March 2026
Ahh! Ahhh!
Ahhhhhhhhhh!
I’m so busy right now and I’m so sorry. But I really have to phone it in this month in terms of writing. I’m sorry. I realized that I’m busy because my job means I have to write up a lot of little things about books, so this month I’m leaning on all of the other people who have my same job and using copy provided by the publishers. How novel! How lazy!
First off, A LUMINOUS REPUBLIC by Andres Barba, Harper Collins says:
A “captivating” novel from a Spanish literary star about the arrival of feral children to a tropical city in Argentina, and the quest to stop them from pulling the place into chaos (Boston Globe).
San Cristóbal was an unremarkable city—small, newly prosperous, contained by rain forest and river. But then the children arrived.
No one knew where they came from: thirty-two kids, seemingly born of the jungle, speaking an unknown language. At first they scavenged, stealing food and money and absconding to the trees. But their transgressions escalated to violence, and then the city’s own children began defecting to join them. Facing complete collapse, municipal forces embark on a hunt to find the kids before the city falls into irreparable chaos.
Narrated by the social worker who led the hunt, A Luminous Republic is a suspenseful, anguished fable that “could be read as Lord of the Flies seen from the other side, but that would rob Barba of the profound originality of his world” (Juan Gabriel Vásquez).
I’ll just add that many of us have read his earlier novel SUCH SMALL HANDS and continue to talk about it. He really knows how to articulate the vicious and strange lives of children.
Excerpt here.
A small oddity of a book, UNDERGROUND BARBIE by Maša Kolanovic got a surprising amount of traction in the lit world considering that it’s a bit of an oddity. From the publish, Sandorf:
A darkly humorous coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Yugoslav Wars.
As air-raid sirens become commonplace, children in an apartment building escape into a world of Barbie dolls, improvising scenarios that mirror the splintering social structure of 1990s Yugoslavia. Innocence clashes with the horrors of war and the allure of Western consumerism.
Maša Kolanović’s Underground Barbie deftly captures the power of imagination to overcome hardship, offering a sharp critique of consumer culture amidst the ruins of a socialist experiment. Discover political campaigns defined by what it means to be a “real” Croatian, a refugee ball with “disgusting” dolls, and a mass grave of Ken’s mistresses. For readers of literary fiction, social satire, and war stories.
I’ll just add that I love a book that can pull off a child’s point of view and refracting the strangeness of the world around them through play is a good hook. We’ve read one book from Croatia, if we read this one we will be some of the top readers of Croatian literature—a nice bonus for having niche interests.
Excerpt here.
Did too many people already read CLEAN by Alia Trabucco Zerán? I was hoping we could read it together once it came out in paperback but I know that a bunch have people have read it? Should I give up the ghost? From Riverhead:
From a global star and International Booker Prize finalist, a razor-sharp, unforgettable novel about a maid who’s seen too much and a family at a breaking point
A young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated. She must tell the whole story before arriving at the girl’s death.
Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid: “smart appearance, full time,” their ad said. She wanted to make enough money to support her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaned their laundry, wiped their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks the señor gave the señora; she knew about the poison in the cabinet, the gun, the daughter’s rebellion as she grew up, the mother’s coldness, the father’s distance. She saw it all.
After a series of shocking betrayals and revelations, Estela stops speaking, breaking her silence only now, to tell the story of how it all fell apart. Is this a story of revenge or a confession? Class warfare or a cautionary tale? Building tension with every page, Clean is a gripping, incisive exploration of power, domesticity, and betrayal from an international star at the height of her powers.
Looks like a banger and Zeran is a pretty interesting writer. We also might want to consider her first novel REMAINDER as a happy medium because she is fucking rad: a Palestinian / Chilean lawyer turned writer who turns, again and again, towards women who kill.
Excerpt here.
For something without kids and for something much much more lighthearted in these dark times we have NEW NEW ME by Helen Oyeyemi. From Riverhead:
A masterful story that asks: What if the different sides of your personality had trust issues with each other?
New Day, New You!
Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day: On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath.
Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life—between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion, and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic.
It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges, and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.
How many versions of oneself can one self safely contain?
Oyeyemi was one of my favorite writers for over a decade. I’ve found some of her newer work to be a bit too light but this one shows a ton of promise. She’s extraordinarily talented, that’s never changed, and back when she used to live on my bookstore’s staff picks section I wrote: “Oyeyemi’s writing reminds me of ballet—she has put an incredible amount of storytelling muscle and discipline into creating works of sheer whimsy and brightness.” I’m proud of that metaphor.
Excerpt here.