Philipp Meyer sets his debut novel, American Rust, within a landscape of retired warehouses, rattling railways, prisons and Wal-Mart. The crumbling underpinnings of American industry provide the backdrop for human catastrophe. Meyer made The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40” list on the strength of a book in which Hanna Pylväinen finds echoes of Mark Twain, Frank O’Hara and Cormac McCarthy.
In her ambitious first novel, Saher Alam uses the conflicted feelings of the groom, Nasr, for Jameela (his long-time friend) and Farath (his beautiful intended) —a triangle conscious of its debt to The Age of Innocence—to paint a nuanced picture of Muslim communities in North America.
The title of Krasikov’s stunning debut collection, One More Year, suggests both despondency and hope, both reluctance and anticipation—wonderfully fitting for a book about immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
In a city of artists, where creation and revision are always the order of the day, New York real estate players can’t help but get into the game.
