June 14, 2025
Our lead recommendation is a compelling piece of literature that refuses to be categorized, hence the newsletter’s title this week. Two novels look at a divided America through military groups—one from a religious perspective featuring the Army of the Lord; the other through the armies of the Union and Confederacy. Two are debuts that skewer American culture with a healthy dose of humor. We also get a fresh look at the legacy of Toni Morrison and her 15+ years in the publishing industry, which we will celebrate at The Center.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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The Möbius Book
By CATHERINE LACEY
Published by FSG
The novel Pew was the first book I read by Lacey, and I was blown away. She continues to surprise and impress in her successive work. Now we find ourselves in indeterminate territory as her latest is a mashup of fiction and nonfiction. Character Marie refers to her life as “…a constant loop of considering and concluding.” And that is what the book’s structure is like. After a devastating breakup during the pandemic, Lacey has turned the experience into an exploration of love and friendship. It asks more questions than it answers—and will capture the reader’s imagination in an utterly challenging way. True art.
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Toni at Random
By DANA A. WILLIAMS
Published by AMISTAD
This is a behind-the-scenes look at the indelible influence of the late Toni Morrison. Not all readers know she was an editor at Random House from the late ’60s to the early ’80s, championing Black writers like novelists Gayl Jones and Toni Cade Bambara, and the poet June Jordan. She was eminently quotable: “[My students] had been told all of their lives to write what they knew. I always began […] by saying, ‘Don’t pay any attention to that. First, because you don’t know anything and second, because I don’t want to hear about your true love and your mama and your papa and your friends.’” Williams aptly celebrates her subject’s enduring impact on the world of letters.
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The Slip
By LUCAS SCHAEFER
Published by SIMON & SCHUSTER
In a “luxury eldercare community” in late-’90s Austin, we meet David, the Director of Hospitality. When not tending to the residents’ happiness, he is training volunteers to assist him and going to the local boxing gym (he was a fighter in Haiti years back). His friend there has a nephew who needs to find a job, and so David takes him on, entertaining him with his own escapades. But when the boy inexplicably disappears, the novel springs into action. A colorful cast of characters (a trans teen, an ex-boxer, a novice cop, among others) fills this stirring novel’s journey and illustrates Schaefer’s deft handling of moving parts and people, and their (literal) search for identity.
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How to Dodge a Cannonball
By DENNARD DAYLE
Published by HOLT
Dayle’s new novel is an eagerly awaited satire about the Civil War. Anders, a white teen, comes from a long line of military flag twirlers, including his hard-drinking mother. After a stint fighting with the Union, he “saw the light” and traded North for South, but after bloody Gettysburg, Anders switches sides once again—this time trying to ‘pass’ in a Black regiment. Here he finds his true comrades. “No man deserves to lose his property, human or otherwise.” In the sardonic tradition of Heller or Vonnegut nothing is safe from his mordant and mischievous gaze. This is a fun, smart, (dare I say) instant classic of American lit. Doyle expertly pitches a cannonball into the American canon.
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So Far Gone
By JESS WALTER
Published by HARPER
Jess Walter sets his latest fiction in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. Though perhaps best known for his novel set on the coast of Italy, he is actually a wise chronicler of American culture. This novel’s protagonist is former newspaperman Rhys, who has a big beef with his son-in-law Shane, a Christian conspiracist. The two become embroiled in a picaresque escapade when Rhys’s grandkids turn up after their mother disappears and Shane sends some thugs from their militia-based church to kidnap them. The book becomes a fast-paced caper, a comment on today’s current state of affairs, and an infectious heart-filled tale.
