Sara: Thanks for chatting today! I’m really excited to talk about your new book!
Bethany Morrow: Me too!
SB: I just want to start off with a kind of overview question. Can you talk about the experience you’ve had thus far as a debut novelist? You were at Winter Institute, and our manager Ben met you there (and loves the book, as I do), so I think it’d be really cool to hear a bit about the experience from the author’s end.
We have been waiting for MONTHS to share this book! Comemadre has been a store favorite since March, when we got a single Advance Copy into the store and circulated it around the staff like a black market substance. Since the love for this book is so strong, we couldn't decide whose review to include. So take a look below at all our descriptions, then swing by the store to pick up a copy of this weird little gem from Coffee House Press.
“Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.” – Roxane Gay
Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li meets our shelves today! I had the honor to interview her. We talked about many things, but mostly this gem of a book, so check it out and get a copy!
Happy Juneteenth! When we first thought of compiling a reading list for the holiday, we ran into two problems. First, not everyone knows what Juneteenth is or what it represents. Second, there’s no way we’re even close to being the leading experts on what it means to celebrate black history and identity. To make a long story short, we asked local authors, whose work we admire and who engage the community, to share their favorite books that celebrate everything that goes into Juneteenth.
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Published: Haymarket Books - April 17th, 2018
"Black women writing unapologetically free. Read this and get your life!"
Jonathan Moody
Author of Olympic Butter Gold and The Doomy Poems. His poetry has appearedin African American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Borderlands, The Common, among other publications, and is forthcoming in Harvard Review Online.
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Published: Penguin Classics - February 4th, 2003
"When I was sixteen, I encountered My Bondage And My Freedom and took note of how Douglass decimated the patronizing myth/oxymoron of the “benevolent” slave master. Twenty-three years later, the scene of a young Douglass tricking his slave master’s son into teaching him how to read still lingers as a testament to how reading is a subversive act that can liberate minds."
Liara Tamani
Author of Calling My Name. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College and a BA from Duke University.
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Published: Oxford University Press, USA - December 14th, 1989
"It’s hard to talk about the beauty and importance of this book in a few sentences. For those who may not know, Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American to publish a book. Although she was a slave, her poetry was famous. Through her poems and letters, we get a glimpse of her life…of her dreams…of her struggle for freedom for herself and others."
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Published: Restless Books - February 14th, 2017
"There is so much history and wisdom in this book of essays. Although written at the beginning of the twentieth century, the double consciousness that DuBois explores in this book is still the experience of many black Americans today. It’s a classic."
"This is the novel that made me fall in love with writing as a teen. It was the first book I saw myself in. I was drawn to the beauty of the language and the exploration of a young black girl’s internalization of the white beauty standard."
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Published: Liveright - June 13th, 2011
"I love the structure of this book—songs, poems, stories, and sketches beautifully woven together in celebration of black culture. It’s so rich and soulful."
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Published: Greenwillow Books - October 24th, 2017
"Yes, it’s my own book but I’m not just shamelessly plugging it. :) Calling My Name has a whole chapter that takes place at a Juneteenth Festival, so it’s fitting for this list. And it explores the interior life of a young black girl growing up in the suburbs in the South, a very common African-American experience but one not explored a lot in literature."
Ebony Stewart
Author of Home, Girl, Hood. Stewart is a touring performance artist and slam poet who has been active in the central Texas slam poetry scene and theater community for over a decade.
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Published: St. Martin's Griffin - October 11th, 2011
"Let's be honest, anything this woman writes is gold. This particular body of work explores mental health and childhood memories within the black culture (more specifically black womyn) as a way to discourage the negative stereotype."
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Published: One World - July 14th, 2015
"Say or feel how you want about the author... but you can not deny the way he bends and folds the complexity of the black man and the way America romanticizes their death. The book really exist as a way to humanize and have compassion for black men. The book itself reminded me a lot of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk."
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Published: Picador - February 7th, 2017
"Pinckney's opus of a young gay guy volleys between life in Chicago, and his travails in Berlin –– consequently, the novel is a wonder and a force. There's hardly anything else like it."
I have known author Samantha Clark for a number of years now. Our paths cross regularly in a number of ways: We are both members of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (Sam is the Regional Advisor for the Austin chapter); We both attend many of the same writer’s conferences and retreats. I’ve watched with eager anticipation her journey to publication with a fabulous and thrilling middle grade novel called The Boy, the Boat, and the Beast, which debuts at the end of this month.
Father’s Day is just around the corner! Make sure you’ve got your dad, your dad’s dad, and anybody you know befitting of that bill something special that shows how much you recognize and appreciate them. Just in case you’re in the dark, or this person is just darn hard to shop for, here are a few examples of what we plan on gifting.
Joy:
A Michael Chabon duo, both of which look thoughtfully and often tenderly at manhood and fatherhood.
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Published: Harper Perennial - May 11th, 2010
Keaton (Official Brazos Dad):
For the football loving dad. This is cultural criticism in the guise of sports writing, using the life of the near-mythic gridiron hero as a lens through which to explore our nation's history of racism, violence and toxic masculinity. A perfect gift for the intellectual sports fan.
A gorgeous memoir about the invisible bonds we share with our ancestors as well as the objects we inherit in our lives. HARE also takes an intimate look at Europe and World War II, especially Paris and Vienna. Art, history and the arbitrary nature of a person's legacy - what's not to love?!
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Published: Picador - August 2nd, 2011
Bryan (Laura G’s Dad):
This book tells the amazing yet true story of how nearly everything has been and continues to get better for humanity. Don't believe that's true? Check out the book and be prepared to be shocked and pleasantly uplifted.
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Published: Viking - February 13th, 2018
Thu:
An inside look at the 2017 Houston Astros championship season, focusing on the epic seven-game World Series, the front office decisions that built a winning team, and the resilience of the city in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Also, because it’s the Astros!
A fascinating look the the history of scientific precision, and how our quest for perfection has lead innovation down unexpected paths. Perfect for the mechanic, the history buff, the dad that has to have everything just so.
An explosive, action-packed page turner of a book! Taking place all over the world - Columbia, Thailand, India - a young man is arrested for drug smiggling while searchiong for his disappeared sister. For any dad who loves good writing, great plots and amazing stories.
Happy Pride Month, y'all! While we can all appreciate the "queer canon," so to speak, that is popularized year after year, the new releases are what really thrill me. I am so excited to see the new titles coming out from queer authors, or featuring queer characters from across the LGBTQIA spectrum. As we progress through June, keep an eye out for more literary pride spotlights!
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Published: Ecco - February 6th, 2018
With the reemergence of the documentary Paris is Burning and a new wave of ballroom culture, check out Cassara's novel about the subject. The House of Impossible Beauties focuses on the house of Xtravaganza, a ballroom house that featured Latinx and POC individuals. Angel, Hector, Venus, and more come to life with this unflinching narrative of New York in the 80s and 90s.
This is a fictionalized version of their stories, but even that fact pinpoints something we should pay attention to: trans histories have been erased, and continue to be erased. Books like Cassara's preserve these icons instead of allowing them to disappear into history.
This book is fairly slim but just brilliant. After a woman kills her husband, she assumes his identity as Abe Kunstler and pursues the American dream of a job, a car, a wife –– and hopefully, a son. Koelb interrogates desperation, lineage, and the power of gender in this novel spanning from the 40's to the 70's. Unlike so many, this book pursues a long-term narrative of trans identity and aging, and I appreciate that so strongly.
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Published: Mariner Books - April 17th, 2018
Okay, so I cried a few times reading this book. And wrote down a few quotes that made my heart tremble. After Joseph Osmundson wrote a gorgeous article about about Chee's recreation of a queer lineage in the wake of the HIV/AIDS crisis, how could I skip this gem? From tarot to moving across the country for writing to ACT UP protests, Chee pours out thoughtful advice and personal anecdotes galore.
Tommy Pico is a prolific Native writer who has become integral to our contemporary sense of what queer poetry can be. He started with the epic poem IRL and hasn't stopped yet. Your heart will be absolutely wrenched out by his thoughtful, intellectual, yet grounded verse. Plus, check out the raunchy but hilarious podcast he runs with three other fantastic queer writers.
I love London. After reading this book, I love London more. Ackroyd runs through the gay history of the city seemingly in a single breath, from Romans to the present-day. His writing is sharp and often witty, and the contents of this book elucidate so much about the history of queer culture that I'd never heard of. I like to think of this book as Foucault plus disco. Plus, who doesn't want to walk around with this book jacket? Hardcore.
Nicola Griffith has long been a favorite of mine, and I was so thrilled to hear that she would have a new book out this year. Something I love about Griffith's books is her ability to alternately put a heavy weight on the sexuality of her characters or barely mention it at all, blending their romantic identity into the greater maelstrom of the plot progression.
This book is utterly personal and emotional; the main character, Mara, runs a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation but must step down when she has to suddenly come to terms with her own chronic illness. Griffith tackles the identity politics of being sick: being treated like a "victim" and "inspiration" and breaking harmful narratives about sickness, all while recognizing one's own shortcomings and weaknesses.
Larry McMurtry's birthday is June 3, so we're celebrating with a list of a few of our favorite Westerns! Not all of these are traditional Westerns –– some subvert the setting, some the cowboy archetype, some the purpose of the protagonist. But they have a sense of landscape that is unique to the Western genre and typified by Larry McMurtry's many novels.
Published: Coffee House Press - October 10th, 2017
If you've been in the store in the past six months, you've heard us talk about IN THE DISTANCE. Hernan Diaz's novel takes tropes of the Western genre and turns them on their heads, while maintaining elegance and a unique clarity of vision. Hakan and his brother ship to the US from Sweden, but are separated in England –– one of them ends up in New York, as planned, and the other in San Francisco. What results is a seemingly endless trek as Hakan attempts to reach New York and find his brother against the landscape of 19th century America.
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Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - June 20th, 2017
No cowboy protagonist here; the main character of Paulette Jiles' captivating book is a professional itinerant who moves around the Texas countryside to read the news to curious audiences. He is paid to transport a young woman back to her family after she has been captured by the Kiowa tribe, and both the landscape and the girl herself prove to be unfamiliar and uncivilized. The duo's resulting bond is tenuous but touching.
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Published: Two Dollar Radio - September 20th, 2016
Melanie Finn's protagonist, Pilgrim Jones, must find something out of nothing. After a divorce and a terrible accident, she is ostracized and attempts a safari in Africa as a means of escape. Instead of staying with the group, she sets out on her own in an attempt to cope with a shockingly empty future and a past that has receded from familiarity. This book merges high drama, loss, and violence with the possibility of redemption in an alien landscape.
A haunting and surreal portrait of a man’s entire life as it interacts with a troubled American century. Johnson’s masterwork is irrefutable proof that no book need be longer than 90 pages.
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Published: Liveright - September 19th, 2017
We couldn't complete the list without including one by the icon himself! Or rather, three; Thalia collects his first three novels, written at a time when McMurtry was first arriving on the literary scene with his voice already fully formed. Never read McMurtry? This is the perfect place to start. Read everything he's ever written? This striking volume will have you obsessed again.