The American Writer

Named a Best Book of 2018 by New York Magazine, the Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, NPR, and Time, among many others, this essay collection from the author of The Queen of the Night explores how we form identities in life and in art. As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as “masterful” by Roxane Gay, “incendiary” by the New York Times, and "brilliant" by the Washington Post. With his first collection of nonfiction, he’s sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing ​— ​Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley ​— ​the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack. Named a Best Book by: Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library, Boston Globe, Paris Review, Mother Jones,The A.V. Club, Out Magazine, Book Riot, Electric Literature, PopSugar, The Rumpus, My Republica, Paste, Bitch, Library Journal, Flavorwire, Bustle, Christian Science Monitor, Shelf Awareness, Tor.com, Entertainment Cheat Sheet, Roads and Kingdoms, Chicago Public Library, Hyphen Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, The Coil, iBooks, and Washington Independent Review of Books Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction * Recipient of the Lambda Literary Trustees' Award * Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay * Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography

Informed by firsthand experience on the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria, Abdoh captures the horror, confusion, and absurdity of combat from a seldom-glimpsed perspective that expands our understanding of the war novel.

A parody of a literary biography starring a 10-year-old novelist who is mysteriously dead at 11—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler. As a memorial, Edwin Mullhouse's best friend, Jeffrey Cartwright, decides that the life of this great American writer must be told. He follows Edwin's development from his preverbal first noises through his love for comic books to the fulfillment of his literary genius in the remarkable novel, Cartoons.

The American writer--both real and fictitious, famous and obscure--has traditionally been situated on the margins of society, an outsider looking in. From The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway to the millions of bloggers today, writers are generally seen as onlookers documenting the human condition. Yet their own collective story has largely gone untold. Tracing the role of the writer in the United States over the last century, this book describes how those who use language as a creative medium have held a special place in our collective imagination.

Fans of Sophie Kinsella and Emily Griffin will love this new offering from Angela Terry, author of Charming Falls Apart. Corporate attorney Adeline Turner thought she had life all figured out--work hard, play by the rules, and keep your head down. When Addie bumps into her former high school crush, their encounter unleashes a chain of events that turns her quiet life upside down. Unadventurous, nose-to-the-grindstone Adeline suddenly finds herself moving across the country, falling into messy romantic situations, and becoming the target of an office-politics plot that threatens her career. Without the support system she had in Chicago, Addie must rely solely on herself and learn that things aren't always what they seem. She soon realizes that to have the future she wants she must confront the past--including the mother who abandoned her. Rave reviews for Charming Falls Apart, the author's first book: "From the very first page, I was hooked on this tale of heartbreak, self-discovery, and one woman's charming determination to turn lemons into lemonade. Fans of Emily Giffin and Lauren Weisberger will love this engaging and entertaining debut!"―Meg Donohue, USA Today best-selling author of You, Me, and the Sea "Charming Falls Apart is the perfect comfort read. A smart and heartfelt ode to the healing power of friendship and the strength in reinvention. Fans of Sophie Kinsella will root for Allison James as she rebuilds her life on her own terms."―Allie Larkin, internationally best-selling author of Swimming for Sunlight "A breezy read perfect for a summer day. So many young women rush to make a plan for how they think their lives should go without stopping to think about what will make them happy. We can all cheer for a heroine who loses it all and comes to realize she never wanted it anyway."―Maria Murnane, best-selling author of the Waverly Bryson series

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote stories that have defined the American frontier for generations of readers. As both author and character in her own books, she became one of the most famous figures in American children’s literature. Her famous Little House on the Prairie series, based on her childhood in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota, blended memoir and fiction into a vivid depiction of nineteenth-century settler life that continues to shape many Americans’ understanding of the country’s past. Poised between fiction and fact, literature and history, Wilder’s life is a fascinating window on the American West. Placing Wilder’s life and work in historical context, and including previously unpublished material from the Wilder archives, Sallie Ketcham introduces students to domestic frontier life, the conflict between Native Americans and infringing white populations, and the West in public memory and imagination.

A “masterful . . . brilliantly constructed novel” of love and chaos in 1950s Vietnam (Zadie Smith, The Guardian). It’s 1955 and British journalist Thomas Fowler has been in Vietnam for two years covering the insurgency against French colonial rule. But it’s not just a political tangle that’s kept him tethered to the country. There’s also his lover, Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman who clings to Fowler for protection. Then comes Alden Pyle, an idealistic American working in service of the CIA. Devotedly, disastrously patriotic, he believes neither communism nor colonialism is what’s best for Southeast Asia, but rather a “Third Force”: American democracy by any means necessary. His ideas of conquest include Phuong, to whom he promises a sweet life in the states. But as Pyle’s blind moral conviction wreaks havoc upon innocent lives, it’s ultimately his romantic compulsions that will play a role in his own undoing. Although criticized upon publication as anti-American, Graham Greene’s “complex but compelling story of intrigue and counter-intrigue” would, in a few short years, prove prescient in its own condemnation of American interventionism (The New York Times).

“Includes some of Lam’s most memorable writings, about cuisine, self-esteem, sex and kung fu, all seen from a two-hemisphere perspective.” —SFGate East Eats West shines new light on the bridges and crossroads where two global regions meld into one worldwide “immigrant nation.” In this new nation, with its amalgamation of divergent ideas, tastes, and styles, today’s bold fusion becomes tomorrow’s classic. But while the space between East and West continues to shrink in this age of globalization, some cultural gaps remain. In this collection of twenty-one personal essays, Andrew Lam, the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, continues to explore the Vietnamese diaspora, this time concentrating not only on how the East and West have changed but how they are changing each other. Lively and engaging, East Eats West searches for meaning in nebulous territory charted by very few. Part memoir, part meditation, and part cultural anthropology, East Eats West is about thriving in the West with one foot still in the East. “In these lovely, wise, probing essays, Andrew Lam not only illuminates the crucial twenty-first-century issues of immigration and cultural identity but the greater, enduring issues of what it means to be human . . . a compelling book.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author “Andrew Lam is an expert time-traveler, collapsing childhood and adulthood; years of war and peace; and the evolution of language in his own life, time, and mind. To read Andrew’s work is a joy and a profound journey.” —Farai Chideya, author of The Episodic Career “One of the best American essayists of his generation.” —Wayne Karlin, author of A Wolf by the Ears

Having considered the subject for more than sixty years, Jack Cady shares his knowledge of the American Writer in this wonderful and provocative book. The American Writer is both an open letter to young writers and a lovely overview for anyone interested in reading. Cady traces with insight and passion the threads of sin and original good in American literature, examines the thorny question of race, and explores the fantastic in modern fiction. He looks anew at familiar writers like Hemingway and Steinbeck, and repeatedly focuses on storytellers who have fallen out of favor today. Decidedly non-canonical and definitely not Politically Correct, The American Writer celebrates the nation's whole literary history from its roots to its crowning achievements. It sees the New World through experienced eyes. It is passionate, honest, and powerfully inspiring. It will be read and treasured for years to come.