Pg. 99: Jesse Wozniak's "Policing Iraq"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Policing Iraq: Legitimacy, Democracy, and Empire in a Developing State by Jesse Wozniak.

About the book, from the publisher:

Policing Iraq chronicles the efforts of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq to rebuild their police force and criminal justice system in the wake of the US invasion. Jesse S. G. Wozniak conducted ethnographic research during multiple stays in Iraqi Kurdistan, observing such signpost moments as the Arab Spring, the official withdrawal of coalition forces, the rise of the Islamic State, and the return of US forces. By investigating the day-to-day reality of reconstructing a police force during active hostilities, Wozniak demonstrates how police are integral to the modern state’s ability to effectively rule and how the failure to recognize this directly contributed to the destabilization of Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State. The reconstruction process ignored established practices and scientific knowledge, instead opting to create a facade of legitimacy masking a police force characterized by low pay, poor recruits, and a training regimen wholly unsuited to a constitutional democracy. Ultimately, Wozniak argues, the United States never intended to build a democratic state but rather to develop a dependent client to serve its neoimperial interests.

Visit Jesse Wozniak's website.

The Page 99 Test: Policing Iraq.

--Marshal Zeringue

Donis Casey's "Valentino Will Die," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Valentino Will Die by Donis Casey.

The entry begins:

After writing ten Alafair Tucker Mysteries, I was energized and excited to plunge into an entirely new series that takes place during the roaring 1920s. The Bianca Dangereuse Hollywood series features a headstrong girl who ran away from home in 1920 and by sheer will and a lot of good fortune reinvented herself as silent movie star Bianca LaBelle, the heroine of the wildly popular silent movie serial The Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse. The first episode of the series, The Wrong Girl (2019) details Bianca's rise to stardom. The second episode, Valentino Will Die, opens in 1926 and finds Bianca and megastar Rudolph Valentino, who have been friends for years, finally making their first picture together, a steamy romance called Grand Obsession. One evening after dinner, a troubled Rudy confesses that he has been receiving anonymous death threats. In a matter of weeks Rudy falls deathly ill and Bianca rushes to New York to be by his side as he lies dying. Rudy is convinced someone is trying to kill him, and Bianca promises him she will find out who is responsible. Was it one of his many lovers? A delusional fan? Or perhaps Rudy has run of afoul of a mobster whose name Bianca knows all too well. With time running out, Bianca calls on Private Detective Ted Oliver, the one man she believes can help her find who killed the world's greatest lover.

The character Bianca plays in her movies, Bianca Dangereuse, is a Perils of Pauline type adventuress.While researching 1920s silent movies, I was heavily influenced by a particular 1921 flick called Something New, starring a fabulous actor/writer/producer named Nell Shipman and a Maxwell automobile. If you haven't seen it, you're missing something. The Bianca LaBelle character was heavily influenced by Nell's looks, manner, and independence.

Bianca is very young. We first meet her at 15, but by the time Valentino Will Die opens, she is 21, tall, elegant, and beautiful. The first young actress I thought of to play Bianca is...[read on]

Visit Donis Casey's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hell with the Lid Blown Off.

My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off.

The Page 69 Test: All Men Fear Me.

My Book, The Movie: All Men Fear Me.

The Page 69 Test: The Wrong Girl.

My Book, The Movie: Valentino Will Die.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven mysteries set during the Roaring Twenties

Erica Ruth Neubauer spent eleven years in the military, two years as a cop and one year as a high school English teacher before finding her way as a writer. She has reviewed mysteries and crime fiction for several years at publications such as Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine and is a member of both Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. When she’s not writing her next novel or curled up with a book, she enjoys traveling, yoga and craft beer. She lives in Milwaukee, WI with her husband.

Neubauer's latest novel is Murder at Wedgefield Manor.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven favorite books set during the original roaring ‘20s, including:

Susanna Calkins, The Fate of a Flapper

In the second book in the Speakeasy Murders series, Gina Ricci has been working at a local Chicago speakeasy—The Third Door—for several months. When Gina’s cousin, a policewoman, calls her to come take photos of the victim of a poisoning, Gina realizes that the dead woman had just been at the Third Door. Did they serve bad booze? Or is there a killer among the patrons and staff? Calkins nails the flavor of Chicago during this time period, with bombings, mob affiliations, and all the slang of the times. (Her Lucy Campion series set in London during the 1600’s is also stellar.)

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Adam Mitzner's "The Perfect Marriage"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Perfect Marriage: A Novel by Adam Mitzner.

About the book, from the publisher:

James and Jessica Sommers are celebrating their first blissful year together, an unexpected second chance at true love. Unfortunately, their newfound shot at happiness is not without collateral damage.

There’s Jessica’s ex-husband. He pretends for all the world that he’s resilient and strong. If only for the sake of their teenage son, profoundly vulnerable in his own way. James’s ex has taken a different road. Bitter, vengeful, and threatening, she wants only the worst for the happy couple. And then there’s the couple themselves: Are they truly as in love as they seem?

When James enters into an extraordinarily profitable, if shady, transaction with a beautiful art dealer, Jessica and James’s seemingly perfect marriage takes a dark and tragic turn.

Amid suspicions, tested loyalties, revenge, and guilt, no one escapes unscathed from sins committed in the name of love.

Learn more about the book and author at Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Losing Faith.

My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith.

The Page 69 Test: A Matter of Will.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner (July 2019).

My Book, the Movie: A Matter of Will.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Alma Katsu

From my Q&A with Alma Katsu, author of Red Widow:

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

This book is a huge departure, going from fantasy and historical fiction to a spy thriller but also because this is the first one that is not “The [Noun]”. Old habits die hard: the working title had been The Widow but my publisher had put out Fiona Barton’s bestseller by the same title not too long previously. We then kicked around many titles, none of which seemed to fit. The publisher came up with Red Widow and immediately we knew it was the one. After you’ve read it, you’ll see that it applies in two ways. Plus, if it puts people in mind of Red Sparrow, I won’t complain.

What's in a name?

I usually put a lot of effort into character’s names, trying to come up with ones that give insight into the character’s personalities. For Red Widow, I…[read on]

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Megan A. Stewart's "Governing for Revolution"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War by Megan A. Stewart.

About the book, from the publisher:

Prevailing views suggest rebels govern to enhance their organizational capacity, but this book demonstrates that some rebels undertake costly governance projects that can imperil their cadres during war. The origins for this choice began with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese Civil War. The CCP knowingly introduced challenging governance projects, but nevertheless propagated its strategy globally, creating a behavioural model readily available to later rebels. The likelihood of whether later rebels' will imitate this model is determined by the compatibility between their goals and the CCP's objectives; only rebels that share the CCP's revolutionary goals decide to mimic the CCP's governance fully. Over time, ideational and material pressures further encouraged (and occasionally rewarded) revolutionary rebels' conformity to the CCP's template. Using archival data from six countries, primary rebel sources, fieldwork and quantitative analysis, Governing for Revolution underscores the mimicry of and ultimate convergence in revolutionary rebels' governance, that persists even today, despite vast differences in ideology.

Visit Megan A. Stewart's website.

The Page 99 Test: Governing for Revolution.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great books that do just fine without a villain

J.S. Dewes is an author, cinematographer, and video editor with a degree in film production from Columbia College Chicago. She cut her narrative teeth writing scripts for award-winning feature films and shorts which have screened at festivals and conventions all across the United States. A creative a heart, she enjoys video games, drawing, photography, graphic design, Pinterest, and all things visual.

Dewes's debut science fiction novel The Last Watch is coming from Tor Books April 20.

At the Tor/Forge Blog she tagged five great books that do just fine without a villain, including:

The Effort by Claire Holroyde

A massive comet is discovered to be on a collision-course with Earth, heralding an extinction-level event. While scientists from across the globe come together to devise a solution, civilization threatens to devolve around them.

A relatively new addition to the apocalyptic fiction genre, The Effort is the most recent book to have reminded me of my disaster movie lover roots.

The Effort is like if Karen Thompson Walker’s The Dreamers and the aforementioned Fail-Safe had a book baby, but swap the disease/nukes for a comet. It presents complicated sociopolitical issues through a disaster movie lens—featuring a sprawling cast and multiple storylines, each with its own unique set of crises and challenges to face.

The villain here is society itself, and the tentative, fragile instability of modern civilization that we take for granted every day. It’s another that fits nicely in the “hauntingly realistic” category. Contemplative above all else, it’s definitely the type of story with more questions than answers, leaving you with plenty to chew on.

As a kid, stories like these kickstarted my imagination more so than any other kind (and still do). They allow me to imagine a broader purview of conflict—one that doesn’t force a clear dichotomy of protagonist vs. antagonist, enabling a unique approach to storytelling you just can’t arrive at any other way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me a well-realized villain—whether relatable, morally gray, lawful neutral, unrelentingly evil, you name it—but I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for these kind of high-stakes, all-is-lost narratives that are able to showcase humanity at its most stubborn and determined—and working together to achieve great things.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Effort.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Mitzner's "The Perfect Marriage," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage: A Novel by Adam Mitzner.

The entry begins:

I do not think about actors when writing my characters. Mainly that’s because the characters exist for me on the inside, and so I’m less interested in what they look like. Also, I read early a tip about writing that if you say as character looks like George Clooney, the reader now imagines George Clooney, whereas if the description is how you would describe George Clooney – handsome, dark complexioned, strong jaw, dark hair, devilish smile – the reader can make that character his or her own.

Of course, it is my dream, like every novelist’s, that someday my characters will be brought to life by actors. But is only after the book is written that I think about that.

Here’s my dream cast for the lead roles of The Perfect Marriage.

James Sommers: Forties, handsome. Ben Affleck, although I say that in part because he’s Batman. Now that I think of it, maybe Christian Bale for that same reason.

Jessica Sommers: Forties, beautiful...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Losing Faith.

My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith.

The Page 69 Test: A Matter of Will.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner (July 2019).

My Book, the Movie: A Matter of Will.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Paula Munier's "The Hiding Place"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place: A Mercy Carr Mystery (Volume 3) by Paula Munier.

About the book, from the publisher:

Some people take their secrets with them to the grave. Others leave them behind on their deathbeds, riddles for the survivors to solve.

When her late grandfather’s dying deputy calls Mercy to his side, she and Elvis inherit the cold case that haunted him—and may have killed him. But finding Beth Kilgore 20 years after she disappeared is more than a lost cause. It’s a Pandora’s box releasing a rain of evil on the very people Mercy and Elvis hold most dear.

The timing couldn’t be worse when the man who murdered her grandfather escapes from prison and a fellow Army vet turns up claiming that Elvis is his dog, not hers. With her grandmother Patience gone missing, and Elvis’s future uncertain, Mercy faces the prospect of losing her most treasured allies, the only ones she believes truly love and understand her.

She needs help, and that means forgiving Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner long enough to enlist his aid. With time running out for Patience, Mercy and Elvis must team up with Troy and his search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear to unravel the secrets of the past and save her grandmother—before it’s too late.

Once again, Paula Munier crafts a terrific mystery thriller filled with intrigue, action, resilient characters, the mountains of Vermont, and two amazing dogs.

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen feminist books that will inspire, enrage, & educate you

Adrienne Westenfeld is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.

At Esquire she tagged "fifteen books [by] feminist thinkers [who] interrogate everything from intersections of racism and misogyny to Pepe the Frog's deeper meaning to online enclaves of sexist men." One title on the list:

Circe, by Madeline Miller

Disparaging tales of witches, harpies, and other female monsters are burned into our cultural imagination, but in the lush, luminous pages of Circe, a minor sorceress from Homer’s Odyssey receives a long-overdue feminist reimagining. Miller charts the lesser goddess Circe’s exile to the enchanted island of Aiaia, where Circe’s prison soon becomes her paradise. For centuries, she lives a free, feral life, honing her divine gifts of witchcraft and transfiguration while bedding down with lions and wolves. When Odysseus is shipwrecked on Aiaia, Miller reimagines the power dynamics of their entanglement, chipping away at Homer’s fabled myth of one man's greatness to expose a selfish man as flawed as any other. In Miller’s masterful hands, a long-overlooked goddess steps into the spotlight, giving rise to a powerful story of independence and self-determination in a man’s world.

Read about another entry on the list.

Circe is among Ali Benjamin's top ten classic stories retold, Lucile Scott's eight books about hexing the patriarchy, E. Foley and B. Coates's top ten goddesses in fiction, Jordan Ifueko's five fantasy titles driven by traumatic family bonds, Eleanor Porter's top ten books about witch-hunts, Emily B. Martin's six stunning fantasies for nature lovers, Allison Pataki's top six books that feature strong female voices, Pam Grossman's thirteen stories about strong women with magical powers, Kris Waldherr's nine top books inspired by mythology, Katharine Duckett's eight novels that reexamine literature from the margins, and Steph Posts' thirteen top novels set in the world of myth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Carrie Seim

From my Q&A with Carrie Seim, author of Horse Girl:

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

I conjured the title Horse Girl (in the middle of a canoe on the Long Island Sound, in fact) long before I sorted out any inkling of a plot — the title conveys so much in just two brief words. They crackle with so many pop-culture references. Is the main character a misunderstood misfit? A young woman harnessing new power over her changing life? Before even flipping to the first page, I hope readers will eagerly anticipate a story that’s deeply funny and also brave, about a girl who’s definitively awkward yet unsinkable. All from the title alone.

What's in a name?

My protagonist, Willa — aka Wills — is named after...[read on]

Visit Carrie Seim's website.

Q&A with Carrie Seim.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elesha J. Coffman's "Margaret Mead"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith by Elesha J. Coffman.

About the book, from the publisher:

For 50 years, Margaret Mead told Americans how cultures worked, and Americans listened. While serving as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History and as a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, she published dozens of books and hundreds of articles, scholarly and popular, on topics ranging from adolescence to atomic energy, Polynesian kinship networks to kindergarten, national morale to marijuana. At her death in 1978, she was the most famous anthropologist in the world and one of the best-known women in America. She had amply achieved her goal, as she described it to an interviewer in 1975, "To have lived long enough to be of some use."

As befits her prominence, Mead has had many biographers, but there is a curious hole at the center of these accounts: Mead's faith. Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith introduces a side of its subject that few people know. It re-narrates her life and reinterprets her work, highlighting religious concerns. Following Mead's lead, it ranges across areas that are typically kept academically distinct: anthropology, gender studies, intellectual history, church history, and theology. It is a portrait of a mind at work, pursuing a unique vision of the good of the world.

Learn more about Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best books to understand vaccines and why some refuse them

Eula Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had. Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism in 2009.

At the Guardian, Biss tagged "the best books to understand vaccines– and why some refuse them." One title on the list:

The smallpox vaccine was more dangerous than any of today’s vaccines, but it is no longer in use because it eradicated the disease. In theory, other infectious diseases could be eradicated as well, though vaccine refusal has recently led to outbreaks around the world. In the US, one of the demographic groups most likely to refuse to vaccinate their children is well-educated white women. The reasons for this are various, and not entirely flattering, but they include factors that are, as ever, political.

Reasons for this can be found in For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, which explores the fraught history of women’s health and illuminates why some women might be reluctant to accept expert advice on vaccination.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paula Munier's "The Hiding Place," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place: A Mercy Carr Mystery (Volume 3) by Paula Munier.

The entry begins:

If you saw the remake of The Call of the Wild with Harrison Ford, you may know that the canine character Buck was played by a CGI version of a rescue named Buckley. Director Chris Sanders had not yet cast the role of Buck when his wife Jessica Steele Sanders found Buckley on Petfinder. Buckley is a St. Bernard and farm collie mix, just like Buck in the book. Jessica packed up their 14-year-old rescue Brody and drove all the way to Kansas to meet Buckley—and the rest is movie history.

If The Hiding Place were a film, I’d want all of the real dogs who inspired the characters to land the starring roles. Susie Bear, the Newfoundland-retriever mix trained in search-and-rescue, would be played by Bear,
our own Newfie mutt. Service dog Robin, the Great Pyrenees and Australian shepherd mix, would be...[read on]

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alma Katsu's "Red Widow"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Red Widow by Alma Katsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

An exhilarating spy thriller written by an intelligence veteran about two women CIA agents whose paths become intertwined around a threat to the Russia Division–one that’s coming from inside the agency.

Lyndsey Duncan worries her career with the CIA might be over. After lines are crossed with another intelligence agent during an assignment, she is sent home to Washington on administrative leave. So when a former colleague–now Chief of the Russia Division–recruits her for an internal investigation, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station, where she was known as the “human lie detector” and praised for recruiting some of the most senior Russian officials. But now, three Russian assets have been exposed–including one of her own–and the CIA is convinced there’s a mole in the department. With years of work in question and lives on the line, Lyndsey is thrown back into life at the agency, this time tracing the steps of those closest to her.

Meanwhile, fellow agent Theresa Warner can’t avoid the spotlight. She is the infamous “Red Widow,” the wife of a former director killed in the field under mysterious circumstances. With her husband’s legacy shadowing her every move, Theresa is a fixture of the Russia Division, and as she and Lyndsey strike up an unusual friendship, her knowledge proves invaluable. But as Lyndsey uncovers a surprising connection to Theresa that could answer all of her questions, she unearths a terrifying web of secrets within the department, if only she is willing to unravel it….

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven great books built around cheating spouses and affairs

Peter Swanson is the Sunday Times and New York Times best selling author of seven novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year; and his most recent, Every Vow You Break.

[My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing; The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing.]

At CrimeReads Swanson tagged seven "favorite thrillers, all of which find interesting ways to incorporate the cheating spouse," including:

Soft Touch, by John D. MacDonald (1959)

John D. MacDonald actually wrote at least two novels that are what I’d call “adultery thrillers,” books that are entirely focused on marriages destroyed by lies. But Soft Touch, one of MacDonald’s finest noirs, is a fast-paced crime thriller in which two old friends try to pull off a heist while embroiled in a love triangle. It’s dark and merciless and shows how easily a marriage (and several lives) can be destroyed by lust and greed.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

From my Q&A with Nicola DeRobertis-Theye, author of The Vietri Project:

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

It sums up the whole book; moreover it was the only title I ever considered, the title from the earliest days, and no one, from my agent to my publisher, ever suggested changing it, which I think is a mark of success. At first, The Vietri Project refers to the project in the bookstore where my narrator works, of assembling large and mysterious book orders for a signor Vietri, in Rome. Later, when she is traveling and decides to look him up, it becomes her search for the facts of his life, for what answers he might be able to give her about how she should...[read on]

Visit Nicola DeRobertis-Theye's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Vietri Project.

The Page 69 Test: The Vietri Project.

Q&A with Nicola DeRobertis-Theye.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Helen McCabe's "John Stuart Mill, Socialist"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: John Stuart Mill, Socialist by Helen McCabe.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why did the world's most famous liberal call himself a socialist?

Best known as the author of On Liberty, John Stuart Mill remains a canonical figure in liberalism today. Yet according to his autobiography, by the mid-1840s he placed himself "under the general designation of Socialist." Taking this self-description seriously, John Stuart Mill, Socialist reinterprets Mill's work in its light.

Helen McCabe explores the nineteenth-century political economist's core commitments to egalitarianism, social justice, social harmony, and a socialist utopia of cooperation, fairness, and human flourishing. Uncovering Mill's changing relationship with the radicalism of his youth and his excitement about the revolutionary events of 1848, McCabe argues that he saw liberal reforms as solutions to contemporary problems, while socialism was the path to a better future. In so doing, she casts new light on his political theory, including his theory of social progress; his support for democracy; his feminism; his concept of utility; his understanding of individuality; and his account of "the permanent interests of man as a progressive being," which is so central to his famous harm principle.

As we look to rebuild the world in the wake of financial crises, climate change, and a global pandemic, John Stuart Mill, Socialist offers a radical rereading of the philosopher and a fresh perspective on contemporary meanings of socialism.

Learn more about John Stuart Mill, Socialist at the McGill-Queens University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: John Stuart Mill, Socialist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about life in the aftermath of revolution & civil war

Layla AlAmmar is a writer and academic from Kuwait. She has a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her short stories have appeared in the Evening Standard, Quail Bell Magazine, the Red Letters St. Andrews Prose Journal, and Aesthetica Magazine, where her story "The Lagoon" was a finalist for the 2014 Creative Writing Award. She was the 2018 British Council international writer in residence at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival. Her debut novel, The Pact We Made, was published in 2019. She has written for The Guardian and ArabLit Quarterly. She is currently pursuing a PhD on the intersection of Arab women's fiction and literary trauma theory.

AlAmmar's new novel is Silence Is a Sense.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books about life in the aftermath of revolution and civil war, including:

Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa, translated by Leri Price

A finalist for the National Book Awards, this novel is set during the civil war that followed the failure of the Arab Spring uprisings in Syria, which has resulted in immeasurable violence and one of the most severe humanitarian crises of our time. The narrative takes the form of a road trip, where three siblings are tasked with fulfilling their father’s dying wish to be buried in his ancestral village. What follows is a multi-day journey across Syria by van with the decomposing corpse, during which the siblings reflect on their history as well as the fractured state of their country. The absurdity of war is sharply brought into focus with moments of dark humor, such as when guards at one of the many checkpoints recognize the corpse and attempt to arrest it for crimes against the regime (the father had been a rebel leader).

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Emily B. Martin's "Floodpath"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Floodpath: A Novel by Emily B. Martin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The epic fantasy adventure begun in Sunshield races to its thrilling conclusion in this imaginative finale in which the fate of four extraordinary young people—and their nations—will be decided.

When their hopes for ending Moquoia’s brutal system of bondage are crushed, unlikely allies Lark and Veran are forced to flee into the harsh desert. With no weapons or horses, they must make their way to safety across the 50-mile expanse of waterless plains known as the water scrape. It is an odyssey filled with unexpected dangers that challenge even a skilled outlaw like Lark—though the farther they travel, the more she wonders if she even fits the fearsome title of the Sunshield Bandit anymore.

Injured in the coup to overthrow the Moquoian monarchy, Tamsin, accompanied by Iano, retreat to a safe house, where they await the return of Lark and Veran. Determined to uncover the traitor in the court, they devise a plan to confront the new palace ashoki, Kimela.

Imperiled by wilderness and their own tenuous alliances, Lark, Tamsin, and Veran each face massive risks to uncover the truth. But even if they find it, will their combined forces be strong enough to stop the evil infecting their beautiful land . . . and transform it into a fairer society for all?

Visit Emily B. Martin's website and check out her six stunning eco-fantasies for nature lovers.

The Page 69 Test: Sunshield.

The Page 69 Test: Floodpath.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jennifer Koshatka Seman's "Borderlands Curanderos"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Borderlands Curanderos: The Worlds of Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo by Jennifer Koshatka Seman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo were curanderos—faith healers—who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, worked outside the realm of "professional medicine," seemingly beyond the reach of the church, state, or certified health practitioners whose profession was still in its infancy. Urrea healed Mexicans, Indigenous people, and Anglos in northwestern Mexico and cities throughout the US Southwest, while Jaramillo conducted his healing practice in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley, healing Tejanos, Mexicans, and Indigenous people there. Jennifer Koshatka Seman takes us inside the intimate worlds of both "living saints," demonstrating how their effective healing—curanderismo—made them part of the larger turn-of-the century worlds they lived in as they attracted thousands of followers, validated folk practices, and contributed to a modernizing world along the US-Mexico border.

While she healed, Urrea spoke of a Mexico in which one did not have to obey unjust laws or confess one's sins to Catholic priests. Jaramillo restored and fed drought-stricken Tejanos when the state and modern medicine could not meet their needs. Then, in 1890, Urrea was expelled from Mexico. Within a decade, Jaramillo was investigated as a fraud by the American Medical Association and the US Post Office. Borderlands Curanderos argues that it is not only state and professional institutions that build and maintain communities, nations, and national identities but also those less obviously powerful.

Learn more about Borderlands Curanderos at the University of Texas Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Borderlands Curanderos.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten novels set in villages

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester.

She has written four novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; Bitter Orange; and Unsettled Ground.

"The best novels with a village at their heart will play with our assumptions about village life and not make even the most gossipy old woman a cliche," Fuller writes at the Guardian. She tagged ten of her favorite novels set in villages, including:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Achebe writes his characters, no matter how reprehensible, without judgment – letting the reader decide. Though really there is no decision to make: Okonkwo, the greatest wrestler across nine villages in Nigeria in the 1890s, is a man who regularly mistreats his wives and children, but when a white man comes on a bicycle and many more follow, they are even more brutal. Though the women in this novel are not the main characters, their daily duties, together with the village rituals, will keep you captivated.

Read about another entry on the list.

Things Fall Apart is among Jeff Somers's twenty-five books you probably should have read already, Barnaby Phillips' top ten books about Nigeria, Pushpinder Khaneka's three best books on Nigeria, Hallie Ephron's ten best books for a good cry, Helon Habila's three books to help understand Nigeria, and Martin Meredith's ten books to read on Africa.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Jess Montgomery

From my Q&A with Jess Montgomery, author of The Stills:

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

Though it’s two short words, The Stills works on two levels to bring readers into my novel. The Stills is set in 1927 in the Appalachian area of Ohio (the southeastern corner). Of course, 1927 is a little over halfway through the United States’ experiment with Prohibition. My series focuses on Sheriff Lily Ross, inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff. In my first two novels featuring Sheriff Lily, Prohibition—and moonshining and bootlegging—are in the background of the stories, occasionally brought in as minor plot points. In The Stills, bootlegging comes to the forefront, forming a main part of the plot. Lily faces off against George Vogel, a big-time bootlegger, inspired by the real-life crime boss George Remus. She can no longer think of violations of Prohibition as simply being a continuation of backwoods moonshining that has been going on for generations. George is bringing big crime—and big danger—to the heart of Lily’s county, and not long after he arrives, people start to die. She forms a wary alliance with a Bureau of Prohibition agent, as well as people in her community, to confront him.

But Lily is also still slowly coming to terms with her grief over losing her husband, Daniel, in the first novel in the series (The Widows). Other characters, too, must pause and consider how events around them impact them at their deepest level. So The Stills also refers to those quiet, still moments we all have—sometimes by choice, and sometimes as they’re foisted on us—to reflect on our situation, our beliefs, our place in the world.

The Stills also refers to...[read on]

Visit Jess Montgomery's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Widows.

The Page 69 Test: The Hollows.

The Page 69 Test: The Stills.

Q&A with Jess Montgomery.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tanya Boteju's "Bruised," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Bruised by Tanya Boteju.

The entry begins:

Bruised is a novel about grief, strength, and community. My protagonist Daya loses her parents in a car accident that she survives and takes to bruising herself as a way to cope (or avoid coping) with her grief. She’s been instilled with a particular view of strength from her father and believes toughness will bring her success, while softness is a form of weakness. When Daya is introduced to roller derby, she sees the brutal sport as a way to collect more bruises, but soon realizes that there’s so much more to be gained through roller derby’s sense of community and teamwork. The book includes both serious themes as well as colourful, action-packed roller derby scenes and some over-the-top characters. Though Daya is a tough nut, many of the people around her challenge that hard shell with humour, kindness, and care.

I could see Bruised as both a movie or a TV series. Daya’s family is from Sri Lanka, and I would love Daya to be played by a South Asian character who is full-bodied. We haven’t seen a lot of South Asian actors in the mainstream, but I’d be happy to see a lesser-known actor play her, kind of like how Maitrey Ramakrishnan in the Netflix series Never Have I Ever was fairly new to the scene (Ramakrishnan is also Sri Lankan and I was so excited to see her very brown name on the screen when I watched the show!).

Two central characters in the book are Kat and Shanti—sisters who connect with Daya in very different ways. Kat is tough as hell while Shanti is much softer and also more of a romantic interest for...[read on]

Visit Tanya Boteju's website.

Q&A with Tanya Boteju.

My Book, The Movie: Bruised.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top spy novels, written by spies

Alma Katsu's first spy novel is Red Widow, the logical marriage of her love of storytelling with her 30+ year career in intelligence. As an intelligence officer, Katsu worked at several federal agencies as a senior analyst where she advised policymakers and military commanders on issues of national security. The last third of her government career was spent in emerging technologies and technology forecasting. She was also a senior technology policy analyst for the RAND Corporation and continues as an independent consultant and technology futurist, advising clients in government and private industry.

At CrimeReads Katsu tagged five of the best spy novels, written by spies, including:

John le Carré, The Night Manager

The genre lost a giant when le Carré passed away on December 12, 2020. A life in intelligence is tricky; you’re often asked to do things that leave a bad taste in your mouth, and no one was able to capture the spy’s internal moral struggle better. His Cold War books are probably the best at capturing the spy-vs-spy gamesmanship of the time, but he answered the critics who said he was a one-trick pony by writing standalone novels like The Night Manager that dealt with intrigues in other parts of the world and emerging transnational issues. To top it off, he was a superb writer. The best make it look easy, and he tempted many an intelligence professional into thinking they’d write a book after they’d retired, only to find out it’s much, much harder than it appears.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Benjamin Holtzman's "The Long Crisis"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism by Benjamin Holtzman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Across all the boroughs, The Long Crisis shows, New Yorkers helped transform their broke and troubled city in the 1970s by taking the responsibilities of city governance into the private sector and market, steering the process of neoliberalism.

Newspaper headlines beginning in the mid-1960s blared that New York City, known as the greatest city in the world, was in trouble. They depicted a metropolis overcome by poverty and crime, substandard schools, unmanageable bureaucracy, ballooning budget deficits, deserting businesses, and a vanishing middle class. By the mid-1970s, New York faced a situation perhaps graver than the urban crisis: the city could no longer pay its bills and was tumbling toward bankruptcy. The Long Crisis turns to this turbulent period to explore the origins and implications of the diminished faith in government as capable of solving public problems. Conventional accounts of the shift toward market and private sector governing solutions have focused on the rising influence of conservatives, libertarians, and the business sector. Benjamin Holtzman, however, locates the origins of this transformation in the efforts of city dwellers to preserve liberal commitments of the postwar period. As New York faced an economic crisis that disrupted long-standing assumptions about the services city government could provide, its residents--organized within block associations, non-profits, and professional organizations--embraced an ethos of private volunteerism and, eventually, of partnership with private business in order to save their communities' streets, parks, and housing from neglect. Local liberal and Democratic officials came to see such alliances not as stopgap measures but as legitimate and ultimately permanent features of modern governance. The ascent of market-based policies was driven less by a political assault of pro-market ideologues than by ordinary New Yorkers experimenting with novel ways to maintain robust public services in the face of the city's budget woes.

Local people and officials, The Long Crisis argues, built neoliberalism from the ground up, creating a system that would both exacerbate old racial and economic inequalities and produce new ones that continue to shape metropolitan areas today.

Visit Benjamin Holtzman's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Long Crisis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nicola DeRobertis-Theye's "The Vietri Project"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Vietri Project: A Novel by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye.

About the book, from the publisher:

A search for a mysterious customer in Rome leads a young bookseller to confront the complicated history of her family, and that of Italy itself, in this achingly intimate debut with echoes of Lily King and Elif Batuman.

Working at a bookstore in Berkeley in the years after college, Gabriele becomes intrigued by the orders of signor Vietri, a customer from Rome whose numerous purchases grow increasingly mystical and esoteric. Restless and uncertain of her future, Gabriele quits her job and, landing in Rome, decides to look up Vietri. Unable to locate him, she begins a quest to unearth the well-concealed facts of his life.

Following a trail of obituaries and military records, a memoir of life in a village forgotten by modernity, and the court records of a communist murder trial, Gabriele meets an eclectic assortment of the city’s inhabitants, from the widow of an Italian prisoner of war to members of a generation set adrift by the financial crisis. Each encounter draws her unexpectedly closer to her own painful past and complicated family history—an Italian mother diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized during her childhood, and an extended family in Rome still recovering from the losses and betrayals in their past. Through these voices and histories, Gabriele will discover what it means to be a person in the world; a member of a family and a citizen of a country—and how reconciling these stories may be the key to understanding her own.

Visit Nicola DeRobertis-Theye's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Vietri Project.

The Page 69 Test: The Vietri Project.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about long-distance relationships

Alex Juarez is a Chicanx lesbian writer, editor, and pop culture enthusiast from Los Angeles. A recent graduate of the BFA Writing Program at Pratt Institute, they are currently an editorial intern for Electric Literature.

At Electric Lit Juarez tagged seven favorite books about long-distance relationships, including:

Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn

When Patsy, a queer Jamaican mother, sees an opportunity to move to Brooklyn, she takes it, leaving her young daughter, Tru, behind in their working-class neighborhood in Kingston. Once in New York, Patsy dreams of finally being together with her childhood best friend and crush, who has married a man and adapted to a new life. Across the sea, Tru struggles with her own feelings towards her mother, whom she desperately misses, and her relationship to her identity.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Tanya Boteju

From my Q&A with Tanya Boteju, author of Bruised:

photo credit: Greg Ehlers

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

Bruised started out as a working title, and for a while, my publisher was keen to see it changed to something else because they were worried it would bring up connotations of child abuse. However, as the novel came to its conclusion and we began to develop the cover art for the book, we all decided that Bruised would work out after all because the cover art made it clear that bruising was connected to roller derby.

It’s a very literal title, I suppose. Daya uses actual bruising in so many ways—to protect and punish herself, and to prove how strong she is. Bruising is also a significant side-effect of playing roller derby! Bruising felt like a strong anchor for me as I wrote the book, though—to always bring me back to why Daya does it, and how that physical sensation and the following feelings she experiences reflect...[read on]

Visit Tanya Boteju's website.

Q&A with Tanya Boteju.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter Baldwin's "Fighting the First Wave"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Fighting the First Wave: Why the Coronavirus Was Tackled So Differently Across the Globe by Peter Baldwin.

About the book, from the publisher:

COVID-19 is the biggest public health and economic disaster of our time. It has posed the same threat across the globe, yet countries have responded very differently and some have clearly fared much better than others. Peter Baldwin uncovers the reasons why in this definitive account of the global politics of pandemic. He shows that how nations responded depended above all on the political tools available - how firmly could the authorities order citizens' lives and how willingly would they be obeyed? In Asia, nations quarantined the infected and their contacts. In the Americas and Europe they shut down their economies, hoping to squelch the virus's spread. Others, above all Sweden, responded with a light touch, putting their faith in social consensus over coercion. Whether citizens would follow their leaders' requests and how soon they would tire of their demands were crucial to hopes of taming the pandemic.

Learn more about Fighting the First Wave at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Fighting the First Wave.

--Marshal Zeringue

The fifteen best books about TV comedies

At Vulture Brian Boone tagged the fifteen best books about TV comedy shows. Three of the titles are by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, Seinfeldia, and Sex and the City and Us.

Here's Boone's take on Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was arguably the first great, modern sitcom, a pioneering workplace comedy aimed squarely at adults, and not a broad family audience. Urbane, intelligent, and character-driven, it ushered TV comedy out of the hokey, Beverly Hillbillies and My Three Sons model and into a modern and sophisticated era. This 2013 book is a thorough, detailed, and nuanced look at the show, especially how tough it was to actually get on the air and to make consistently excellent for so long.

Read about the other entries on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.

The Page 99 Test: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.

The Page 99 Test: Seinfeldia.

The Page 99 Test: Sex and the City and Us.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nicola DeRobertis-Theye's "The Vietri Project," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Vietri Project: A Novel by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye.

The entry begins:

I have to start with a dream director: Greta Gerwig, who is from Sacramento, like my main character. My book is about a young woman’s search, in Rome, to discover the life story of a man she’s never met who ordered hundreds of mystical and esoteric books from her bookstore; it’s also about being twenty-five and learning to make your way in the world. I think her ability to capture intelligent but perhaps a bit wayward young women at a moment when they are searching or striving for something, even if they don’t quite know what that something is, would be the perfect fit. I’ve seen Ladybird twice, and sobbed through most of it both times. There’s a sequence in Ladybird that features a series of clear eyed but lingering, loving shots on some of the nostalgic places in Sacramento for the film’s main character; can you imagine this ability to capture a sense of place turned out on Rome? She also is able to capture character dynamics in a way that would really be able to handle the larger family scenes that come when Gabriele reunites with her large Italian family.

As for my main character, Gabriele, I would cast...[read on]

Visit Nicola DeRobertis-Theye's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Vietri Project.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Melissa Ginsburg's "The House Uptown"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The House Uptown: A Novel by Melissa Ginsburg.

About the book, from the publisher:

Melissa Ginsburg's The House Uptown is an emotional coming-of-age novel about a young girl who goes to live with her eccentric grandmother in New Orleans after the death of her mother

Ava, fourteen years old and totally on her own, has still not fully processed her mother’s death when she finds herself on a train heading to New Orleans, to stay with Lane, the grandmother she barely remembers.

Lane is a well-known artist in the New Orleans art scene. She spends most of her days in a pot-smoke haze, sipping iced coffee, and painting, which has been her singular focus for years. Her grip on reality is shaky at best, but her work provides a comfort.

Ava’s arrival unsettles Lane. The girl bears an uncanny resemblance to her daughter, whom she was estranged from before her death. Now her presence is dredging up painful and disturbing memories, which forces Lane to retreat even further into her own mind. As Ava and Lane attempt to find their way and form a bond, the oppressive heat and history of New Orleans bears down on them, forcing a reckoning neither of them are ready for.

Visit Melissa Ginsburg's website.

Q&A with Melissa Ginsburg.

The Page 69 Test: The House Uptown.

--Marshal Zeringue