Q&A with Stephanie Reents

From my Q&A with Stephanie Reents, author of We Loved to Run: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

We Loved To Run is a funny title because the first line of my novel is “We hated a lot of things…” followed by a whole list of running adjacent things my characters dislike, including their coaches. I knew from the very beginning that my novel would explore how my characters – the members of a women’s cross country team competing for a small New England college in the early 1990s – both love running and also hate it at times because of the amount of sacrifice involved in training to be fast and setting their sights on a spot at nationals. The first plural voice – “we” – is very important in my novel, which alternates between the communal voice of the team (which truly belongs to the team and not any single character) and the perspectives of two individual runners: Danielle, the team captain, and Kristin, a runner who is determined to steal the top spot from another runner. In my experience whenever a character insists on something – like “we loved to run” – you know their feelings about it are probably more complicated. As it so happens, my characters do love to run (and also hate it) and there are other less tangible challenges they’re trying to...[read on]

Visit Stephanie Reents's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Kissing List.

Writers Read: Stephanie Reents (June 2012).

Q&A with Stephanie Reents.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kitty Zeldis's "One of Them," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: One of Them: A Novel by Kitty Zeldis.

The entry begins:

For Sophie, I can see Anne Hathaway. Sophie is an artist. She’s charming, passionate and extremely smart; she’s also selfish, dramatic and an often indifferent mother to Delia. These are not attractive qualities but what is attractive is her single-mindedness, something every artist needs to pursue her path. Hathaway is someone whose career I’ve followed and so I believe she has the range to play this role—she’d have the charisma but also the dark notes.

Anya Taylor-Joy would fill the role of Anne Bishop well. There’s a sense that she’s very tightly wound and working hard to maintain control; since Anne has put herself in the unenviable position of pretending to be someone she is not, she...[read on]

Kitty Zeldis is the pseudonym for a novelist and non-fiction writer of books for adults and children. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

My Book, The Movie: Not Our Kind.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis (December 2018).

Coffee with a Canine: Kitty Zeldis & Dottie.

The Page 69 Test: Not Our Kind.

The Page 69 Test: The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights.

My Book, The Movie: One of Them.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kenja McCray's "Essential Soldiers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Essential Soldiers: Women Activists and Black Power Movement Leadership by Kenja McCray.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new perspective on women’s Black Power leadership legacies

Academics and popular commentors have expressed common sentiments about the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s―that it was male dominated and overrun with autocratic leaders. Yet women’s strategizing, management, and sustained work were integral to movement organizations’ functioning, and female advocates of cultural nationalism often exhibited a unique service-oriented, collaborative leadership style.

Essential Soldiers documents a variety of women Pan-African nationalists’ experiences, considering the ways they produced a distinctive kind of leadership through their devotion and service to the struggle for freedom and equality. Relying on oral histories, textual archival material, and scholarly literature, this book delves into women’s organizing and resistance efforts, investigating how they challenged the one-dimensional notions of gender roles within cultural nationalist organizations. Revealing a form of Black Power leadership that has never been highlighted, Kenja McCray explores how women articulated and used their power to transform themselves and their environments. Through her examination, McCray argues that women’s Pan-Africanist cultural nationalist activism embodied a work-centered, people-centered, and African-centered form of service leadership. A dynamic and fascinating narrative of African American women activists, Essential Soldiers provides a new vantage point for considering Black Power leadership legacies.

Visit Kenja McCray's website.

The Page 99 Test: Essential Soldiers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about wild animal companions

Brian Buckbee has written for The Sun, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and other publications. He is co-founder of Missoula’s 406 Writers’ Workshop and a former creative writing and literature instructor at the University of Montana. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

Carol Ann Fitzgerald is an editor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Their new book is We Should All Be Birds: A Memoir.

At Electric Lit Buckbee tagged eight stories that "show how our connection to wild creatures can help us understand animals, and perhaps more importantly, ourselves and, in the process, learn to live, thrive, and heal." One title on the list:

H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

At the outset, it is important to note a couple of oddities. First, training hawks is called falconry. Second, I—a pigeon rescuer—am writing favorably about the pigeon’s enemy number one. (Tied for second are the raccoon and the cat.) MacDonald writes half for the head and half for the heart. A scholar and professor, she explores the biology, history, and mythology of predatory birds, especially the goshawk, one of which she adopts (and names Mabel). At the same time, she struggles to cope with the sudden death of her father, who also happened to be her childhood falconry buddy. Goshawks are extremely sensitive by nature, so MacDonald must observe her adopted bird with patience and a keen eye. Not only do readers get to see this beautiful creature in all its detail, but MacDonald also turns that same, trained eye inward, helping herself (and the reader) understand the complexities of loss.

Read about another entry on the list.

H Is for Hawk is among Sarah Ruiz-Grossman's seven books celebrating the healing magic of birds, Kristina Busch's seven books about daughters grieving their fathers, Raynor Winn's nine top nature memoirs, Lit Hub's ten best memoirs of the decade, Sigrid Nunez's six favorite books that feature animals, Sam Miller's top ten books about fathers, Barack Obama's summer 2016 reading list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten books about justice and redemption, and Alex Hourston’s ten top unlikely friendships in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Peter Colt's "Cold Island"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Cold Island: A Novel (Detective Tommy Kelly) by Peter Colt.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the remains of a young murder victim on Nantucket Island are discovered after thirty-five years, a detective begins to unearth the dark secrets of a community gone silent.

Massachusetts State Police detective Tommy Kelly is called to Nantucket Island, where a boy’s skeletal remains have been discovered at a construction site―interred for thirty-five years. The crime is especially gutting for Tommy, the father of two boys. It’s also the beginning of a grim mystery. Because no child during that period was even reported missing.

Tommy is partnered with Nantucket PD’s best detective, Jo Harris, who first chafes at the idea of a mainlander encroaching on her territory. And their work together is only raising more troubling questions. Then a possible link is found to the decades-old case of a serial killer―a vigilantly hidden part of the past that this tight-knit community would prefer to forget and never speak of again.

The secrets in their silence are so shocking they soon pull Tommy into a very dark place. Suddenly, offseason on Nantucket has never felt so cold, so isolating, or so dangerous.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gregory A. Daddis's "Faith and Fear"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Faith and Fear: America's Relationship with War since 1945 by Gregory A. Daddis.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this groundbreaking reflection on America's relationship with war in the modern era, Gregory A. Daddis explores the deep-seated tension between faith in and fear of war that has shaped US grand strategy and helped militarize US foreign policy with great costs at home and abroad.

How have Americans conceptualized and understood the "promise and peril" of war since 1945? And how have their ideas and attitudes led to the ever-increasing militarization of US foreign policy since the end of World War II?

In a groundbreaking reassessment of the long Cold War era, historian Gregory A. Daddis argues that ever since the Second World War's fateful conclusion, faith in and fear of war became central to Americans' thinking about the world around them. With war pervading nearly all aspects of American society, an interplay between blind faith and existential fear framed US policymaking and grand strategy, often with tragic results. These inherent tensions--an unwavering trust and confidence in war coupled with a fear that nearly all national security threats, foreign or domestic, are existential ones--have shaped Americans' relationship with war that persists to the current day.

A sweeping history, Faith and Fear makes a forceful argument by examining the tensions between Americans' overreaching faith in war as a foreign policy tool and their overwhelming fear of war as a destructive force.

Learn more about Faith and Fear at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test:Westmoreland's War.

The Page 99 Test: Withdrawal.

The Page 99 Test: Pulp Vietnam.

The Page 99 Test: Faith and Fear.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top mysteries & thrillers set in the workplace

L.S. Stratton is an NAACP Image Award-nominated author and former crime newspaper reporter who has written more than a dozen books under different pen names in just about every genre from thrillers to romance to historical fiction. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband, their daughter, and their tuxedo cat.

Stratton's new novel is In Deadly Company.

At CrimeReads she tagged five mysteries and thrillers set in the workplace, including:

Amina Akhtar, #FashionVictim

Imagine The Devil Wears Prada but if Andy decided to kill whoever got in her way to prove herself to Miranda Priestly, and you have the thriller, #FashionVictim.

Anya St. Clair lives and dies for fashion, and her dream is to move up the editorial ladder at La Vie, one of the top NYC style magazines. Only one thing stands in her way, fellow editor Sarah Elizabeth Taft—someone Anya both admires and envies. Unfortunately for Sarah, competition can be deadly.

#FashionVictim is a fun, campy novel that plays on the cattiness of the fashion world for laughs and mayhem.

Read about another title on the list.

#FashionVictim is among Laura Picklesimer's seven dark & thrilling novels about women who kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David McGlynn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David McGlynn, author of Everything We Could Do: A Novel.

His entry begins:

Everything We Could Do is set in a hospital -- specifically within a small, locked unit inside the hospital. In the neonatal intensive care unit, the premature infants spend weeks and months on end inside climate and temperature controlled incubators, technically called Isolettes. The story's setting is a kind of Russian doll: tiny humans inside of pods inside of pods inside of pods. The people in the story, accordingly, struggle with isolation but also form deep, deep bonds with their other pod mates. A close friend, who teaches Russian literature, quipped that the story is like "Tolstoy in space."

In the course of writing Everything We Could Do, I spent a lot of time diving into books about hospitals as well as stories set in remote places. I grew sort of addicted to them, and several of those books I've read multiple times, cover to cover. The best example is Michael Ruhlman's Walk on Water: The Miracle of Saving Children's Lives. Walk on Water is a nonfiction book written more than 20 years ago, that's set in a pediatric heart surgery center in Cleveland. The doctor at the center of the story is among the most proficient and accomplished surgeons in the world at repairing congenital heart defects in newborn and very small children. But the book is about the surgical center, not just one guy. The stories Ruhlman tell are incredibly harrowing -- with...[read on]

About Everything We Could Do, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of a small-town Wisconsin NICU, a sweeping story of parenthood, family, and redemption

After a decade of miscarriages, Brooke Jensen is finally pregnant—with quadruplets. When she goes into labor after twenty-three weeks, Brooke and her husband rush to the hospital in the small town of Hanover, Wisconsin. For the 203 days that follow, they’re plunged into the terrifying and mysterious netherworld of the neonatal intensive care unit.

As the babies grow and struggle, fall turns to stark upper-Midwest winter. Brooke bonds with Dash, a senior nurse whose son, Landon, had been a patient in the NICU years earlier and is now straining his parents’ abilities to care for him. Both families bend and edge closer to breaking, and the questions mount: What does love look like? What does it mean to save a life?

A fiercely honest portrait of American parenthood, the American healthcare system, and Rust Belt communities, Everything We Could Do lays bare the ways that families are formed and remade in times of crisis.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ken Jaworowski's “What About the Bodies”

Featured at the Page 69 Test: What About the Bodies by Ken Jaworowski.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this propulsive crime novel from Edgar Award nominee Ken Jaworowski, three lives collide in a gritty rust-belt town—a single mother covering up a deadly mistake, a young man on a mission to honor a dying wish, and a musician racing to escape a violent debt.

Carla, a single mom poised to finally break free from her cycle of poverty, must risk it all, including her morality, to help her son hide a terrible secret.

Reed, an autistic young man, sets out on a journey to keep a deathbed promise to the mother he just lost. Along the way he’ll encounter both kindhearted residents and a cold-blooded nemesis.

And Liz, an aspiring musician on the cusp of a breakthrough, needs to quickly come up with the cash she owes a brutal ex-con. If she can’t pay him, both her dream and her life will be in grave danger.

As these three compelling characters intersect, the novel ignites into a story filled with explosive twists, hair-raising chills, and boundless love.

Visit Ken Jaworowski's website.

Q&A with Ken Jaworowski.

The Page 69 Test: What About the Bodies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six depressing novels that might cheer you up

Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels The Wrong End of the Telescope; Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman; The Hakawati; I, the Divine; Koolaids; the story collection, The Perv; and one work of nonfiction, Comforting Myths. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He received the Dos Passos Prize in 2019 and a Lannan Award in 2021.

Alameddine's new novel is The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).

At Lit Hub Alameddine tagged six "depressing novels that can lift you out of depression." One title on the list:

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Why it’s depressing:
Unhappily married Anna decides to have an affair, fucks everything up, causes much pain to many, and finally commits suicide by train decapitation. Ouch!

Why it will lift you out of your depression:
Because it’s fucking brilliant, arguably the best novel ever written. If asked to define the word ravishing, I’d reply Anna Karenina. However, that isn’t the only reason why the novel is uplifting. As with The Hairdresser’s Son [by Gerbrand Bakker], reading about Anna’s loneliness helps us see our own. It shows us our wound, and hopefully, once we see it, we might be able to apply antibiotics and maybe some gauze.

Read about another novel on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Anna Orhanen's list of eleven of the very best literary evocations of winter, Cathy Rentzenbrink's top ten list of bookworms in fiction, Amanda Craig's list of ten of the best-dressed characters in fiction, Ceri Radford's list often of the finest literary romances ever told, Tessa Hadley's list of six favorite examinations of art in fiction, Kathryn Harrison's list of six favorite epic novels, Jane Corry's list of five of literature's more fearsome families, Neel Mukherjee's six favorite books list, Viv Groskop's top ten list of life lessons from Russian literature, Elizabeth Day's top ten list of parties in fiction, Grant Ginder's top ten list of the more loathsome people in literature, Louis De Berniéres's six best books list, Martin Seay's ten best long books list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten list of books about justice and redemption, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Hannah Jane Parkinson's list of the ten worst couples in literature, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, and ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kathleen B. Casey's "The Things She Carried"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America by Kathleen B. Casey.

About the book, from the publisher:

Purses and bags have always been much more than a fashion accessory.

For generations of Americans, the purse has been an essential and highly adaptable object, used to achieve a host of social, cultural, and political objectives. In the early 1800s, when the slim fit of neoclassical dresses made interior pockets impractical, upper-class women began to carry small purses called reticules, which provided them with a private place in a world where they did not have equal access to public space. Although many items of apparel have long expressed their wearer's aspirations, only the purse has offered carriers privacy, pride, and pleasure. This privacy has been particularly important for those who have faced discrimination because of their gender, class, race, citizenship, or sexuality.

The Things She Carried reveals how bags, sacks, and purses provided the methods and materials for Americans' activism, allowing carriers to transgress critical boundaries at key moments. It explores how enslaved people used purses and bags when attempting to escape and immigrant factory workers fought to protect their purses in the workplace. It also probes the purse's nuanced functions for Black women in the civil rights movement and explores how LGBTQ people used purses to defend their bodies and make declarations about their sexuality.

Kathleen Casey closely examines a variety of sources―from vintage purses found in abandoned buildings and museum collections to advertisements, photograph albums, trade journals, newspaper columns, and trial transcripts. She finds purses in use at fraught historical moments, where they served strategic and symbolic functions for their users. The result is a thorough and surprising examination of an object that both ordinary and extraordinary Americans used to influence social, cultural, economic, and political change.

Visit Kathleen B. Casey's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Things She Carried.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Marisa Silver

From my Q&A with Marisa Silver, author of At Last: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

At Last follows the lives of two women who enter into an uneasy, often competitive relationship when their children marry. The lengths they go to prove that they are the more essential matriarch is sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreaking and often both at the same time. But underneath all of their missteps lies their desire to love and be loved by their children, their granddaughter, and, in the strange ways that love shows up, by each other — at last.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I wasn’t the most dedicated reader as a kid. This is an understatement. My free time was mostly spent...[read on]

Visit Marisa Silver's website.

The Page 69 Test: The God of War.

Q&A with Marisa Silver.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top folklore-inspired horror novels

Daphne Fama was born in the American South, embedded in its tight-knit Filipino community. When she’s not writing stories about monsters and the women who love them, she’s writing about video games. And when she’s not writing, she’s spending every minute adoring her partner and pup.

Fama's new novel is House of Monstrous Women.

At Electric Lit she tagged "eight unforgettable folk horrors [that] will crawl beneath your skin and make your blood run cold." One title on Fama's list:

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

On the last day of hunting season, four young Blackfeet men trespass on sacred ground and commit an act they’ll come to regret. The consequences are long-reaching—and they come on hooves. More than just a tale of supernatural vengeance, The Only Good Indians is a haunting novel of intergenerational trauma, guilt, and a past that refuses to let go.

Read about another title on the list.

The Only Good Indians is among Alena Bruzas's seven best literary horror novels, Samsun Knight's seven top horror novels about mysticism, B.R. Myers's ten quietly effective suspense novels, and Gus Moreno's top ten groundbreaking horror novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nolan Chase's "A Lonesome Place for Murder"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Lonesome Place for Murder by Nolan Chase.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this dark mystery, perfect for fans of C. J. Box, one wrong step leads Ethan Brand to the most dangerous case of his career...and the most personal.

Hoping to surprise his sons, Ethan Brand, the chief of police of a small town in northern Washington state, is contemplating buying a horse. But when the horse literally stumbles upon an abandoned smuggling tunnel, Ethan and his lead investigator Brenda Lee Page discover a dead body connected to a decade-old mystery.

Ten years ago, Tyler Rash, a troubled friend of Ethan’s, vanished without a trace. The body in the tunnel has Tyler’s ID and personal effects.

As Ethan and Brenda Lee investigate Tyler’s disappearance, they follow a trail that leads them to a cross-border smuggling operation connected to the town’s notorious family of smugglers. And when a bomb is sent to Ethan’s own house, the case takes a deadly and personal turn. A killer is stalking Ethan Brand–a killer he’ll have to face if he wants to see his family again.

Visit Nolan Chase's website.

Writers Read: Nolan Chase (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Lonesome Place for Dying.

My Book, The Movie: A Lonesome Place for Dying.

My Book, The Movie: A Lonesome Place for Murder.

Writers Read: Nolan Chase.

The Page 69 Test: A Lonesome Place for Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kathleen Barber reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kathleen Barber, author of Both Things Are True: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

One of the upsides of being an author is getting to read new books before they're released! I just finished reading an early copy of Lyn Liao Butler's The Deadly Book Club, which is about the murder of a high-profile bookstagrammer and the other bookstagrammers-slash-frenemies who are all suspects. It's dishy and a lot of fun!

I also just started an early copy of Michelle Maryk's debut, The Found Object Society, which is delightfully creepy and...[read on]

About Both Things Are True, from the publisher:

For two exes who meet again, moving on is harder than ever in a funny and heartfelt romantic comedy about starting over by the author of Truth Be Told, now a major Apple TV+ series.

Vanessa is a yoga influencer living high in New York. But after her crypto-entrepreneur fiancé ruins both their lives by fleeing the country amid fraud allegations, Vanessa’s only choice is to start over―by flying home to Chicago and moving in with her sister.

Just as Vanessa puts her life back together, she bumps into Sam. Years ago, they fell hard and too fast. Their relationship ended in heartbreak after an impromptu Las Vegas wedding officiated by a Dolly Parton impersonator―and an annulment that was just as sudden. Now Sam is co-owner of a solar company with a promising future, a future Vanessa wants to be included in. But she can’t shake the whiff of scandal from her AWOL fiancé, and to protect Sam’s reputation, she’s keeping her distance. Then again…

If anyone can turn a negative into a positive―and a first love into a second chance―it’s a young woman with influence.

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Beth Morrey's "Isabella's Not Dead," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Isabella's Not Dead by Beth Morrey.

The entry begins:

OK, well, I haven’t really thought about it, but I guess there is a dream scenario where I get a call from Netflix out the blue – can I fly to New York at a moment’s notice to meet a director? The director would be Greta Gerwig – I’m fairly sure she made both Lady Bird and Little Women for me personally. She would also adapt the screenplay of Isabella’s Not Dead because she picked it up in a kooky book store in Greenwich Village and fell in love with it. We’d have coffee in some arty café on the Upper East Side and get on like a house on fire – can I be some sort of consultant on the show? Like, wafting around set, advising?

The casting director would also be me, and I would meet lots of people I admire for expensive dinners, and gush over them before selecting the following stellar cast: The main character of Gwen (who is me) would be played by Tina Fey. I have been devoted to her for years and love everything she does. I recently watched The Four Seasons, which has similar vibes to Isabella’s Not Dead. It’s the same life stage, similar humor and a bit of travel, so...[read on]

Visit Beth Morrey's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Beth Morrey & Polly.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Story of Missy Carmichael.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Story of Missy Carmichael.

Q&A with Beth Morrey.

The Page 69 Test: Delphine Jones Takes a Chance.

My Book, The Movie: Delphine Jones Takes a Chance.

Writers Read: Beth Morrey (April 2022).

Writers Read: Beth Morrey (August 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Isabella's Not Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Deborah Baker's "Charlottesville"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Charlottesville: An American Story by Deborah Baker.

About the book, from the publisher:

In August 2017, over a thousand neo-Nazis, fascists, Klan members, and neo-Confederates descended on a small southern city to protest the pending removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Within an hour of their arrival, the city’s historic downtown was a scene of bedlam as armored far right cadres battled activists in the streets. Before the weekend was over, a neo-Nazi had driven a car into a throng of counterprotesters, killing a young woman and injuring dozens. Pulitzer Prize finalist Deborah Baker has written a riveting and panoptic account of what unfolded that weekend, focusing less on the rally’s far right leaders than on the story of the city itself. University, local, and state officials, including law enforcement, were unable or unwilling to grasp the gathering threat. Clergy, activists, and organizers from all walks of life saw more clearly what was coming and, at great personal risk, worked to warn and defend their city.

To understand why their warnings fell on deaf ears, Baker does a deep dive into American history. In her research she discovers an uncannily similar event that took place decades before when an emissary of the poet and fascist Ezra Pound arrived in Charlottesville intending to start a race war. In Charlottesville, Baker shows how a city more associated with Thomas Jefferson than civil unrest became a flashpoint in a continuing struggle over our nation’s founding myths.

Visit Deborah Baker's website.

Writers Read: Deborah Baker (December 2011).

The Page 99 Test: Charlottesville.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen of the best books about fatherhood

At GQ (UK edition) Nathalie Kernot and Josiah Gogarty tagged fourteen of the best books about fatherhood, including:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

If the title hasn’t convinced you, let me try: a lightly fictionalised memoir, this book explores the impact on 21-year-old Dave Eggers’ life when he abruptly becomes both guardian and father figure to his little brother, Toph, following the sudden deaths of their parents. Within it Dave learns to be a parent while learning to be a man, trying to develop his own life while constantly preoccupied with his duty to Toph, via a dynamic narrative including Q&A sections, lists and interjections, and a Nick Hornby–esque melding of humour and poignancy.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is among Andy Abramowitz's seven books about the lies that bind siblings together and the Daily Telegraph's one hundred books that defined the noughties.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Marissa Higgins's "Sweetener"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sweetener: A Novel by Marissa Higgins.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of A Good Happy Girl, a lesbian screwball comedy following two exes who turn to online dating after their dramatic split—only to end up seeing the same woman

In Sweetener, recently separated wives, both named Rebecca, can’t seem to disentangle their lives. Lonely and depressed, Rebecca is scraping by as a part-time cashier at an organic grocery store. Despite having less than ten dollars in her bank account, she lists herself as a sugar mama on a lesbian hookup app. Enter Charlotte, a charismatic artist who, unbeknownst to Rebecca, is also dating her wife.

Meanwhile, the other Rebecca, a newly sober doctoral student, has renewed her efforts to foster a child. The catch? Because the Rebeccas are still legally married, she needs her wife to attend parenting classes with her as part of the approval process.

Neither of them asks whether this means they’re getting back together, but the idea alone sends Charlotte into a tailspin. As Charlotte navigates her desire for each Rebecca—or her desire for attention—her world becomes more and more Gumby-like and surreal. It doesn’t help that she’s been wearing a fake pregnancy belly to all of her dates, and only one of the Rebeccas knows it isn’t real.

Sumptuous, sticky, and slightly absurd, Sweetener brings together three women fixated on the fantasy of motherhood, and trying to figure out what kind of mother, partner, or sugar mama they want to be.

Visit Marissa Higgins's website and follow her on Instagram and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetener.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Deborah James's "Clawing Back"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Clawing Back: Redistribution In Precarious Times by Deborah James.

About the book, from the publisher:

The impulse to redistribute wealth is said to be a tool to counter inequalities, applied by the state or society to curb the worst excesses of capitalist exploitation and free trade. In settings where previous political regimes are reformed, or toppled and replaced by new ones, redistribution can also be a policy specifically oriented at redress, one exercised at the formal level of policy. Drawing on a comparative ethnography in South Africa and the United Kingdom, Clawing Back explores how notions of reallocation and payout are intimately connected with those of compensation for a loss. Where financialization is accompanied by increased informalization, redistribution can equally involve the market as well as kinship and social networks. Drawing on a rich ethnography of the human relationships at the center of redistribution, Deborah James shows how borrowing can provide negotiation opportunities to wage earners and welfare beneficiaries alike: they make use of debt to constitute relations and futures, to engage with the state, to convert between commodified and non-commodified relationships. Rather than suggesting that financialization is serving either a totally negative or wholly beneficial purpose, James posits a different way of visualizing the relationship between the finance industry and the world of everyday needs.

Learn more about Clawing Back at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Clawing Back.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best books about sisters

Brooke Lea Foster is an award-winning author and journalist who has worked as a writer and editor at The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, The Huffington Post, and the Washingtonian magazine.

Her novels include Summer Darlings, On Gin Lane, All the Summers in Between, and Our Last Vineyard Summer.

At Oprah Daily Foster tagged seven favorite novels about sisters that capture the complexity — and joy — of the sibling bond. One title on the list:

Searching for Sylvie Lee, by Jean Kwok

“Often there’s a dichotomy between the beautiful sister and the smart one, but in our family, both of those qualities belong to my sister.” It’s a powerful line spoken by younger sister, Amy, in a novel about her “perfect” older sister’s disappearance and her desperate search to find her. Sylvie is the pride of her family. She’s Ivy League educated, lives in Brooklyn Heights, and is married to a loving husband. But after visiting her ailing grandmother in the Netherlands, she vanishes. Amy, who has been living in Queens with their parents and hasn’t done much of anything with her life, must travel abroad to look for Sylvie, discovering eerie family secrets in her sister’s wake. Ultimately, the novel raises a painful question: What happens when both sisters think the other is the more beloved in a family? And at what point does that subtle competition erupt into something darker?

Read about another entry on the list.

Searching for Sylvie Lee is among Leah Konen's seven top getaway thrillers, Andrea Bartz's seven top thrillers about vacations gone wrong, Jennifer Baker's twelve mysteries featuring BIPOC protagonists and Katherine St. John's eleven novels of vacations gone horribly wrong.

The Page 69 Test: Searching for Sylvie Lee.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Kathleen Barber

From my Q&A with Kathleen Barber, author of Both Things Are True: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I usually really struggle with titles, but the title for Both Things Are True came to me not long after I started writing the book and just felt right. I don't want to share too much of the context because I don't want to give away any spoilers, but one of the characters says "both things are true" during a particularly emotionally charged moment in the book. It's a revelation for my protagonist, helping her realize that what she thought was black-and-white is actually more nuanced. It was important to me that the title reflected that growth (and the specific context in which it's said), although I don't expect readers to understand until they hit that portion of the novel. That said, I think the title both fits genre conventions and hints that there's a truth my protagonist has to learn, so I believe it gives readers an accurate representation of what's to come in the book.

What's in a name?

The protagonist of Both Things Are True is named Vanessa Summers. I chose Vanessa because...[read on]

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books for fans of "Jaws"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged six books for fans of Jaws, including:

The Deep by Alma Katsu

While a shark isn’t the predator in this chilling novel by Alma Katsu, the story does fall into the aquatic horror genre. This book also shares another neat connection with Jaws, as it’s inspired by historical events from the early 1900s, just as Benchley drew inspiration for his book from a series of shark attacks in 1916. After a number of passengers aboard the ill-fated Titanic experience uncanny deaths and disappearances, they begin to believe sinister forces may be at work. A few years later, Titanic survivor Annie works as a nurse aboard the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, and makes a disturbing discovery.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark Vernon's "Awake!"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination by Mark Vernon.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the 200 years since Blake's death, the visionary artist, poet and writer has become a household name, often beloved. Yet many struggle to comprehend his kaleidoscopic ideas; how they speak to human longings and the challenges of living in anxious times.

Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon provides a fresh route into Blake, taking him at his word. Exploring this brilliant thinker's passionate writings, arresting artworks and fascinating life, Vernon illuminates Blake's vivid worldview. Like us, he lived in a tumultuous era of war, discontent, rapid technological change, and human estrangement from nature. He exposed the dark sides of political fervour and social moralising, while unashamedly celebrating love and liberty. But he also conversed with prophets and angels, and was powerfully, if unconventionally, religious. If we take this seriously--not easy, in secular times--then Blake can help us to unlock the transformative power of imagination.

Written for both longstanding fans and unfamiliar readers, Awake! reveals Blake as an invigorating and hopeful guide for our modern age.

Visit Mark Vernon's website.

The Page 99 Test: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life.

The Page 99 Test: Awake!.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joanna Schaffhausen's "Gone in the Night"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Gone in the Night: A Detective Annalisa Vega Novel by Joanna Schaffhausen.

About the book, from the publisher:

The fifth installment of the beloved Annalisa Vega series

Detective Annalisa Vega hasn’t forgiven her brother for his role in a murder, and he hasn’t forgiven her for turning him in, so she’s surprised when he asks her to visit him in prison. Turns out, he has a possible case for her: one of his fellow inmates, Joe Green, may be innocent of the murder that landed him behind bars.

Joe is doing hard time for killing his ex-wife’s lawyer, but an anonymous letter sent to the prison warns that the eyewitness in Joe’s trial made up her story. With her private investigation business foundering, Annalisa is desperate enough to start poking around into Joe’s meager case. She immediately finds two problems: One, the eyewitness definitely lied about what she saw the night of the murder, and two, Annalisa’s husband Nick was the cop who arrested Joe in the first place.

Faced with correcting Nick’s mistakes, Annalisa digs deeper into Joe’s past and discovers he has two ex-wives with nothing good to say about him. The women may have orchestrated an elaborate frame to put Joe in prison, but one wife has completely disappeared since then. Did Joe somehow kill her? Or is he the real victim? Annalisa’s search for the truth tests the bounds of her marriage, her family, and her own sense of justice. Meanwhile, a devious killer keeps sending men to a watery death in the vastness of Lake Michigan. If Annalisa doesn’t figure out the truth about Joe soon, her husband might be next.

Visit Joanna Schaffhausen's website.

The Page 69 Test: All the Best Lies.

Writers Read: Joanna Schaffhausen (February 2020).

Q&A with Joanna Schaffhausen.

My Book, The Movie: Gone for Good.

The Page 69 Test: Gone for Good.

Writers Read: Joanna Schaffhausen (August 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Dead and Gone.

The Page 69 Test: Gone in the Night.

--Marshal Zeringue