Read ‘Em While It’s Hot: Summer Books from New School Writers
Recent works to enjoy this season.
A Brighter Choice: Building a Just School in an Unequal City, by Clara Hemphill (founding director of the InsideSchools project at the Center for New York City Affairs), Teachers College Press.
No one writes about New York City public schools more deftly than our friend and former colleague Clara. In A Brighter Choice, called a “fascinating, stirring book” by one reviewer, she skillfully describes how, against a backdrop of poverty, gentrification, and Covid-19, parents of different races and income levels have created an effective elementary school in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant community.
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, by Sidik Fofana, (lecturer, Creative Writing Program), Simon & Schuster.
Eight interconnected stories weave together the lives of tenants in Harlem’s fictional Banneker Terrace apartment house as they struggle to raise children, fulfill dreams, and deal with neighborhood gentrification. Winner of a 2023 Gotham Book Prize. “American speech is an underused commodity in American fiction,” the Wall Street Journal wrote, “and it’s a joy to find such a vital example of it here.”
Lucky Dogs, by Helen Schulman (Fiction Chair, Creative Writing Program), Penguin Random House.
“If you think it’s #TooSoon to satirize #MeToo, go back to your yoga mat,” writes New York Times reviewer Alexandra Jacobs. She calls this thinly veiled fictional retelling of the seedy Harvey Weinstein scandal “deeply knowing, properly indignant, and – maybe the best revenge – very funny.”
Unequal Cities: Overcoming Anti-Urban Bias to Reduce Inequality in the United States, by Richard McGahey (senior fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis and the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy), Columbia University Press.
Although cities are overwhelmingly the source of the nation’s prosperity, persistent inequality mars their economic vitality. And, McGahey adds, anti-urban and racially discriminatory Federal and State policies stymie efforts to solve that problem. “Unequal Cities,” writes fellow New School economist Darrick Hamilton, “will help policy makers and change advocates … devise solutions for a more inclusive future.”
Some of Them Will Carry Me, by Giada Scodellaro (Master of Fine Arts, Fiction 2018), Dorothy Project.
“Riveting, evocative, written with intensity and purpose, these potent, self-contained fictions have a vitality all their own,” writes acclaimed novelist and New School assistant professor of writing Alexandra Kleeman in praise of this debut collage of 35 stories.
On Air with Zoe Washington, by Janae Marks, (MFA, Creative Writing, 2010), HarperCollins.
In a sequel to From the Desk of Zoe Washington (named a best book of 2020 by Parents Magazine), 14-year-old Zoe follows up her enterprising reporting to free her wrongfully imprisoned birth father with a podcast to build support for his dream of opening a new restaurant. Naturally, she’ll be the pastry chef.
Tender Machines, by J. Mae Barizo (assistant professor of Creative Writing), Tupelo Books.
With settlings that range from Manilla to Manhattan, this new collection of poems, a finalist for the Dorset Prize, creates what one reviewer describes as “a space of beauty, attentiveness, and grace towards the self and its many incarnations.”
Sea Change, by Gina Chung (Master of Fine Art, Fiction, 2021), Penguin Random House.
Turning 30, lonely and adrift, Ro finds solace with a companion who signals mood shifts by changing colors. It’s Dolores, a giant Pacific squid in the aquarium where Ro works, and an emotional link to her deceased marine biologist father. One reviewer found this debut novel by Chung, who has previously received a Pushcart Prize for short fiction, “awash in effective and moving storytelling.”
The Never End: The Other Orwell, the Cold War, the CIA, MI6, and the Origin of Animal Farm, by John Reed (Director, MFA in Creative Writing Program), Palgrave MacMillan.
Was a celebrated parable of revolution and betrayal actually based on an uncredited Russian short story? Was the author something of a Cold War snitch? IS NOTHING SACRED? Well, if you were Orwell, you’d probably say “no,” and might even applaud this stylish takedown and send-up by a consummate investigator and iconoclast.
Epically Earnest, by Molly Horan (Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing 2012), HarperCollins.
Will Jane, who gained early notoriety as an infant left in an oversized Gucci handbag in the Poughkeepsie train station, solve the mystery of her infamous past, and also find the courage to ask longtime crush Gwen to the prom? A lighthearted reinterpretation of the Oscar Wilde classic The Importance of Being Earnest.