Unnamed Press is Writing For Contemporary Life: Diverse, Provocative, Uncompromising. 2018-2019 Catalog
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table of contents
New & Upcoming Fiction...............................................4 New & Upcoming NonFiction.........................................8 Groundbreaking Science Fiction & Fantasy....................12 Daring Women’s Voices................................................15 The United States of Coming of Age..............................19 Big Laughs, Short Stories.............................................20 Previously Published by Unnamed Press.........................21
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New & Upcoming Fiction
Welcome to The Egg, an off-campus geodesic dome where David Fuffman and his crew of alienated Princeton students train for what might be the end of days: America is in a perpetual state of war, climate disasters create a global state of emergency, and scientists believe time itself may be collapsing. Funded by the charismatic Mathias Blue and fueled by performance enhancers and psychedelic drugs, a student revolution incubates at The Egg, inspired by the superheroes that dominate American culture. The arrival of Haley Roth—an impassioned heroine with a dark secret—propels David and Mathias to expand their movement across college campuses nationwide, inspiring a cult-like following. As the final superstorm arrives, they toe the line between good and evil, deliverance and demagogues, the damned and the saved. In this sprawling, ambitious debut, Adam Nemett delves into contemporary life in all of its chaos and unknowing. We Can Save Us All is a brave, ribald, and multi-layered examination of
We Can Save Us All Adam Nemett 11/13/2018 Paperback
what may be the fundamental question of our time: just who is responsible for fixing all of this?
Praise for Adam Nemett:
6x9
“Adam Nemett is the kind of smart and the kind of funny we
395 Pages
need right now. We Can Save Us All has the savvy, dangerous
Fiction / Literature
feel of early Don DeLillo.”
9781944700768
—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and The Subject Steve
$18.99 North American Rights: Unnamed Press
“Adam Nemett has done something superheroic here. We Can
Other Rights: Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Save Us All is a wild and uproarious debut that is also wise and deeply felt. Come for the costumes, comedy, and psychedelics;
Biography:
stay for the searching questions about what it means to live
Adam Nemett graduated from Princeton University and received his MFA in Fiction/Screenwriting from California College of the Arts. His work has been published, reviewed and featured in Variety, LA Weekly, The New Yorker, Washington Post, Forbes.com, and The Brooklyn Rail.
(maybe) end of time.”
an honorable life—to try to be one of the Good Guys—at the —Justin Taylor, author of The Gospel of Anarchy, Flings, and Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever “We Can Save Us All is a funny, moving, and very timely story about the persistent hope that a few good young people might fix what ails us. This book is both a roadmap and a cautionary tale.” —Christopher Beha, author of Arts & Entertainments
New & Upcoming Fiction
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Mira is a teacher living in the heart of Suryam, a modern bustling city in India, and the only place in the world the fickle Rasagura fruit grows. Recently widowed, and recovering from a grief-triggered mental breakdown, Mira lives a simple and isolated life, until the day she witnesses a beautiful woman having a seizure in the park and rushes to help. Mira is quickly drawn into the lives of this mysterious woman, Sara, who suffers a myriad of unexplained illnesses, and her kind, intensely supportive husband Rahil. Soon, she strikes up an intimate, volatile and fragile friendship with the couple. A moving exploration of loss, illness and the meaning of recovery, Mukherjee delivers an intense and unexpected modern love story as Mira reconciles reality with desire.
Biography: Rheea Mukherjee received her MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her fiction and non-fiction has
THE BODY MYTH Rheea Mukherjee
been published in several publications including Scroll.in, Southern Humanities Review, Out of Print, QLRS and Bengal Lights, among others. Her previous stories have been Pushcart nominees, Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Finalists, and
2/26/2019 Paperback 5x8 Fiction / Literature 9781944700843 $16.99 World Rights (except U.K. and Australia): Unnamed Press U.K. and Australia: Writer’s House
semi-finalists for the Black Lawrence Press Award. Rheea spent her childhood in the US and her teens in India. She came back to the States for college and her MFA, and then returned to Bangalore, where she currently resides. She co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and currently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore. The Body Myth is her first novel.
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New & Upcoming Fiction
Nima is a young Sherpa woman living in the foothills of the Himalayas, a range so immense and a place so isolated it is impossible to imagine anything existing beyond it. Nima and her sister are both betrothed to Norbu, a local Sherpa, but when Norbu stuns both families by only wanting to marry Nima, Nima flees her father’s wrath and the destiny that had been arranged for all of them. Disguised as a man, Nima seeks work, and is hired by an American journalist to guide their small group up to Everest Base Camp. The journey is treacherous, and Nima challenges every restriction her culture places on her gender while balancing the duties of her new role as guide. Popescu brings to life the many contradictions of the region through the eyes of Nima: trails strewn with litter overlook majestic views, Buddhist clarity is marred by sexual oppression, and a tourism industry that fuels the local economy also threatening to destroy it.
Biography:
nima adam popescu
Adam Popescu is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Conde Nast
5/21/2019 Hardcover 6x9 Fiction / Literature 9781944700850 $27.99 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: McCormick Literary
Traveler, Marketplace, Playboy, Fast Company, Scientific American, Outside, The Guardian, New Scientist, Los Angeles Magazine, and elsewhere. In 2013, he climbed 18,000 feet up Mount Everest, covering the impact of tourism on the land and local people for the BBC. That experience would inspire his debut novel, Nima.
New & Upcoming Fiction
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Adoptees Lisa and Mindy are best friends whose childhood hobby of “collecting” the biographies of famous adopted people has continued into adulthood, even as their lives take different paths. Now in their late twenties, Mindy convinces Lisa to meet in South Korea to search for their birth mothers. But Lisa isn’t in a good place. She’s been teaching English in Japan and the situation there—thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hardpartying ways—has become problematic. After a possible friendship-ending fight with Mindy in Seoul, and with a return to Japan no longer advisable, Lisa is running out of options. Refusing to come to terms with her life, she embarks on a drinking binge with Harrison, the almost supernaturally handsome fixer from the Motherfinder’s agency. Things quickly go from drunken to surreal; and Lisa wakes up to find herself trapped inside a palatial mountain compound, the captive of a glamorous, surgically-enhanced blonde named Honey. Honey’s world is populated by a cast of international misfits— an Australian personal assistant, a Russian doctor, a Japanese chef among them—all loitering in extravagant imprisonment.
Famous Adopted People Alice Stephens 10/16/2018 Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 336 Pages Fiction / Literature 9781944700744 $18.99 World Rights: Unnamed Press
Biography: Born in Korea, Alice Stephens was among the first generation of transnational, interracial adoptees. Her work has appeared in Urban Mozaik, Flung, Banana Writers, and the Washington Independent Review of Books, which publishes her monthly column, Alice in Wordland. She lives with her family and dog in the Washington, DC, area. Famous Adopted People is her debut novel.
Forced to come to terms with why she is there, Lisa must also confront Honey’s true identity, and the fact that all of this can only be happening in one place: North Korea.
Praise for Alice Stephens: “Stephens’ darkly comic, sharply irreverent, undeniably wise ‘Great Adoption Novel’ is an unexpectedly timely, not-to-bemissed, epic wild ride.” —Booklist, Starred Review “Peppered with moments of political satire and heartfelt introspection, Stephens’s novel also offers a fun-house depiction of the absurdities and horrors of the surveillance state. This is an excellent debut.” —Publishers Weekly “A biting critique of identity that lampoons genetic ties and ethnic stereotypes… The increasing tension and outlandishness of Stephens’ work lends itself to a poignant take on the topic of family.” —Kirkus Reviews
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New & Upcoming nonFiction
From ancient Greece to Grindr, the underground practice of cruising has evolved in fascinating ways, and also, not at all. The thrill of the random encounter, the danger of revealing a true identity: this radical pastime persists in societies both open and hostile to the LGBT community. Espinoza has written an intimate and urgent account of the importance of cruising in gay life throughout history, chronicling its impact on society, culture, and technology. The first history of its kind, Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime examines what has until now gone undocumented and unspoken, just like the tapping feet echoing in the men’s room at a department store or near an abandoned building in India.
Biography: Alex Espinoza is the author of the novels The Five Acts of Diego León and Still Water Saints, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Magazine, NPR, Salon, the Los Ange-
CRUISING: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime
Alex Espinoza
les Review of Books, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. His awards include a 2014 Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for The Five Acts of Diego León. He is the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing
6/4/2019 Paperback 5x8 Nonfiction 9781944700829 $21.99 World Rights: Unnamed Press
and Literary Arts at California State University, Los Angeles.
Praise for Alex espinoza: “Through it all, hard and soft, Espinoza is unflinching, cool, unsentimental, …incapable of false or flimsy storytelling. His style is ominous, layered and clean — reminiscent of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.” – Los Angeles Times “Alex Espinoza writes in the grand style... fresh, surprising, and delightful. There is nowhere this gifted writer can’t go. We are lucky to go along with him.” — Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels “Alex Espinoza is poised to become the Faulkner of his own haunted landscape.” – Susan Straight, author of Between Heaven and Here
New & Upcoming nonFiction
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Join illustrator and book designer Jaya Nicely for a day offline with a guided journal for creatives of all types. Brimming with
Offline Journal
creative inspiration to get you not just writing and drawing, but looking, listening, and experiencing the world around you. See everything from nature to tablescapes, signage and leaves,
A Guided Diary For a More Connected, Creative Life
through the eyes of an immensely talented illustrator, and begin
TBD
to appreciate the patterns and aesthetics visible in your life.
Jaya Nicely
OFFLINE JOURNAL: A Guided Diary For a More Connected, Creative Life
Jaya Nicely 4/16/2019 Paperback 6x8 Journal/Diary 9781944700799 $16.99 World Rights: Unnamed Press
Biography: Jaya Nicely is an illustrator and designer. She is the art director for Unnamed Press and the co-founder of the art and food magazine, Compound Butter. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design. Her work has appeared in Vulture, The Ringer, Variety, and GQ. Offline Journal is her first book. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
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New & Upcoming nonFiction
In her travels across the country, Hope Ewing discovers how women are paving the way and creating a more inclusive and sustainable world full of delicious drinks. A veteran bartender, Ewing had grown impatient with the surprisingly outdated perceptions of women in the alcohol industry. Entrepreneurial and ambitious, often the first in their fields, the women she knew in the business were leaders, mentors, and trailblazers. In Movers & Shakers, Ewing seeks them out, to share their stories as well as valuable business advice and insight into a constantly evolving industry.
Biography: Hope Ewing received an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and promptly moved to Los Angeles, where she finally became serious about bartending. Combining the twin passions of writing and drinking, she seeks to illuminate how intoxication and culture intersect, for better and for worse. Her work appears
Movers and Shakers:
in PUNCH, Serious Eats, and other fine publications. She lives in
Women Making Waves in Spirits, Beer & Wine
LA with her partner and step-chihuahua, and her favorite drink is
Hope Ewing 10/9/2018 Hardcover 5.75x8.25 286 pages Nonfiction 9781944700645 $23.99 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Stuart Krichevsky Agency
all of them.
New & Upcoming nonFiction
What Future 2017 Edited by Torie Bosch and Roy Scranton Paperback 6x9 304 pages $18.99 9781944700454 World Rights: Unnamed Press
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Focused on 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. From the food systems of the future and built-in environments to constantly evolving systems of justice and surveillance, what kind of future do we envision for people and the planet? Each year, two editors select the best writing about the future to be included in the anthology. Past editions have featured work by Kim Stanley Robinson, Elizabeth Kolbert, Jeff Vandermeer, George Johnson, and articles from The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Nation, The Guardian, and elsewhere.
What Future 2018 Edited by Rose Eveleth and Meehan Crist Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 336 pages 9781944700669 $18.99 World Rights: Unnamed Press
One of Smithsonian Magazine’s 10 Best Science Books of the year “Provocative and studded with insights.” –Kirkus Reviews “A vital collection of forward-looking writing.” –Publishers Weekly
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Groundbreaking Science fiction & fantasy
In an alternate 1920s Montreal, memories can be extracted from
e
traumatized subjects. Once removed, they exist as mems. Physically, they are carbon copies of their sources, but within they contain just one bad memory and no identity of their own. That is, until Elsie comes along.
mem a novel
Praise for Bethany C. Morrow: “An extraordinary and utterly compelling novel that deftly explores questions of memory, identity, and humanity while also introducing one of my favorite characters in a long time. I loved everything about MEM.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble “Morrow’s debut is ambitious and insightful, raising questions about memory, trauma, and humanity. The novel is at its best when it presents Elsie at her most human, forcing the real ones around her to reckon with what her personhood means for theirs.” —Publishers Weekly
MEM Bethany C. Morrow Hardcover: May 2018 Paperback: March 2019 5.8 x 8.5 192 Pages Fiction / Literature $24.99 9781944700553 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Irene Goodman Literary Agency
“With her dizzying concept, richly imagined narrator, ornate setting, and first-rate storytelling, Morrow offers an epiphany for readers of speculative fiction with echoes of ideas explored in films like Blade Runner and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The defiant story of an impossible enigma who only yearns to be a real girl.” —Kirkus Reviews
Accolades: 2018 Indies Introduce Debut Author 2018 June Indie Next List Best Book of the Month at Buzzfeed, Washington Post, Bustle, Chicago Review of Books
Biography: A California native, Bethany C. Morrow spent six years living in Montreal, Quebec. Her speculative literary fiction uses a focus on character and language to engage with, comment on and investigate worlds not unlike our own. MEM is her debut novel. She currently resides in upstate New York.
Groundbreaking Science fiction & fantasy
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“Vividly written and smartly realized, Olukotun is a rising star.” – The Guardian “Spectacularly imagined, well-written, and a pleasure to read. An absorbing novel that explores a compelling, African-centered future world.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Nigerians in Space Deji Olukotun
Nigerians in Space
February 2014 Paperback 5.3 x 7.9 298 pages Fiction / Literature $16.99 9781939419019 World Rights: Unnamed Press
super model, embroiled in corruption and conspiracy.
A madcap international thriller following a Nigerian lunar geologist, a South African abalone poacher, and a Zimbabwean
After the Flare A catastrophic solar flare reshapes our world as we know it – in an instant, electricity grids are crippled, followed by devastating cyberattacks that paralyze all communication. The second book in the Nigerians in Space trilogy, After the Flare poses deep questions about technology, international ambition, identity, and space exploration in the 21st Century.
After the Flare Deji Olukotun September 2017 Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 272 pages Fiction / Literature $16.99 9781944700188 World Rights: Unnamed Press
Accolades: 2018 Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation 2017 The Guardian’s Best Science Fiction of the Year
Biography: Deji Bryce Olukotun is the author of After the Flare and Nigerians in Space. His work has been featured in Vice, Slate, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, The Atlantic, Guernica, The Millions, World Literature Today, ESPN, and elsewhere.
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Groundbreaking Science fiction & fantasy
“Set in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, Bangladeshi author Saad Hossain’s debut novel is a riot of mordant humor and gonzo storytelling… The Gulf war may just have found its Catch-22.” —The Financial Times “Djinn City is set both in his home country and the realm of the Djinns. It’s a richly evocative adventure about a father and his half-Djinn son searching for one another – a sort of dark-fantasy Finding Nemo, as charming and funny as it is inventive and strange.” —The Guardian
Djinn City Saad Z. Hossain November 2017 Paperback 6x9 416 pages Fiction / Literature $17.99 9781944700065 World Rights: Unnamed Press Foreign Editions: India (Aleph Book Company), Bangladesh (Bengal Lights Books)
Djinn City The story of Indelbed, a young boy in Dhaka who discovers an underworld populated by Djinn, and they’ve been holding a grudge against humans. Hossain reinvents Islamic mythology to create a mirror world to our own—on the brink of disaster.
Escape from Baghdad! Escape from Baghdad! weaves fantasy, dark comedy, and action-adventure as regular Iraqis turned black marketeers Dagr and Kinza navigate the streets of Baghdad during the height of the U.S. invasion.
Escape from Baghdad! Saad Z. Hossain
Biography:
March 2015 Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 304 pages Fiction / Literature $16.00 9781939419248 World Rights: Unnamed Press Foreign Editions: France (Editions Agullo), India (Aleph Book Company), Bangladesh (Bengal Publications)
and Djinn City. His work has been published in the
Saad Z. Hossain is the author of Escape from Baghdad! anthologies The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 4 and The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. He lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
daring women's voices
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A young woman attends college in 1980s Chicago where she quickly attaches herself to a wealthy and charismatic best friend, but she can’t escape her dark past and the sister she left behind.
Praise for Leslie Pietrzyk: “The latest from Pietrzyk is a profound, mesmerizing, and disturbing novel that delves into the vagaries of college relationships and how the social-financial stratum one is born into reverberates through one’s life.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “Silver Girl is an act of mesmerism, of misdirection; it appears slight and forgettable, but turns out to have more substance and permanence than half the novels on a given bookshelf.” —The Millions “A dark, intense novel on a hot subject: female friendship complicated by class and privilege. Very good.”
Silver Girl Leslie Pietrzyk February 2018
—Kirkus Reviews
Biography:
Paperback
Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of Silver Girl, Pears on a Willow Tree
5.5 x 8.5
and A Year and a Day and the short story collection, This Angel
235 Pages
on My Chest. Her short fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg
Fiction / Literature
Review, The Iowa Review, New England Review, The Sun,
$17.99
TriQuarterly, and Shenandoah.
9781944700515 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: Curtis Brown, Ltd. Foreign Editions: Poland (IUVI)
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daring women's voices
An epic tale of one iconoclastic family’s inheritance of madness — and money — in Brooklyn, Taiwan, and Northern California.
Accolades: 2018 Whiting Award Winner in Nonfiction 2017 Granta’s Best Young American Novelists
PRAISE: “The Border of Paradise is shaped by darkness and the kind of delicious story that makes for missed train stops and bedtimes, keeping a reader up late for just one more page of dynamic character-bouncing perspective (an idea which came to Wang in dreams). It is the author’s stunning introduction to the literary world.” —The New York Times “Wang’s prose is beautiful and restrained, and her generous,
The Border of Paradise Esme Weijun Wang
precise characterization makes every perspective feel organic and utterly real in the face of increasingly theatrical circumstances. The result — the story of an American family stretched and manipulated into impossible shapes — is an extraordinary literary
April 2016
and gothic novel of the highest order.”
Paperback
—NPR
5.5 x 8.5 272 pages
“A well-wrought multigenerational novel that also appeals for its
Fiction / Literature
honest look at mental illness.”
$16.00
—Library Journal
9781939419699 Rights: The Wiley Agency Foreign Editions: Italy (Lindau)
Biography: Esmé Weijun Wang is a novelist and essayist. Her debut novel, The Border of Paradise, was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR and one of the 25 Best Novels of 2016 by Electric Literature. She was named by Granta as one of the “Best of Young American Novelists” in 2017, won the Whiting Award in 2018, and is the recipient of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize for her forthcoming essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias. Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, she lives in San Francisco.
daring women's voices
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A vivid, visceral debut echoing the novels of Jean Rhys, Elena Ferrante, and Catherine Lacey, Florence in Ecstasy gives us an arresting new vision of a woman’s attempt to find meaning ― and find herself ― in an unstable world.
PRAISE: “Florence in Ecstasy is a beautiful novel… that must be taken in small doses and savored page by page.” —NPR “Jessie Chaffee’s debut novel is an unflinching look at a woman’s attempt to outrun her demons through an international escape... displaying not only diligent research but also an emotional intuition that brings Hannah to startling life and makes her story quite moving.” —Publishers Weekly “Jessie Chaffee’s protagonist Hannah finds herself in Florence
Florence in Ecstasy Jessie Chaffee
far from home, unseen, unknown, estranged even from her body: in the most literal sense, in ecstasy. Chaffee’s fierce debut brings Hannah’s struggles, discoveries, and sweet triumphs to life.” —Claire Messud, New York Times best-selling author
May 2017
of The Emperor’s Children
Paperback 5.4 x 8.5 256 pages Fiction / Literature $16.00 9781944700171 North American Rights: Unnamed Press Other Rights: The Gernert Company Foreign Editions: Czech Republic (Argo Books)
Biography: Jessie Chaffee was awarded a Fulbright grant to Italy to complete Florence in Ecstasy and was the writer-in-residence at Florence University of the Arts. Her writing has been published in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Slice, and Global City Review, among others. She lives in New York City, where she is an editor at Words Without Borders, an online magazine of international literature.
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daring women's voices
One Jordanian family confronts its myriad secrets over the course of a weekend’s festivities. Told from alternating points of view, this complex drama unveils life in the Middle East and was hailed as, “Pungently witty!” by The New York Times.
“Halasa’s sharp critiques and deadpan humor make for a captivating exploration of the intricacies of the modern Middle East.” —Publishers Weekly
“Mother of All Pigs nods to Animal Farm and concludes à la Lord of the Flies. Malu Halasa slaughters ‘a thousand years of tradition’ in a world run amok as a feminist peace offering.” —World Literature Today
Biography: Malu Halasa is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor based in London. Born in Oklahoma, she was raised
Mother of All Pigs Malu Halasa November 2017 Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 256 pages Fiction / Literature $15.99 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)
in Ohio and is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University. Her books include: Syria Speaks – Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014); Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations (2009); The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design (2008); Kaveh Golestan: Recording the Truth in Iran (2007); Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images (2004) and Creating Spaces of Freedom: Culture in Defiance (2002). Mother of All Pigs is her first novel.
the united states of coming of age
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West Virginia Joe Halstead
The Sadness Benjamin Rybeck
January 2017 / Paperback / 5 x 8 / 224 pages Fiction / Literature / $16.00 / 9781944700041 World & Film Rights: Unnamed Press
June 2016 / Paperback / 5.5 x 8.5 / 256 pages Fiction / Literature / $16.00 / 9781939419705 World Rights: Unnamed Press
When news of his father’s suicide reaches Jamie Paddock
Kelly returns to her snowy hometown of Portland, Maine,
in New York City, he must return to the place he thought
where she reunites with her estranged twin brother Max,
he left behind: West Virginia.
but the movie-obsessed Max is desperately searching for the missing star to his own unfinished film.
“Beautiful, menacing descriptions of the West Virginian environment. This tale of family ties without a falsely
“The Sadness is a moody, fascinating novel about fame,
satisfying resolution and introduces a powerful and
disappointment, and the burdens of family. Benjamin
authentic voice.” —Publishers Weekly
Rybeck writes with equal authority about film and sibling
“If Thomas Wolfe had sat down with J. D. Salinger and written a book, the result would have been something like Joe Halstead’s incredible debut. Yet Halstead’s
relationships and romantic obsession, and tells a gripping story along the way.” —Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers
immense scope and vision are all his own, bringing the
“Often humorous, sometimes touching, newcomer
reader from New York to the generic strip malls and run-
Rybeck’s tale of youthful woe portrays a generation full
down, poverty-stricken hollers of West Virginia, where
of promise as it runs aground.” —Publishers Weekly
the black-lunged coal miners are the lucky ones who get to eat at Applebee’s.” —David Armand
Biography:
Biography:
Benjamin Rybeck is the marketing director at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, TX. He received an M.F.A. from the
Joe Halstead’s work has appeared in Five Quarterly,
University of Arizona. His work has appeared in Kirkus
People Holding, Cheat River Review, Sundog Lit,
Reviews, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Literary Hub,
The Stockholm Review, Sheepshead Review, and
The Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere. The Sadness is
others. West Virginia is his first novel.
his first novel.
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big laughs, short stories
Tacky Goblin T. Sean Steele
Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday Debbie Graber
July 2018 Paperback 5x7 144 pages Fiction / Literature $14.99 9781944700607 World Rights: Unnamed Press
May 2016 Paperback 5 x 7.9 Fiction / Short Stories $14.99 9781939419842 World English Rights: Unnamed Press Translation Rights: Linwood Messina Literary Agency
Absurdist, nihilistic, and lovable, Tacky Goblin is a very
A laugh-out-loud story collection, Kevin Kramer Starts on
funny look at the dark side of (not) becoming a grown-up.
Monday skewers corporate culture and re-envisions office life.
“A sublimely contemporary study of a universal truth:
“Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday made me laugh out loud for
Growing up is weird to do. Inventive, funny, grotesque,
the first time in fifteen years. Thank you, Debbie Graber. Buy
and ribald—a book with something for everyone as
this book!” —Steve Carell
long as no one demands that it makes sense.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The stories in Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday are funny and funny-sad, formally bold, and a total delight to read.
“Steele’s deliciously bizarre debut is a dream, a nightmare,
Graber captures perfectly the absurdities of contemporary,
and a carnival ride— a wacky, heartfelt trip through a
corporate America.”—Edan Lepucki, author of California
young man’s struggle to digest early adulthood.” —Publishers Weekly
Biography:
Biography:
Debbie Graber has performed at Second City, worked in an
This is T. Sean Steele’s first book.
Riverside at Palm Desert. Her stories have appeared in The
Find him at tseansteele.com.
Nervous Breakdown, Harpers, Zyzzyva, Hobart, and else-
office, and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from U.C.
where. Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday is her first collection of stories. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
previously published by unnamed press
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. Kissinger (short 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/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 (art/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, Other Rights: Janklow & Nesbot] 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 Pollock’s, 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 Walker (short 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] 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]
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previously published by unnamed press
Isaac Goldemberg (trans. Jonathan Tittler), 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] 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)] 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] Fabrienne 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)] Robert Kloss, The Revelator (novel): An heir of Melville, Faulkner, and McCarthy, this brutal re-telling of the Joseph Smith story is indie darling Robert Kloss at his very best. [September 2015, 9781939419507, World Rights: Unnamed Press] 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 (trans. Rachel Hildebrandt & Alexandra Roesch), 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] Kristine Ong Muslim, Age of Blight (short stories): 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] 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]
previously published by 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)] Henrietta Rose-Innes, Nineveh (novel): From award-winning South African novelist Henrietta RoseInnes 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)] 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, 9781939419682, World English Rights: Unnamed Press] 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] 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] 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]
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