Summer Books
Preview Courtesy of Penguin Press
Courtesy of Knopf
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
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I t’s summer 2020, and you know what that means: sitting quietly by yourself inside, leaving your
phone in another room and reading.

It’s certainly not the summer that we anticipated, but that doesn’t mean a good book can’t take
you somewhere else for a few hours. Here’s a preview of some of the summer’s hottest new reads.

“Death in Her Hands”
Ottessa Moshfegh (June 23)
Moshfegh, 39, might be the best young novelist
in America. “Death in Her Hands,” her latest
novel, delayed for a few months but now here
at last, is the story of an elderly woman who
thinks that she may have discovered a murder.

Her last novel, “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,”
grabbed the publicity, but check out her novella,
“McGlue,” fi rst.

“Cool for America: Stories”
Andrew Martin (July 7)
Andrew Martin writes stories about young
16 JUNE 25, 2020
Courtesy of Farrar, Strauss and
people that are sad and trying hard not to be.

“Cool for America,” his fi rst collection, borrows
some of the characters from his well-regarded
debut novel, “Early Work,” for stories about
people who doing their best not to just give up.

“Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir”
Natasha Trethewey (July 28)
Today, Trethewey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
poet, and has served as the United States poet
laureate. But when she was 19, she was grieving
her mother, murdered by her stepfather. Trethewey
retraces her mother’s steps through the segregated
South to that awful day on Memorial Drive, giving a
history of her own childhood along the way.

“The Wild Laughter”
Caoilinn Hughes (July 30)
If you follow publishing trends closely, it seems
that new literary histories of the devastation of
the 2007-2008 fi nancial crises are published every
week. Hughes, however, sets her story in her native
Ireland, for a change of pace. Her novel asks a
deceptively simple question: What do people do
when they feel they have nothing to lose?
THIS SUMMER
Courtesy of Ecco
“A Burning”
Megha Majumdar (June 2)
Majumdar’s debut novel tells the story of three
Indians — Jivan, PT Sir and Lovely — caught
up in the complex web of politics, class and
corruption. Jivan must try to clear her name aft er
being accused of committing a terrorist act, and
Lovely, the only one who could exonerate her, can’t
do it. Meanwhile, PT Sir’s ambitions depend on
Jivan’s failure.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



Courtesy of Oneworld
“Via Negativa”
Daniel Hornsby (Aug. 11)
The newly homeless Father
Dan, kicked out of his conser-
vative diocese, is now a monk
on the move, living out of
his Camry as he travels the
country searching for peace.

He’s on his way to finding it,
he believes, before he witnesses
the vehicular injuring of a fox,
who becomes his companion
on his increasingly weird
journey across America.

Courtesy of Crown
Courtesy of Riverhead Books
Courtesy of Knopf
“The Sprawl”
Jason Diamond (Aug. 25)
The suburbs are not typically
considered to be incubators
of uniquely American art and
culture; in fact, many stories
about artists with suburban
origins typically posit that their
success came in spite of their
surroundings. In “The Sprawl,”
Diamond seeks to challenge the
narrative that the suburbs are
the place “where art happens
despite: despite the conformity,
the emptiness, the sameness.”
“The Lying Life of Adults”
Elena Ferrante (Sept. 1)
Fer ra nte’s
Neapol ita n
novels, translated from Italian,
have brought her fame the world over (you can watch an adapta-
tion of the best-known one, “My Brilliant Friend,” on HBO, and
this newest novel will be adapted for Netflix). The pseudonymous
writer is frequently listed in discussions regarding future Nobel
Prize winners; we advise trying to get on the bandwagon as early
as you can. Ferrante’s newest novel takes place in Naples yet
again, but with a new cast of characters.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Courtesy of Coffee House Press
Courtesy of Europa Editions
“Mother for Dinner”
Shalom Auslander (Sept. 22)
Upon the death of his mother, Seventh Seltzer, a “Cannibal-
American,” is forced to confront the community tradition he’d
always dreaded: He has to eat her. Seventh has to contend with
the fact that the Seltzer family is flung all over country; what’s
he going to do, eat her by himself? Cannibal-Americans, a once
thriving ethnic group, have more or less assimilated, and only
their Uncle Ishmael still knows how to undertake the eating
ritual. If this insane premise works for you, give Auslander a try.

“True Believer”
Abraham Riesman, (Sept. 29)
Whatever you love or hate Marvel Comics and the movies
they’ve spawned, there is no denying the massive effect they’ve
had on the American cultural landscape. Riesman, who
frequently writes on Jewish subjects, delivers a biography of Stan
Lee, the man behind it all. It’s a serious look from someone who
holds an abiding love for Lee’s work, without letting it blind a
critical, journalistic eye. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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