Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘debut novel’

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Book-of-the-Week Winners: The Family Fang

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured The Family Fang as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Kristin Costa (@antaram310) Monique Nerestan (@modiva70) Jonny Zine (@interrobangzine) To claim your signed copy of this novel, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!


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Book of the Week: The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson. Published this month by Ecco, the book is Wilson’s first novel. He is also the author of the award-winning story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, which was selected as a favorite and included in our “Books We Loved in 2009” Valentine’s Day special feature. Wilson’s writing has appeared in such places as Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, PANK, Mid-American Review, and dozens of other publications. His short fiction has also been anthologized in four volumes of the New Stories from the South: The […]


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Lambs of Men, by Charles Dodd White

Charles Dodd White‘s debut novel, Lambs of Men (Casperian, Nov. 2010), unfolds in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina immediately following World War I. After serving in the trenches of France, Hiram Tobit returns to the hills as a Marine Corps recruiter. Hiram’s homecoming dredges up an unhappy past—the last person he wants to see awaits him, the sole remaining member of his family: his father, Sloane. The alcoholic Sloane accidentally shot Hiram’s brother, Kite, years earlier. Following on the heels of this horrible event, Hiram’s mother, Nara, committed suicide during Hiram’s tour of duty. Naturally, Hiram blames his father […]


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Book of the Week: Everything Beautiful Began After, by Simon Van Booy

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Simon Van Booy’s Everything Beautiful Began After. Published earlier this month by Harper Perrenial, the book is Van Booy’s first novel. He is also the author of two story collections, The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter, which won the 2009 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Additionally, he is the editor of three nonfiction philosophy titles: Why We Need Love, Why We Fight, and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter. Born in London and raised in Wales, Van Booy now lives in New York City, where he teaches at the School […]


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Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

by Jackie Reitzes

In her first novel, Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011), acclaimed short story writer Karen Russell (St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves) renders a highly specific shoebox-world of wonder and mystery. Set in the Florida swamps, largely within a fictional alligator theme park, the sun rises and sets with her lush yet economical descriptions and poignant characterizations of the 14-year-old protagonist, Ava, and her rapidly dissolving family.


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Book of the Week: My American Unhappiness, by Dean Bakopoulos

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s featured title is My American Unhappiness, by Dean Bakopoulos. Bakopoulos was born and raised in metro Detroit, which is the setting of his first novel, Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon (Harcourt, 2005), a New York Times Notable Book. He has lectured at Michigan, Cornell, UW-Madison, and other universities about the economic and environmental problems facing the post-industrial Rust Belt, and has published related essays and criticism in The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, The Believer, and Real Simple. His one-act plays “Phonies” and “Wayside” have been produced […]


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Book of the Week Winners: Touch, by Alexi Zentner

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Alexi Zentner’s debut novel Touch as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Barbara Buck, Hitesh Ratnani, and Megan Milks. Congratulations! To claim your signed copy of this novel, please email us at the following address: winners@fictionwritersreview.com To anyone who’d like to be eligible for our future drawings, visit our Facebook Page and “like” us. No catch, no gimmicks–just a great way to promote books we love. To everyone who’s already a fan, big thanks!




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