UNNAMED PRESS
2019-2020
UNNAMED PRESS IS WRITING FOR CONTEMPORARY LIFE : DIVERSE, PROVOCATIVE, UNCOMPROMISING 2019-2020 CATALOG
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TABLE OF CONTENTS MEMOIR AND NONFICTION...................................4 CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY.............................................8 FICTION......................................................................10 PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY UNNAMED PRESS..............................................15
4 MEMOIR AND NONFICTION
“A beautiful amalgam of memoir, travelogue, and investigative report that moves with the propulsive forward energy of a thriller. A haunting chronicle of loss and redemption.”
—Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Alexander Hamilton
“What We Inherit is a strikingly original debut, a moving saga of love and grief that shows how world events reshaped three generations of one American family. Jessica Pearce Rotondi discovers that courage exists not only on battlefields, but even in the most ordinary kitchens.”
—Kate Bolick, bestselling author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own “Reading this book, I learned about the after-effects of war, and about the power of grace. I learned about hope, and its transformation into peace. What We Inherit is a powerful book about how we make sense of unfathomable loss - and about the realization that all loss is unfathomable. In our current world, with so much war and pain, this is the book we need.” —Eva Hagberg Fisher, author of How to Be Loved: A Memoir of Life-Saving Friendship “Recounting her family’s heart-wrenching search for an uncle who was shot down during the secret bombing of Laos, Jessica Pearce Rotondi’s What We Inherit is a triumph of investigative family history. A skillful and lyrical retelling of a mystery discovered largely upon her mother’s death, this book is a reminder of how the suffering that remains after war, a secret war all the more so, can haunt us for generations.” —Joel Whitney, author of Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers and a founder of Guernica “I devoured this book in one breathless gulp. A seamless blend of love, loss and legacy, this utterly gripping account of one woman’s search to uncover a family mystery in the wake of her mother’s death is at once heartbreaking and gorgeously hopeful. This is exactly the kind of compulsively-readable memoir I’m always hoping to find, but so rarely do.” —Claire Bidwell Smith, author of The Rules of Inheritance
MEMOIR AND NONFICTION 5
WHAT WE INHERIT JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI April 21, 2020 Hardcover 5x8 272 pages $26.00 9781951213077 World Rights: Unnamed Press
In the wake of her mother’s death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led “Secret War” in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades. In 1943, 19-year-old Edwin Pearce jumps from a burning B-17 bomber over Germany. Missing in action for months, his parents finally learn he is a prisoner of war in Stalag 17. Ed survives nearly three years in prison camp and a march across the Alps before returning home. Ed’s eldest son and namesake, Edwin “Jack,” follows his father into the Air Force. But on the night of March 29, 1972, Jack’s plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam and Ed’s past comes roaring into the present. In 2009, Ed’s granddaughter, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, is grieving her mother’s death when she stumbles across declassified CIA documents, letters, and maps that reveal her family’s decades-long search for Jack. What We Inherit is Rotondi’s story of her own hunt for answers as she retraces her grandfather’s 1973 path across Southeast Asia in search of his son. An excavation of inherited trauma on a personal and national scale, Rotondi nears the last known place Jack was seen alive and grows closer to understanding the destructive impact of a family secret so big it encompassed an entire war.
PHOTO CREDIT: BEOWULF SHEEHAN
JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Her work has been published by The History Channel, Atlas Obscura, The Huffington Post, Refinery29, and Greatist. Previously, she was Senior Lifestyle Editor at The Huffington Post and a staff member at the PEN American Center, the world’s oldest literary human rights organization. Her first job in New York City was as a book publicist at St. Martin’s Press, where she had a “room of her own” in the Flatiron Building to fill with books. Jessica is a graduate of Brown University, where she received a research grant to conduct an oral history project on World War II. What We Inherit is her first book.
6 MEMOIR AND NONFICTION
“Sleeplessness was my great discovery, darkness my perfect world.” “This is a book that works on the reader’s mind so that after you finish it, the world around you seems changed, revealed to be more mysterious, fascinating, illuminated and alive than you had realized before.”
—Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World and Viral: Stories “Hypnotically written and impressively weird, My Morningless Mornings is an intense and harrowing meditation on Stefany Ann Golberg’s youthful insomnia. More than that, though, it’s a moving mini-portrait of the bond between a father and his daughter. I really loved this book.”
—Tom Bissell, author of Apostle and co-author of The Disaster Artist “This extraordinary little book is a cabinet of wonders…Like Patti Smith’s Woolgathering, Golberg’s My Morningless Mornings transforms seeming mundanities into magic by viewing life through an artful lens that makes everything feel novel. Pure alchemy.”
—J. M. Tyree, co-author of Our Secret Life in the Movies
MY MORNINGLESS MORNINGS STEFANY ANNE GOLBERG March 24, 2020 Paperback 5X8.25 160 pages $18.00 9781951213046 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Hill Nadell Agency
As a teenager from a troubled family living outside Las Vegas, Stefany Anne Golberg chooses to separate herself from the everyday world around her. She is alone with the night, resisting the fundamental unit by which we measure our lives: the next day itself. Weaving together metaphor and myth, art and psychology, Golberg explores what wakefulness really means. Why 3 am is when most crimes are committed, when fevers either break or triumph, why it is known as “the hour of the wolf”. My Morningless Mornings is a startling and lyrical inquiry into the liminal space between night and day bringing together ideas about the psyche from Jung and Ingmar Bergman, the fantastical writing of Jules Verne and Bram Stoker and the dark paintings of Breugel. Like Eula Biss’ fascinating inquiry into fear and vaccines, On Immunity, My Morningless Mornings examines what consciousness means and why insomnia may be a state to celebrate rather than dread.
STEFANY ANNE GOLBERG is a writer, multi-media artist, and a founding member of Flux Factory, an arts collective in New York. She was a writer for The Smart Set magazine and Critic-in-Residence at Drexel University from 2009, and has written for The Washington Post (Outlook), Lapham’s Quarterly, New England Review, and others.
MEMOIR AND NONFICTION 7
“Homesick is the story of a singular consciousness, a strikingly personal account of a deeply troubled young girl’s efforts to absorb disaster— and to persevere—buoyed by her passion for language, its infinite permutations and enigmas ... Every page of this stunning and surprising book turns words around and around, deepening their mystery…”
—New York Times Winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Jennifer Croft brings us a tale of roots, both familial and etymological, as the lives of two sisters are seen through the eyes of an alternate version of Croft’s younger self. Sisters Amy and Zoe grow up in Oklahoma where they are homeschooled for a singular reason: Zoe suffers from debilitating and mysterious seizures that can disrupt life at any moment, for both she and her family. Spending her childhood in and out of hospitals, and undergoing multiple surgeries, Zoe watches as Amy flourishes intellectually, gleaning through books and language the possibilities of a world beyond their uncommon life at home. This world becomes real with Amy’s first love, the young Russian tutor Sasha, who challenges the aspirations of both sisters. But it is only when Amy separates from her sister and enters university at the age of 15 that both their lives change drastically, and with tragic results. Croft adds another layer to her stunning prose with disarming polaroid images, which challenge the signifying boundaries of language in this unforgettable coming of age story.
JENNIFER CROFT
“This inventive, stellar memoir examines the tensions between siblings and their separate fates in the most unsettling, unexpected ways. Jennifer Croft’s keen attention to the nuances and music of language is abundantly present in every sentence of Homesick.”
September 10, 2019
—Idra Novey author of Those Who Knew
HOMESICK
Hardcover I 5X8 I 256 pages $28.00 9781944700942 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Don Congdon Agency
“Jennifer Croft has written a gorgeous and stunningly visceral memoir of heartbreak and love. Croft’s brilliant meditations on translation captivate the mind and the heart, for what is translation but a radical act of love and understanding? … Homesick is an incantatory and masterful work of art.”
—Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin and Little Nothing “Haunting and visually poetic, Croft’s book explores the interplay between words and images and the complexity of sisterly bonds with intelligence, grace, and sensitivity. Poignant, creative, and unique.”
—Kirkus Reviews JENNIFER CROFT was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2018 and a National Book Award Finalist for her translation from Polish of Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is the recipient of Fulbright, PEN, MacDowell, and National Endowment for the Arts grants and fellowships, as well as the inaugural Michael Henry Heim Prize for Translation and a Tin House Workshop Scholarship for her memoir Homesick.
8 CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY
Inspired by the hugely popular Instagram account of the same name, Mauro Gatti’s playful and colorful activity book provide kids and their families an opportunity to make their own happy news. The Happy Broadcast features:
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Illustrated examples from around the world of positivity in action, from the Rwandan doctors who deliver medical supplies by drone to the Indian man who planted a tree everyday for 35 years and created a forest larger than Central Park.
. . . .
Activities to do in the home and in the community, on your own and with the whole family; Empowering, creative prompts for parents seeking a way to talk to their kids about the world’s challenges; 100,000 followers on Happy Broadcast Instagram in less than two years – with an engaged and quickly expanding following;
THE HAPPY BROADCAST: ADVENTURES IN DOING GOOD MAURO GATTI April 22, 2020 Paperback 8x8 I 112 pages I $16.00 Children’s Activity / Illustrated Children’s (Ages 4-12)
20,000+ social media author platform.
MAURO GATTI is a creative illustrator and designer, whose work ranges from illustration to creative direction, children’s books and game design. The common denominator of his portfolio is positivity, expressed through a playful humorous style inspired by the illustration of the 60s and 70s. Gatti works at the intersection of creativity, marketing and technology and has developed advertising campaigns,
9781951213060
illustrations, branding, games, apps, videos, mobile stickers
World Rights: Unnamed Press
and installations for a broad range of clients, local businesses and community organizations. Mauro started The Happy Broadcast in 2018—a counter hate and fear culture project that features weekly illustrated positive news from around the world. The Happy Broadcast Instagram account has garnered 100,000 followers in less than two years.
CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY 9
10 FICTION
Future Tense Fiction is a collection of electrifying original stories from a veritable who’s-who of authors working in speculative literature and science fiction today.
Featuring: Carmen Maria Machado, Emily St. John Mandel, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, Madeline Ashby, Mark Oshiro, Meg Elison, Maureen McHugh, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Hannu Rajaniemi, Annalee Newitz, Lee Konstantinou, and Mark Stasenko— Future Tense Fiction points the way forward to the fiction of tomorrow. “This dynamic, dud-free anthology of 14 short stories written by some of speculative fiction’s greats provides gripping, convincing glimpses into various near futures... essential reading for anyone intrigued by what might come next for humankind.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
FUTURE TENSE FICTION: STORIES OF TOMORROW October 02, 2019 Hardcover 6x9 256 pages $27.00 Anthology / Short Stories 9781944700959 World Rights: Unnamed Press
“Because of the diversity of its authorship, this anthology does more than imagine what the world might be like if all of our perspectives were included. Instead, it moves past the picture of representation to a clear, uncompromising, imaginative look at just what it is we are all included in.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “These 14 intelligent and complex stories hold both hopes and fears for our future, presenting poignant and fascinating tales of what we should consider as we alter our world.”
—Booklist
“A must-read for SF fans curious about the future of the genre.”
—The Barnes & Noble Review
A disease surveillance robot whose social programming gets put to the test. A future in which everyone receives universal basic income— but it’s still not enough. A futuristic sport, in which all the athletes have been chemically and physically enhanced. An A.I. company that manufactures a neural bridge allowing ordinary people to share their memories. Brimming with excitement and exploring new ideas, the stories collected by the editors of Slate’s Future Tense are philosophically ambitious and haunting in their creativity. At times terrifying and heartwrenching, hilarious and optimistic, this is a collection that ushers in a new age for our world and for the short story. A partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, Future Tense explores how emerging technologies will change the way we live, in reality and fiction.
FICTION 11
Tifft’s second novel is an ode to the millennials of small towns everywhere, to people who follow their dreams despite the odds, and only go out at night. Tifft’s bizarre, captivating second novel (after The Long Fire) depicts the perilous relationship between a young woman and a man who claims to be Dracula… This is a sharp, head-spinning story about two lovers desperately seeking nourishment.”
—Publishers Weekly “Tifft delivers the literary equivalent of a fever dream, complete with baroque prose, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and alternating first-person, present-tense narratives… the surreal atmosphere makes the tale feel a bit like a play, itself—something on the order of Our Town meets Waiting for Godot as imagined by David Lynch.”
—Kirkus Reviews Lucinda’s boyfriend Dracula says he’s the Dracula—he sleeps in a coffin, hunts pigeons for blood, and only goes out at night. But is he really? Unsettlingly, there has been a spate of recent disappearances and Lucinda begins to question whether it’s more dangerous to be dating an immortal vampire or a UPS driver who thinks he’s one. While Dracula sleeps, Lucinda works at a smoothie shop where her boss is a creep. Her only escape from reality is the play she’s written that’s being produced by the community theatre and starring a pair of sibling actors, Rory and Lauren.
FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST MEGHAN TIFFT October 22, 2019 Paperback I 5 x 8 I 272 pages $17.00 Fiction/ Literature 9781944700621 World Rights: Unnamed Press
As the play’s premiere draws nearer, it’s clear that sinister forces are at work, and the people in Lucinda and Dracula’s world are not as they seem. Meghan Tifft creates an alternate small town America, one brimming with strange delights and dark curiosities, where you can be whoever you want (though not really) and somebody’s dinner is another person’s breakfast.
MEGHAN TIFFT is the author of The Long Fire, a semifinalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona and teaches at the University of Colorado. She lives in Colorado Springs.
12 FICTION
Beautifully compelling and quietly powerful, Zaman’s stories capture an old way of life and ask what’s next? Up in the main house, servants have worked for decades watching the city rise around it, feeling like part of the family but knowing they aren’t. In Bangladeshi American Zaman’s collection, the stark class lines drawn between those in the main house and those living outside of it in Dhaka, Bangladesh, are blurred as he navigates the lives of the latter with empathy, precision, and grace.”
—Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review “Though Nadeem Zaman’s stories appear concise, they are capacious— tales of individual lives that capture the psyche of a people and a nation... The resulting book is a vivid portrait of contemporary Bangladesh, but more than that, it’s an evocation of how it feels to be alive right now.”
—Rumaan Alam, author of That Kind of Mother
“A remarkable collection of stories that captures, in dense, atomic detail, the warp and weft of Dhaka’s tapestry of lives. Zaman’s work invites comparison to Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger for its resolute, unsentimental depiction of the frozen web of hierarchical power and societal expectations in which we find ourselves trapped, whether we are master or servant, hero or villain.”
UP IN THE MAIN HOUSE NADEEM ZAMAN November 05, 2019 Paperback I 5 x 8 I 176 pages I Short Stories $17.00 9781944700980 World English Rights (excluding Bangladesh): Unnamed Press Other Editions: Bangladesh (Bengal Lights)
—Arif Anwar, author of The Storm Nadeem Zaman’s new collection of eight stories set in contemporary Dhaka explore the inner lives of the cooks and butlers, nightwatchmen and peons—people who have spent decades working for the same family, in the same house. Arranged marriages are negotiated, favors asked, the social cues a subtle dance. The daily itineraries must run like clockwork for the rich and well off who have their own problems, but in Nadeem’s stories they appear thin and forever insecure, a byproduct of the real lives being lived around them. There are digressions, too, big ones like the interlopers and prowlers, petty thieves, and calculated con men, and small ones, like the servant woman who locks herself in the master bedroom while the family is away and the night guard who wonders, if there is always “the family,” does he have one of his own?
NADEEM ZAMAN is the author of the novel “In the Time Of the Others” (Picador India 2018). His fiction has appeared in journals in the US, Hong Kong, India, and Bangladesh. He has a PhD in Comparative Humanities and Literature from the University of Louisville. He teaches creative writing and literature in Maryland. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he grew up there and in Chicago.
FICTION 13
Selected by the American Booksellers Association as one of 10 debut books for adults to watch out for in 2020.
The Wanting Life a novel
Mark Rader
THE WANTING LIFE MARK RADER February 25, 2020 Paperback I 5.5 X 8.5 I 320 pages $18.00 9781944700997 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Dunow, Carson, and Lerner Agency
Set in Rome, Cape Cod, and Wisconsin over the course of the summer of 2009, and Rome during the spring of 1970, The Wanting Life tells the intertwined story of three members of the Novak family: Paul, a dying priest haunted by his past; Britta, his self-destructive sister and caretaker, who’s struggling to find meaning in a world without her beloved husband; and Maura, Britta’s daughter—a forty-four-year-old artist who’s facing a choice between her husband and two children, or the man she believes is her one, true love. Featuring one of the most unconventional love stories you’ll read this year, The Wanting Life is a compulsively readable drama about the toll secrets and sacrifice take on a family. It is also a heartbreaking meditation on the possibilities (and limitations) of love, calling to mind novels like Marilynne Robinson’s Home and Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy. “Mark Rader’s The Wanting Life combines the best of old-school storytelling—intricate psychology, respect for characters, and serious exploration of faith—with contemporary candor and eroticism. Deeply complex and compulsively readable, this multi-generational story interrogates desire, truth, and what it means to lead a full life, in ways that are eternally urgent.”
—Gina Frangello, author of A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting “Who deserves to love and be loved? Mark Rader’s moving, immersive novel The Wanting Life is a master class in the human heart, with achingly real characters whose stories reveal the mystery and power of great love, even (especially) when that love is just out of reach. Beautiful, suspenseful, and ultimately hopeful.”
—Siobhan Adcock, author of The Barter and The Completionist “Mark Rader’s devastating debut novel The Wanting Life is as much about the losses that arrive with aging as it is about the power and necessity of memory. Every life is a love story, this book reminds us, and at every stage there’s a chance for a different future. I loved it.”
—Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates Will Find Their Way and Visible Empire MARK RADER has had stories published in Glimmer Train, Epoch, The Southern Review and shortlisted for an O. Henry Award, the Best American Non-Required Reading anthology, and a Pushcart Prize. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. He currently lives in Chicago.
14 FICTION
A darkly funny peek into Los Angeles’s fickle music scene from a startlingly original new voice. “This is a fantastic novel that feels contemporary in all the right ways. In the world of Vagablonde, fame is more important than mental health, good lighting is more important than food, and ‘thriving’ is more important than any mundane obligation. Anna Dorn’s sentences are sharp and addictive, absorbing me completely into this world of music, friendship, and self-interrogation.”
—Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else “A novel about dissociation, Vagablonde conveys a surprisingly deep emotional journey. With acerbic wit and a keen eye for sensory detail, Dorn perfectly renders banal tragedies, bleary morning afters, and creative dreams both lost and found.”
—Catie Disabato, author of The Ghost Network
VAGABLONDE ANNA DORN May 2020 Hardcover I 5.5 X 8.5 I 320 pages Price $26.00 978-1951213008 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Trident Media
Prue is a 30-year-old attorney who wants two things, the first is to live without psychotropic medication, and the second is to experience success as a rap artist. Her life is good on paper: she has an easy government job and a nice girlfriend who gets her in to all the right shows, and when Prue is introduced to music producer Jax Jameson, they instantly click. Prue joins Jax’s “Kingdom,” a collective of musicians and artists who share Prue’s aesthetic sensibilities and lust for escapism. Soon, she’s off her meds, closing her law practice, and becoming entangled with a suspect crew of heavy drug users. But the group they form, Shiny AF, is starting to take off and Prue is on the precipice of getting everything she thought she wanted. So, why is she still so miserable? An exploration of the toxic nature of viral fame and a generation’s dangerous dependence on external validation, Anna Dorn’s debut is as illuminating as the light bouncing off Echo Park Lake, speaking directly to our time in biting detail.
ANNA DORN is a writer living in Los Angeles. A former criminal defense attorney, she regularly writes about legal issues for Justia and Medium. Her article on juvenile life without parole was published in American University Law Review. She has written about culture for LA Review of Books, The Hairpin, and Vice Magazine. Anna has a JD from UC Berkeley Law School, an MFA from Antioch University — Los Angeles, and a BA from UNC-Chapel Hill. Her memoir, Bad Lawyer, will be published by Hachette Books in Spring 2021.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY UNNAMED PRESS 15
Bette Adriaanse, Rus Like Everyone Else (novel): Adriaanse imagines the lives of people we ignore--the postal workers, the secretaries, the elderly neighbors-- in this hallucinatory and dream-like debut. [November 2015, 9781939419538, North American & UK Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Greene & Heaton, Foreign Editions: Netherlands (COSSEE)] K. Anis Ahmed, Good Night Mr. Kissenger (stories): Hailed as Dhaka’s Dubliners, Good Night, Mr. Kissinger traces the modern history of Bangladesh’s capital and its rise from provincial outpost to megacity. [March 2014, 9781939419040, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Asia Literary Agency] Prisonero Anónimo, Experience Mexican Jail! (travel guide/humor): The world’s only travel guide for navigating the customs, language, and culture of life in Mexican jail. [March 2017, 9781939419835, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Stephanie Ash, The Annie Year (novel): A finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, The Annie Year follows a year in the life of Tandy Caide, a small-town CPA on a mission, in this hilarious and heartfelt ode to the modern Midwest. [October 2016, 9781939419965, World English Rights: Unnamed Press, Translation Rights: Levine Greenberg, Rostan Literary] James Boice, The Shooting (novel): A stunning novel of violence and heartbreak in contemporary America. [September 2016, 9781939419743, World & Film Rights: Unnamed Press] Stefan G. Bucher, Letterheads (graphic design): From the creator of the popular Daily Monster YouTube series, a revolutionary new vision for “characters,” one that brings the alphabet hilariously alive. [November 2017, 9781944700492, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Janet Capron, Blue Money (memoir): Blue Money is an intimate account of life in 1970s New York— and a no-holds-barred portrait of prostitution. [June 2017, 9781944700263, North American Rights: Unnamed Press]
JESSIE CHAFFEE, FLORENCE IN ECSTASY (NOVEL): A young woman arrives in Florence from Boston, knowing no one and speaking little Italian. But Hannah is isolated in a more profound way, estranged from her own identity after a bout with starvation that has left her life and body in ruins. [May 2017, 9781944700171, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: The Gernert Company, Foreign Editions: Czech Republic (Argo Books)]
Marlena Chertock, Crumb-Sized (Poetry): Marlena Chertock grew up crumb-sized, with a rare bone disorder. She uses her skeletal dysplasia and chronic pain as a bridge to scientific poetry. [August 2017, 9781944700478, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Agnès Desarthe, Hunting Party (novel): A hunting party is disrupted by a sudden flood in the French countryside and the ensuing tragedy exposes the close-knit community’s secrets and indiscretions. [July 2018, 9781944700713, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Translation Rights: Editions de L’Olivier.] Cate Dicharry, The Fine Art of Fucking Up (novel): It’s war at the School of Visual Arts, and nobody’s art is safe: not even Jackson Pollocks, in this hilarious and charming debut about one woman’s search for professional, and personal, satisfaction. [April 2015, 9781939419255, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Hill Nadell Literary] Kristiina Ehin, Walker on Water (stories): Dripping with rich and wild imagery, Estonia’s most important contemporary writer reinvents the folktale for the 21st Century. [June 2014, 9781939419071, World English Rights: Unnamed Press]
16 PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY UNNAMED PRESS
Rebecca Entel, Fingerprints of Previous Owners (novel): Follows Myrna, a maid at a resort in the Caribbean, as she secretly excavates the ruins of the slave plantation her island community refuses to acknowledge.[June 2017, 9781944700232, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Wolf Literary]
ALEX ESPINOZA, CRUISING: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF A RADICAL PASTIME (NONFICTION): Alex Espinoza details and explores the rich history of cruising in the queer community, weaving his own personal experience within this narrative. [June 2019, 9781944700829, World Rights: Unnamed Press, Foreign Editions: Spain (Dos Bigotes)]
Hope Ewing, Movers and Shakers: Women Making Waves in Spirits, Beer & Wine (NonFiction) In her travels across the country, Hope Ewing, a veteran bartender, discovers how women are paving the way and creating a more inclusive and sustainable world full of delicious drinks. [October 2018, 9781944700645, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Stuart Krichevsky Agency] Isaac Goldemberg, Remember the Scorpion (novel): A hard-boiled mystery set in Lima, Peru, where Detective Weiss must confront two forms of trauma: the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and his own memories from the Holocaust. [June 2015, 9781939419194, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Debbie Graber, Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday (short story): A laugh-out-loud story collection, Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday skewers corporate culture and re-envisions office life. [May 2016, 9781939419842, World English Rights: Unnamed Press, Translation Rights: Linwood Messina Literary Agency] Jérémie Guez, Eyes Full of Empty (novel): Private eye Idir is a fixer for the wealthy, and his hunt for a missing heir sends readers on a tour de force through Paris’s seedy underbelly. [November 2015, 9781939419439, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Foreign Editions: France (La Tengo)]
MALU HALASA, MOTHER OF ALL PIGS (NOVEL): Over the course of a weekend, the Sabas family have to confront their secrets and injustices after a mysterious person from the past shows up. Told through multiple points of view, this novel explores life in the Middle East. [November 2017, 9781944700348, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Pontas Literary Agency, Foreign Editions: Arabic (Al Kotob Khan), France (Editions de l’Aube), Italy (Solferino/RCS Media Group)]
Joe Halstead, West Virgina (novel): When news of his father’s suicide reaches Jamie Paddock in New York City, he returns to the place he left behind, to confront what drove him away, and search for answers. [January 2017, 9781944700041, World & Film Rights: Unnamed Press] Carly J. Hallman, Year of the Goose (novel): A satirical send-up of the lives of the wealthy in contemporary China and one of the BBC’s Best Books of 2016. [November 2015, 9781939419514, World Rights: Unnamed Press]
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SAAD Z. HOSSAIN, DJINN CITY (NOVEL): :: Using Islamic mythology, Saad Hossain Creates an underworld populated by Djinn who have been holding a grudge against humans. [November 2017, 9781944700065, World Rights: Unnamed Press, Foreign Editions: India (Aleph Book Company), Bangladesh (Bengal Lights Books)]
Saad Z. Hossain, Escape from Baghdad (novel): Saad Hossain weaves fantasy, dark comedy, and action as regular Iraqis turned black marketeers, Dagr and Kinza navigate the streets of Baghdad during the height of the U.S. invasion. [March 2015, 9781939419248, World Rights: Unnamed Press, Foreign Editions: France (Editions Agullo), India (Aleph Book Company), Bangladesh (Bengal Publications)] Fabienne Josaphat, Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow (novel): Haiti, 1965. Nicolas is sent to the notorious Fort Dimanche prison by the brutal dictator Papa Doc’s militia, and his brother Raymond must try to save him. [February 2016, 9781939419576, World English Rights: Unnamed Press, Foreign Editions: France (Calmann-Levy)] Paul Kolsby & David L. Ulin, Ear to the Ground (novel): Set on the studio lots of Hollywood, Ear to the Ground is the story of an impending devastating earthquake, and the race to complete a movie about a devastating earthquake. [April 2016, 9781939419736, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Hill Nadell Literary] Merle Kröger, Collision (novel): A cruise ship’s crew and passengers come face to face with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. [November 2017, 9781944700195, World English Rights: Unnamed Press, Translation Rights: Argument Verlag} Gallagher Lawson, The Paper Man (novel): A young man named Michael — who is, as the result of a dreadful accident, made of paper — navigates a mysterious city by the sea in this modern fable of love and revolution. [May 2015, 9781939419224, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Hill Nadell Literary , Foreign Editions: Turkey (Alakarga)] David Lida, One Life (novel): Richard saves the lives of the guilty: when Mexican nationals face the death penalty in the US, he investigates their pasts in this suspenseful and revelatory novel. [October 2016, 9781939419958, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Dunow, Carlson & Lerner, Foreign Editions: Mexico (Tusquets Editores)] Dan Lopez, The Show House (novel): In the sprawl of suburban Florida, one family attempts to reunite as another spins out of control: The sinister link connecting them both is hiding in the show house. [December 2016, 9781944700034, World Rights: Unnamed Press]
BETHANY C. MORROW, MEM (NOVEL):: In an alternate Jazz age Montreal, traumatic memories are extracted from people and exist as mems; carbon copies of their sources doomed to relive that traumatic memory over and over again. Then 19 year old Dolores shocks everyone by creating her own memories and developing her own personality. [May 2018, 9781944700553, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Irene Goodman Literary Agency]
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Rheea Mukherjee, The Body Myth (novel): Rheea Mukherjee explores loss, illness, and recovery through Mira, an isolated widow recovering from a grief triggered meltdown and her intimate, volatile, and fragile friendship with a mysteriously ill woman and her husband. [February 2019, 9781944700843, World Rights (except U.K. and Australia): Unnamed Press, U.K. and Australia: Writer’s House, Foreign Editions: Penguin India] Kristine Ong Muslim, Age of Blight (novel): A fascinating and absorbing collection of speculative stories, Age of Blight addresses climate change in a profoundly original way. [January 2016, 9781939419569, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Adam Nemett, We Can Save Us All (novel): The Egg is an off-campus dome and eventually nationwide movement where David Fuffman and his crew of alienated Princeton students train for what might be the end of days. [November 2018, 9781944700768, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Curtis Brown, Ltd.] Geoff Nicholson, The Miranda (novel): The Miranda follows an ex-agency operative who specializes in preparing other agents for torture—a biting satire about unceasing state of war in which most of us unconsciously live. [October 2017, 9781944700362, US & CA Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Union Literary] Jaya Nicely, OFFLINE JOURNAL: A Guided Diary For a More Connected, Creative Life (Journal/Diary): Illustrator and Designer Jaya Nicley creates a guided journal for creatives of all types to take a step back from being online and connect with the world around you. [May 2019, 9781944700799, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Deji Olukotun, After the Flare (novel): The second book in the Nigerians in Space trilogy, After the Flare, explores how catastrophic solar flare reshapes our world as we know it allowing for deep questions about technology, international ambition, identity, and space exploration in the 21st Century. [September 2017, 9781944700188, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Deji Olukotun, Nigerians in Space (novel):A madcap international thriller following a Nigerian lunar geologist, a South African abalone poacher, and a Zimbabwean super model, embroiled in corruption and conspiracy. [February 2014, 9781939419019, World Rights: Unnamed Press] Tim Orchard, Stickle Island (novel): A tiny British isle’s residents hatch a plan to save their way of life, in the tradition of “Waking Ned Devine” and “The Full Monty.” [February 2018, 9781944700522, World English Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Levine Greenberg, Rostan Literary Agency] Janice Pariat, Seahorse (novel): A sweeping tale of love, nostalgia, and memory, interweaving 1990s New Delhi and present-day London, tracking one man’s undying love for his former professor. [January 2016, 9781939419552, North American Rights: Unnamed Press. Other Rights: Pontas Literary Agency , Foreign Editions: India (Random House India)]
LESLIE PIETRZYK, SILVER GIRL (NOVEL): A young women in the 1980’s leaves her small town and past behind when she moves to Chicago where she develops a complicated but intense attachment to her charismatic, wealthy roommate. [February 2018, 9781944700515, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Curtis Brown, Ltd., Foreign Editions: Poland (IUVI)]
Adam Popescu, NIMA (Novel): Set in the Himalayas, this novel follows Nima, a young Sherpa girl who flees from an arranged marriage and her family and finds herself disguised as a man working as guide to an American journalist to Everest Base Camp. [May 2019, 9781944700850, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: McCormick Literary]
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY UNNAMED PRESS 19 Henrietta Rose-Innes, Nineveh (novel): From award-winning South African novelist Henrietta Rose-Innes comes the story of Katya Grubbs, Cape Town’s only ethical pest removal specialist. [November 2016, 9781939419972, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Blake Friedmann Literary, Foreign Editions: France/Switzerland (Editions ZOE), UK (Aardvark Bureau), Mexico (Editorial Almadia), South Africa (Random House SA/Umuzi)] Benjamin Rybeck, The Sadness (novel): Max never recovered from his mother’s death and has become increasingly obsessed with his film and finding his missing leading lady and muse. Kelly, his sister, finds herself in the snowy Portland reunites and tries to help Max. [June 2016, 9781939419705,World Rights: Unnamed Press] Michael J. Seidlinger, Falter Kingdom (novel): High school senior Hunter Warden catches a demon, it’s a surefire way to be popular but everyone gets an exorcism eventually, so what happens if he decides to keep it? [August 2016, 9781939419750, World English Rights: Unnamed Press] J.M. Servin, For love of the Dollar (memoir): Following the plight of the undocumented worker, For Love of the Dollar confronts what it means to be Mexican, as it does American, laying bare a version of the American dream. [March 2017, 9781944700010, World English Rights: Unnamed Press] Julie Shigekuni, In Plain View (novel): Daidai’s life in Los Angeles is turned upside down when she befriends Satsuki, a mysterious Japanese woman with a troubled past. [November 2016, 9781939419989, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Sterling Lord Literistic] Ranbir Singh Sidhu, Deep Singh Blue (novel):Set in rural 80s California, Ranbir Singh Sidhu’s is a coming of age story about “the other Indians—the ones who don’t get talked about and whose stories don’t get written.” [March 2016, 9781939419989, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Sterling Lord Literistic] Drew Nellins Smith, Arcade (novel): A new world opens up to Sam when he discovers a peepshow on the outskirts of town in this groundbreaking look at desire and coming of age. [June 2016, 9781939419729, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: InkWell Management] T.Sean Steele, Tacky Goblin (Short Story): Absurdist, nihilistic, and lovable, Tacky Goblin is a very funny look at the dark side of (not) becoming a grown-up. [July 2018, 9781944700607 World Rights: Unnamed Press]
ALICE STEPHENS, FAMOUS ADOPTED PEOPLE (NOVEL): Lisa and Mindy bond over being adopted and collecting biographies of famous adopted people but after a friendship ending fight in Seoul, Lisa is left lost. Eventually Lisa finds herself trapped inside a palatial mountain compound with other international misfits; all loitering in extravagant imprisonment. [October 2018, 9781944700744, World Rights: Unnamed Press]
Elizabeth Tan, Rubik (novel): Deftly blending the real and imagined with biting social satire, Elizabeth Tan explores the on-and-off line lives of a diverse group of contemporary characters. [May 2018, 9781944700577, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Mackenzie Wolf Literary , Foreign Editions: Australia (Brio Books), UK (Wundor Editions)] Meghan Tifft, The Long Fire (novel): A finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, The Long Fire sends amateur sleuth Natalie on a wild search for her mother and the Gypsy community she abandoned. [August 2015, 9781939419446, World Rights: Unnamed Press]
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ESME WEIJUN WANG, THE BORDER OF PARADISE (NOVEL): Selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, the debut from the bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias follows one family’s journey from Brooklyn and Taiwan to Northern California, as they confront a troubling legacy. [April 2016, 9781939419699, Rights: The Wiley Agency, Foreign Editions: Italy (Lindau)]
Margaret Wappler, Neon Green (novel): Neon Green will stun, unnerve, and charm readers with its loving depiction of a suburban family of environmentalists in 1994, who find themselves with a flying saucer in their backyard. [July 2016, 9781939419712, North American Rights: Unnamed Press, Other Rights: Dunow, Carlson & Lerner] Dennie Wendt, Hooper’s Revolution (novel): Inspired by the North American Soccer League that began in 1968 and ended in 1984, Hooper’s Revolution is a hilarious and heartfelt ode to the beautiful game. [May 2017, 9781944700164, World & Film Rights: Unnamed Press] What Future, (Anthology): Through in-depth long-form journalism and essays, What Future tackles issues critical to the future of our world: climate change and human migration, feminism and gender politics, digital rights and AI. [2017: 9781944700454,World Rights: Unnamed Press. 2018: 9781944700669, World Rights: Unnamed Press]
“Being thoughtful about the books they put out is at the heart of what [they] do.” —Publishers Weekly
UNNAMED PRESS LOS ANGELES,CA EST. 2014