Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2022 Book Preview
In what has proved to be an endlessly trying year, we hope this list—which contains more than 175 books—will provide opportunities for you to be delighted, excited, and surprised. The second half of 2022 brings new work from Anuradha Roy, Mohsin Hamid, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Marianne Wiggins, Annie Proulx, Namwali Serpell, Ling Ma, Percival Everett, Andrew Sean Greer, Yiyun Li, Kamila Shamsie, Celeste Ng, Lászlo’ Krasznahorkai, George Saunders, Ian McEwan, and Cormac McCarthy (who is publishing not one, but two new books; what an overachiever!). We also have anticipated debuts by Morgan Talty, Tess Gunty, Jonathan Escoffery, and Zain Khalid. There’s also new books by two Millions staffers: Kate Gavino and Anne K. Yoder. We hope you’ll find a book, or two, or ten to keep you company amid all of this.
While we try our best, we miss books every single time we put this list together and, as usual, we will continue with our monthly previews, beginning in August. Let us know in the comments what you’re anticipating in the second half of 2022.
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July
How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo: The author of the acclaimed novel America is Not the Heart now publishes a volume of criticism, essays destined to become classics–covering the lies told about fiction and empathy, the response to what Castillo calls “unexpected reader,” and the imperial and colonial ideas that undergird works of art and readings of them. Gina Apostol calls the collection, “a powerful punch in criticism’s solar plexus: Castillo’s take as the ‘unexpected reader’ is what literature needs now, both an absolute bomb and a balm—a master class in the art of reading. Her art is a corrective and a curative but also just a joy—humorous, insanely erudite, and absolutely necessary for our times.” (Lydia)
The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs: The perfect summer read just showed up on my doorstep and I can’t wait to dive in. The Pink Hotel is Jacobs’s third novel, and like her debut Catalina, she returns her sharp gaze and pleasing prose to Southern California. In this case, to a landmark hotel in Beverly Hills where small town newlyweds Kit and Keith have come for a honeymoon—as well as a possible job offer. When fires and protests engulf the city, chaos is unleashed. Kirkus calls the book a “sharp social satire” and Janelle Brown says it’s “heady and dark and dangerous.” (Edan)
The Great Man Theory by Teddy Wayne: Paul, a flailing New York academic, is writing a book entitled The Luddite Manifesto: How the Age of Screens is a Fatal Distraction, but his life goes south when he’s demoted into the adjunct ranks-and has to pick up Uber shifts to make ends meet. By turns funny and angry, with a healthy dose of poignant thrown in, this is the book for people who only think they’ve read all they ever want to read about the Trump era. (Michael)
1,000 Coils of Fear by Olivia Wenzel (translated by Priscilla Layne): Set during the 2016 U.S. prudential election season, playwright Wenzel’s debut novel follows an unnamed Black German woman splitting her time between Berlin and New York. Through memories, reflections, and an interview, the woman reveals much about her childhood, trauma, and her feelings about class, racism, and capitalism, as well as the dangers lurking internally and externally. Kirkus calls the debut “a prismatic novel, thoughtful and unsettling.” (Carolyn)
Brother Alive by Zain Khalid: When his closest confidantes leave behind their sons, imam Salim Smith adopts the three unrelated boys and they live above a Staten Island mosque. Despite their differences, the boys are held together by secrets, belief, and loyalty—which, in the end, may not be enough. “A novel with the polish and warmth of a stone smoothed in the hand after a lifetime of loving worry—original, darkly witty, sometimes bitter, and so very wise,” says Alexander Chee. “And certainly the debut of a major new writer.” (Carolyn)
Keya Das’s Second Act by Sopan Deb: New York Times reporter Sopan Deb’s debut novel is set in the world of Bengalis living in the New Jersey suburbs. Shantau Das is a man in exile — divorced from his wife, estranged from his traditional Bengali neighbors, no longer speaking with his elder daughter and, worst of all, tortured by regrets that he failed to accept his late daughter Keya after she came out as gay. The discovery of the unfinished manuscript of a play Keya was writing could release Shantau from his exile. By staging the play, the members of this splintered family realize they can pay homage to Keya while discovering new meanings of family, creativity and second chances. (Bill)
After the Hurricane by Leah Franqui: From the author of America for Beginners, a woman leaves her life as a success story in New York to return to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, in a search for the father she hasn’t seen in years, a family mystery that interrogates success and explores family ties. (Lydia)
The Empire of Dirt by Francesca Manfredi (translated by Ekin Olap): Your first period often feels like the start of a curse; for 12-year-old Valentina, it may actually be one. The walls of the house she shares with her mother and grandmother start to bleed, the first of several plagues to descend on the family, as Valentina’s world falls into chaos. Maybe it’s a generational curse, as Valentina’s grandmother believes. Maybe it’s the fruit of decades of family secrets. Maybe it’s just what it feels like to grow up in a world hostile to women and girls. The English language debut of Italian author Francesca Manfredi, The Empire of Dirt is as elegant and precise as it is haunting. (Kaulie)
Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic: Alic’s sharp and funny debut story collection follows women—who party, obsess, dream, desire, and cope—within and against the confines of the modern world. T Kira Madden writes: “Alic offers a collection tracing the brutal and hilarious contours of humanity, with every sentence engined on the current between the two. Astute and unpredictable without ever veering into kitsch, Alic is a vital voice of our time.” (Carolyn)
Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib: A single father finds himself playing host to an old classmate who used to bully him back in high school. As they become reacquainted he learns that bullies don’t change much and that the impulse behind their behavior is quite often something other than hatred. This is the debut novel by the Dublin-based American author, a story the publisher calls a “tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder.” (Il’ja)
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah: A young Native American man is intent on finding “a place for himself” (author’s website) in a world seemingly bent on giving him anything but that. Drawing on a wealth of Indigenous tradition, Hokeah has produced in his debut a novel that underscores the quiet strength that arises when a family is true to its identity and the too common tragedy that results when identity is suppressed. (Il’ja)
Amanat edited by Zaure Batayeva and Shelley Fairweather-Vega: Amanat is a Kazakh word that refers to a promise, a moral commitment, and a cultural legacy to be cherished and protected. Likewise, the same-titled anthology introduces the most representative yet diverse voices from post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Together, they piece out the intergenerational history of a country that has been reshaped by politics several times in recent decades. In these stories, the wisdom, struggles, and resilience of the real people never cease to inspire us. (Jianan Qian)
Self-Portrait with Ghost by Meng Jin: Self-Portrait with Ghost is the first story collection by Meng Jin, the acclaimed author of Little Gods. Written during the recent years of political turbulence and social isolation, these stories teeter on a fulcrum between past and future, US and China, self and society. Compared with other times of human history, the contemporary age seems to reward us with generous access to knowledge and information. But Jin’s stories, in smart and unique ways, also remind us of the other side of the coin: we are constantly inventing and reinventing our self-images, and, despite seemingly more vehicles to express our thoughts, we do not have much real power. (Jianan Qian)
The Burning Season by Alison Wisdom: America is often spoken of as the “city on a hill,” a utopian refugee and site of spiritual yearning, yet very often the communities born from that Edenic vision are more like Jonestown or the Manson Family than they are paradise. Alison Wisdom, the author of the acclaimed novel We Can Only Save Ourselves, presents a particularly American fable in her latest book about married couple Rosemary and Paul, and their residence with an ultraconservative and misogynistic cult led by the charismatic Papa Jake in Dawes, Texas. Paul takes to the confines of the community with relative ease, while Rosemary is appropriately disquieted, especially as a series of symbolically fraught wild fires break out, and threaten to immolate those who’ve sought sanctuary in this potentially dangerous place. Papa Jake promises “Traces of heaven – the glory of God falling like light, feathers of the angels. Evidence of the presence of God, a miracle,” but Dawes is another American nightmare. Here in this community where women delete their period apps and wild fires threaten to burn the world, Wisdom provides a trenchant parable for our moment. (Ed Simon)
by : In her memoir-in-essays, Sánchez () writes about growing up the daughter of Mexican immigrants, her journey to becoming says: “It’s only after you’ve laughed that you understand the heartbreak beneath the laughter. I relished especially the stories she shares about being a wanderer savoring her solitude, a rare gift for a woman, but absolutely essential for any writer.” (Carolyn)
