April 5, 2025
The four novels in this week’s selection will definitely keep you on your toes. Each is a tour de force. One, which The Center is thrilled to launch, will demand your close attention; one is a debut by an Indigenous writer that feels like an instant classic; another is cathartic autobiographical fiction by a French-born writer living in Mexico; and another French writer takes us back to an imagined Renaissance. The fifth book, from an award-winning poet, offers valuable advice to writers.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Audition
By KATIE KITAMURA
Published by RIVERHEAD
This is a sensational novel. As soon as I finished it, I started it again. The book begins with a luncheon between an actress and an attractive young man wanting to get into the business. Pages later, this same young man is presented as her son and the story continues. It is a mind-bending conceit that traces the marriage between the nameless narrator and Tomas, an art critic, and their relationship to young Xavier. Which is the real story? Does the title give us clues? Kitamura explores the masks we put on for the public, the nature of performance, the dynamics of marriage, infidelity, parental responsibility, and identity. It will spark many a discussion.
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Perspective(s)
By LAURENT BINET
Published by FSG
Translated by Sam Taylor
Travel back to the Italian Renaissance amid titillating political scandals in this clever novel that’s also a rollicking crime story. In the preface, the narrator bemoans the inferiority of Florentine artists, but the discovery of a trove of letters helps to change his mind. The cast of characters includes Michelangelo, the Medicis, and art historian Giorgio Vasari. Binet (Civilizations) creates an epistolary novel around the murder of artist Jacopo da Pontormo, found stabbed to death among his frescoes. When it is discovered that he used the Duke de’ Medici’s daughter’s face in a very lascivious painting, bedlam breaks out. You’d never imagine Florence could be this racy.
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Big Chief
By JOHN HICKEY
Published by SIMON & SCHUSTER
Hickey’s striking debut unfolds over the course of less than a week. Like There There, it tells a propulsive story about Indigenous people that feels larger than its tightly focused setting. The title is the name for the huge SUV that is parked outside the Wisconsin casino that our two primary protagonists operate. The novel centers on lifelong friends, Mitch, a law-school grad with political dreams, and Mack, who presides over the Passage Rouge Nation. Their hold over the tribe begins to fray as the narrative builds to Election Day and politics and family dynamics come to a head, threatening to erupt in violence. It is a story of power, loyalty, and corruption tackling big subjects with a big-hearted style.
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Sad Tiger
By NEIGE SINNO
Published by SEVEN STORIES
Translated by Natasha Lehrer
Sinno, who lives in Mexico, draws from a traumatic childhood in her brave new novel: Her stepfather abused her from a young age. It is a fragmented, intellectually profound inquiry into the nature of memory and whether it is possible to survive such an experience intact. She filters her exploration through the lens of other great writers (Woolf, Nabokov, Toni Morrison, Annie Ernaux). The title echoes William Blake’s poem, “Tyger, Tyger” and, like the poem, Sinno questions the dual existence of good and evil in the world. Deservedly, her book has garnered multiple awards around the globe.
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Dear Writer
By MAGGIE SMITH
Published by ONE SIGNAL
Smith has put together a terrific and indispensable book on the craft of writing (based on her popular Substack newsletter, For Dear Life). She focuses on “what I see as the 10 ingredients in the secret sauce: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection and hope. The tools I share in each of these sections of the book are portable; readers can carry them across genres or forms of art.” She is wise and instructive in the best, simplest way. Reading her book is like sitting down with a friend or just being in a really great writing class. Her reverence for the creative life is contagious.
