This month, our friends at Gloucester Road Books share new reads they’re particularly excited about…
A note from the team: “Our primary aim is that the shop be a fascinating place to explore. We have a significant focus on titles published by small independent presses. There are lots of really brilliant small publishers putting out incredibly exciting books, and we want to help get these out into the world.” Visit the website for more details on book launches, talks and other events at the shop.
gloucesterroadbooks.com; @gloucester_rd_books; 184 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, BS7 8NU.
Open Monday and Tuesday 9.30am-5pm; Wednesday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty, And Other Stories, out 1 October
Fire Exit takes on the legacy of trauma and hardship caused by Federal Laws around indigenous identity in Northern America. Across from the Penobscot reservation in Maine lives a white man, Charles, who stares across the water to where his half-native daughter lives and has grown up unaware of his existence in order to protect her tribal status. Fire Exit is a deeply moving and singular story of a family divided by these laws and the pain of personal histories being lost to obscurity.
The Edge of the Alphabet, by Janet Frame, Fitzcarraldo Editions, out now
Published in 1962, Janet Frame’s third novel chronicles the lives of three people who struggle with a crushing loneliness. Alike in their alienation, all three embark on a new life in London, piecing together an existence in the margins of the urban world. Offering astoundingly insightful prose on themes of identity and the post-colonial experience, Frame is considered one of New Zealand’s foremost 20th-century writers.
Shade and Breeze by Quynh Tran (translated by Kira Josefsson), Lolli Editions, out 25 October
Shade and Breeze is a story about a Vietnamese family settling into life in a small Finnish town. The narrator describes their day to day lives and learning to adjust to social codes that go against their natural inclination to shy away. Shade and Breeze makes for a mesmeric reading experience in captivating prose and chapters divided like a series of tableaux.
The Novices of Lerna by Angel Bonomini (translated by Jordan Landsman), Peninsula Press, out 31 October
Described as ‘a forgotten masterpiece of Argentine literature’, the small but great Peninsula Press have published a novella by Angel Bonomini, a contemporary of Jorge Luis Borges. A mediocre scholar receives a six-month fellowship at the University of Lerna in Switzerland, finding on his arrival 23 of his own doppelgangers have also been invited to the programme. The absurdist plot shifts into an unsettling relevance to our times, however, once an epidemic grips the university, elaborating on themes of identity, isolation, and surveillance.
Herscht 07769 by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (translated by Ottilie Mulzet), Tuskar Rock, out 3 October
A tour-de-force, satirical novel, Krasznahorkai’s most recent work channels the cataclysmic energy of our climate catastrophe into a single sentence across four hundred pages. Herr Köhler is a physicist engrossed in a one-sided correspondence with Chancellor Angela Merkel, hoping to convince her of the urgency of the planet’s looming devastation. While the subject matter is gloomy, the elastic conversational style makes for surprisingly pleasurable reading and has been said to be his most accessible book yet.
