There Are Little Kingdoms
Boleto
Stories
A Novel
K E V I N B A R RY
A LY S O N H A G Y
Fiction, 160 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-652-1), $14.00 Ebook Available
Fiction, 280 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-663-7), $15.00 Ebook Available
3 Sections
Inferno
Poems
A New Translation
V I J AY S E S H A D R I
DANTE ALIGHIERI ; A N E W T R A N S L AT I O N B Y M A RY J O B A N G ; I L L U S T R AT E D B Y H E N R I K DRESCHER
Poetry, 88 pages, Hardcover (978-1-55597-662-0), $22.00
Poetry, 352 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-654-5), $20.00
Swoop
Urban Tumbleweed
Poems
Notes from a Tanka Diary
HAILEY LEITHAUSER
H A R RY E T T E M U L L E N
Poetry, 80 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-657-6), $15.00
Poetry, 144 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-656-9), $15.00
Scratching the Ghost Poems DEXTER L . BOOTH Poetry, 96 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-660-6), $15.00
AWA R D
W I N N E R S
A N D
City of Bohane
B O O K S
O F
N O T E
A Novel
Otherwise Known as the Human Condition
K E V I N B A R RY
Selected Essays and Reviews
Fiction, 304 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-645-3), $15.00 Ebook Available
G E O F F DY E R
Notes from No Man’s Land
The Convert
American Essays
A Tale of Exile and Extremism
EULA BISS
DEBORAH BAKER
Nonfiction, 248 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-518-0), $15.00 Ebook Available
Nonfiction, 272 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-627-9), $15.00 Ebook Available
Life on Mars
The Half-Finished Heaven
Poems TR ACY K. SMITH
The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer
Poetry, 88 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-584-5), $15.00
C H O S E N A N D T R A N S L AT E D B Y R O B E R T B LY
Nonfiction, 432 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-579-1), $18.00 Ebook Available
Poetry, 122 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-351-3), $15.00
The Grey Album
Almost Never
On the Blackness of Blackness
A Novel
K E V I N YO U N G
DANIEL SADA ; T R A N S L AT E D F R O M THE S PANI S H BY K AT H E R I N E S I LV E R
Nonfiction, 504 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-607-1), $25.00 Ebook Available
Fiction, 344 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-609-5), $16.00 Ebook Available
Elegy Poems
Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys
M A RY J O B A N G
Poems
Poetry, 104 pages, Paperback (978-1-55597-540-1), $15.00
D. A . POWELL Poetry, 120 pages, Hardcover (978-1-55597-605-7), $22.00
