Small Press fiction book club

Small Press Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, May 29th, at 7 pm. We will be reading We All Loved Cowboys by Carol Bensimon, published by Transit Books.

Transit Books is a nonprofit publisher of international and American literature, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2015, Transit Books is committed to the discovery and promotion of enduring works that carry readers across borders and communities. Transit authors have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN Translation Prize, and have been finalists for the National Book Award, the International Booker Prize, the National Translation Award, and more.

About the book:

"This short but profoundly moving novel by the young Brazilian writer is one of the finest explorations of love you will find anywhere this year."--John Freeman, The Boston Globe

After a falling out, Cora and Julia reunite for a long-planned road trip through Brazil. As they drive from town to town, the complications of their friendship resurface. By the end of the trip, they must decide what the future holds, in a queer, coming-of-age debut novel that has been celebrated in Brazil.

Small Press Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, June 26th, at 7 pm. We will be reading The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk, published by Deep Vellum Press.

About the publisher:

“Deep Vellum” is a play on words. We’re located in the Dallas historical district Deep Ellum, adjacent to downtown, and vellum is a thick parchment used to print high-quality books. Deep Vellum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Instead of selecting a book for publication exclusively because of its sales potential, our nonprofit status allows us to choose books for their artistic and social value. As of 2020, approximately half of our published books are international works and half are English-original material.

About the book:

A novel of man's relationship with nature, faith, and the vitality of storytelling, from celebrated Thai author Saneh Sangsuk. Translated by Mui Poopoksakul.

The lovable, yarnspinning monk Luang Paw Tien, now in his nineties, was the last person in his village to bear witness to the power and plenitude of the jungle before agrarian and then capitalist life took over his community. Now he entertains the children of his village nightly with tales from his younger years: his long pilgrimage to India, his mother’s dreams of a more stable life through agriculture, his proud huntsman father who resisted those dreams, and his love, who led him to pursue those dreams all over again.

Thoroughly entertaining and already beloved, Sangsuk’s first novel available in the U.S. is a celebration of the oral tradition of storytelling and that tradition's power to preserve (and embellish) cultural memory.

Small Press Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, July 24th, at 7 pm. We will be reading Your Love Is Not Good by Johanna Hedva, published by And Other Stories Press.

About the publisher:

And Other Stories is an independent British press founded in 2009 and based in Sheffield. They are a Community Interest Company (CIC), meaning they are not-for-profit. They say: “we make our decisions based on what we think is good writing and a good way of working. This sets us apart from shareholder-driven publishing companies where all decisions are ultimately about increasing profits.” Supporters and subscribers have the opportunity to take part in reading groups to discuss what books they should publish. And they donate 10% of their profits to literary magazines, public libraries, and other organizations which you can read about here.

About the book:

An artist of color becomes obsessed with a white model in a novel with the glamour of Clarice Lispector and the viscerality of Han Kang. At an otherwise forgettable party in Los Angeles, a queer Korean American painter spots a woman who instantly controls the room: gorgeous and distant and utterly white, the center of everyone's attention. Haunted into adulthood by her Korean father's abandonment of his family, as well as the specter of her beguiling, abusive white mother, the painter finds herself caught in a perfect trap. She wants Hanne, or wants to be her, or to sully her, or destroy her, or consume her, or some confusion of all the above. Since she's an artist, she will use art to get closer to Hanne, beginning a series of paintings with her new muse as model. As for Hanne, what does she want? Her whiteness seems sometimes as cruel as a new sheet of paper.

When the paintings of Hanne become a hit, resulting in the artist's first sold-out show, she resolves to bring her new muse with her to Berlin, to continue their work, and her seduction. But, just when the painter is on the verge of her long sought-after breakthrough, a petition started by a Black performance artist begins making the rounds in the art community, calling for the boycott of major museums and art galleries for their imperialist and racist practices. Torn between her desire to support the petition, to be a success, and to possess Hanne, the painter and her reality become more unstable and disorienting, unwilling to cut loose any one of her warring ambitions, yet unable to accommodate them all. Is it any wonder so many artists self-destruct so spectacularly? Is it perhaps just a bit exciting to think she could too? Your Love Is Not Good stuffs queer explosive into the cracks between identity and aspiration, between desire and art, and revels in the raining debris.