Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter

By Publishers Lunch

The 21st edition of Buzz Books is a treasure-trove of what readers value the most: substantial excerpts from titles scheduled for publication this fall and winter. Think of it as a compilation of nearly 60 great “singles.”
Major bestselling authors such as Alice Feeney and John Irving are featured, along with literary greats Yiyun Li, Elizabeth McCracken, and Kamila Shamsie. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Lauren Denton, Stephen Markley, and Ellen Marie Wiseman.
Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors, and this edition is no exception with Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, Jamila Minnicks’ Moonrise Over New Jessup, and Kai Thomas’s In the Upper Country.
Our nonfiction selections range from New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv’s exploration of trauma to Cin Fabré’s inspiring story of becoming a Wall Street Trader at 19. Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Thomas Ricks offers a look into the civil rights movement.
Finally, we present ten early looks at new work up-and-coming young adult authors Kate Armstrong, Krystal Marquis, and Maya Prasad and more, as well as Nubia, a debut from actor Omar Epps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishers Lunch
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781948586504

Book preview

Title page: Buzz Books 2022, Fall/Winter. Publishers Lunch

Contents

Introduction

The Fall/Winter 2022 Publishing Preview

Part One: Fiction

Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate (Grand Central)

Ann Davila Cardinal, The Storyteller’s Death (Sourcebooks Landmark)

Lauren Denton, A Place To Land (Harper Muse)

Joël Dicker, The Enigma Of Room 622 (HarperVia)

Cai Emmons, Unleashed (Dutton)

Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker (Flatiron)

Rafael Frumkin, Confidence (Simon & Schuster)

T. Greenwood, Such A Pretty Girl (Kensington)

A.M. Homes, The Unfolding (Viking)

John Irving, The Last Chairlift (Simon & Schuster)

Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice (Riverhead)

Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner, When We Had Wings (Harper Muse)

Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Ling Ma, Bliss Montage (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Stephen Markley, The Deluge (Simon & Schuster)

Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero Of This Book (Ecco)

Rae Meadows, Winterland (Henry Holt)

Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible THINGS (Harper)

Susanne Pari, In the Time of Our History (Kensington)

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, On the Rooftop (Ecco)

Kamila Shamsie, Best of Friends (Riverhead)

Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic (Ecco)

Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Lost Girls of Willowbrook (Kensington)

Part Two: Debut

S. E. Boyd, The Lemon (Viking)

Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Bobby Finger, The Old Place (Putnam)

Craig Henderson, Welcome to the Game (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Carolyn Huynh, The Fortunes of Jaded Women (Atria)

Ella King, Bad Fruit (Astra House)

Murray Lee, Compass (Publerati)

Jamila Minnicks, Moonrise Over New Jessup (Algonquin)

Onyi Nwabineli, Someday, Maybe (Graydon House)

Ana Reyes, The House in the Pines (Dutton)

Kai Thomas, In the Upper Country (Viking)

Meghan Joyce Tozer, Night, Forgotten (W by Wattpad Books)

E.M. Tran, Daughters of the New Year (Hanover Square)

LaToya Watkins, Perish (Tiny Reparations Books)

Iris Yamashita, City Under One Roof (Berkley)

Part Three: Nonfiction

Rachel Aviv, Strangers to Ourselves (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Vanessa A. Bee, Home Bound (Astra House)

Erika Bolstad, Windfall (Sourcebooks)

Timothy A. Cavell and Lauren B. Quetsch, Good Enough Parenting (APA Life Tools)

Cin Fabré, Wolf Hustle (Henry Holt)

Dara G. Friedman-Wheeler and Jamie S. Bodenlos, Being The Change (APA LifeTools)

Kathleen Hale, Slenderman (Grove)

Margo Price, Maybe We’ll Make It: A Memoir (University of Texas Press)

Iliana Regan, Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir (Agate)

Thomas E. Ricks, Waging a Good War (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

Joseph Earl Thomas, Sink (Grand Central)

Part Four: Young Adult

Kate J. Armstrong, Nightbirds (Nancy Paulsen Books)

Tanvi Berwah, Monsters Born and Made (Sourcebooks Fire)

Matthew Dawkins, Until We Break (Wattpad Books)

Omar Epps and Clarence A. Haynes, Nubia: The Awakening (Delacorte)

Lesley Livingston, Queen Among The Dead (Zando Young Readers)

Krystal Marquis, The Davenports (Dial BFYR)

Maya Prasad, Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things (Hyperion)

Jesse Q. Sutanto, Well, That Was Unexpected (Delacorte)

Mariko Tamaki Anne of Greenville, (Melissa de la Cruz Studio/Disney)

Erin Yun, Pippa Park Crush at First Sight (Fabled Films Press)

Credits

Copyright

Introduction

For book-lovers looking to discover their next great read, Buzz Books 2022 is a treasure-trove of what readers value the most: substantial excerpts from a curated selection of dozens of the most highly-touted books scheduled for publication this fall and winter. Think of it as a compilation of nearly 60 great singles, or a special issue of your favorite literary magazine—if only they could land these top authors all at once.

Such major bestselling authors as Alice Feeney and John Irving, along with literary greats Yiyun Li, Elizabeth McCracken, and Kamila Shamsie. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Lauren Denton, Stephen Markley, and Ellen Marie Wiseman.

Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors, and this edition is no exception. Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, Jamila Minnicks’ Moonrise Over New Jessup, and Kai Thomas’s In the Upper Country are among the literary standouts.

Our nonfiction selections range from New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv’s exploration of how we deal with crisis to Cin Fabré’s inspiring story of becoming a Wall Street Trader at 19. NBCC nominated food writer Iliana Regan continues her culinary adventures as a forager, while bestselling and Pulitzer-Prize winning historian offers a look into the civil rights movement.

Finally, we present ten early looks at new work up-and-coming young adult authors Kate Armstrong, Krystal Marquis, and Maya Prasad and more, as well as Nubia, a debut from actor Omar Epps.

Start reading some of the best future books right now, and please feel free to share your excitement through online reviews and social media. You can invite your friends and book group companions to download their own free copy of this ebook from any major ebookstore.

We are honored to help readers discover great new books and to assist the participating authors and publishers in reaching out to new audiences with these pre-publication excerpts.

Be sure to look out for Buzz Books 2022: Romance, also out in May, and Buzz Books 2023: Spring/Summer, coming in January 2023.

The Fall/Winter 2022 Publishing Preview

It’s another exciting season of new books ahead. Readers will find their way to many of the books previewed here and others yet to be discovered. To help you sift through the many thousands of planned fall and winter titles, we’ve selected what we think are among the most noteworthy literary, commercial, and breakout titles for adults, separated into four key categories.

You’ll be able to sample many of the highlighted titles right now in Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter; they are noted with an asterisk and boldface. And please remember: because we prepare this preview many months in advance, titles, content, and publication dates are all subject to change.

Fiction

Fall promises new titles from some of the biggest names in literature. Cormac McCarthy, who has not published a novel since 2006, returns with not one but two new books. Elsewhere, the season is packed, with entries from Kate Atkinson, Madeline Miller, Celeste Ng, George Saunders, Maggie O’Farrell, and Andrew Sean Greer. In our sampler, you’ll find excerpts from John Irving, Yiyun Li, Elizabeth McCracken and more.

The Notables

Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety (Doubleday, 9/27)

Fredrik Backman, The Winners (Atria, 10/4)

Russell Banks, The Magic Kingdom (Knopf, 11/8)

John Banville, The Singularities (Knopf, 10/25)

Wendell Berry, How It Went (Counterpoint, 11/8)

T.C. Boyle, I Walk Between the Raindrops (Ecco, 9/13)

A.S. Byatt, Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories (Knopf, 9/7)

Katherine Dunn, Toad (MCD/FSG, 11/1)

Percival Everett, Dr. No (Graywolf, 11/1)

Louise Glück, Marigold and Rose: A Fiction (FSG, 10/11)

Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost (Little, Brown, 9/20)

A.M. Homes, The Unfolding (Viking, 9/6)*

John Irving, The Last Chairlift (Simon & Schuster, 10/18)*

Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (Harper, 10/18)

Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose (FSG, 9/20)*

Sam Lipsyte, No One Left to Come Looking for You (Simon & Schuster, 12/6)

David Means, Two Nurses, Smoking: Stories (FSG, 9/13)

Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger (Knopf, 10/25)

Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris (Knopf, 11/22)

Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero of This Book (Ecco, 10/4)*

Ian McEwan, Lessons (Knopf, 9/13)

Madeline Miller, Galatea (Ecco, 11/8)

Alan Moore, Illuminations (Bloomsbury, 10/11)

Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts (Penguin Press, 10/4)

Maggie O’Farrell, The Marriage Portrait (Knopf, 9/6)

Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague (Knopf, 10/4)

Joanna Quinn, The Whalebone Theatre (Knopf, 10/4)

George Saunders, Liberation Day (Random House, 10/18)

Dani Shapiro, Signal Fires (Knopf, 10/18)

Jane Smiley, A Dangerous Business (Knopf, 12/6)

Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea (Random House, 9/20)

Kai Thomas, In the Upper Country (Viking, 1/24)*

Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic (Ecco, 11/8)*

Highly Anticipated

Jill Bialosky, The Deceptions (Counterpoint, 9/6)

Elizabeth Brooks, The House in the Orchard (Tin House, 9/27)

Christopher Buckley, Has Anyone Seen My Toes? (Simon & Schuster, 9/6)

Candice Carty-Williams, People Person (Gallery/Scout Press, 9/6)

Angie Cruz, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (Flatiron, 9/13)

Amy Fusselman, The Means (Mariner, 9/6)

V. V. Ganeshananthan, Brotherless Night (Random House, 1/3)

Allegra Goodman, Sam (The Dial Press, 1/10)

Adam Hamdy, The Other Side of Night (Atria, 9/27)

Jess Kidd, The Night Ship (Atria, 10/18)

Ling Ma, Bliss Montage: Stories (FSG, 9/13)*

Jon McGregor, Lean Fall Stand (Catapult, 9/6)

Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions (Amistad, 9/13)

Matthew Quick, We Are the Light (Avid Reader/Simon & Schuster, 11/1)

Namwali Serpell, The Furrows (Hogarth, 9/27)

Samanta Schweblin, Seven Empty Houses: Stories (Riverhead, 10/18)

Kamila Shamsie, Best of Friends (Riverhead, 9/27)*

Lynn Steger Strong, Flight (Mariner, 11/8)

Marcel Theroux, The Sorcerer of Pyongyang (Atria, 11/29)  

Paul Theroux, The Bad Angel Brothers (Mariner, 9/6)

Emerging Voices

Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate (Grand Central, 12/6)*

Rita Cameron, The House Party (William Morrow, 9/13)

Cai Emmons, Unleashed (Dutton, 9/6)*

Rafael Frumkin, Confidence (Simon & Schuster, February)*

Meg Howrey, They’re Going to Love You (Doubleday, 11/15)

Jaroslav Kalfar, A Brief History of Living Forever (Little, Brown, 9/27)

Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice (Riverhead, 1/3)*

Deborah E. Kennedy, Billie Starr’s Book of Sorries (Flatiron, 10/4)

Louise Kennedy, Trespasses (Riverhead, 11/8)

Stephen Markley, The Deluge (Simon & Schuster, 1/10)*

Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I’m An Artist (Soft Skull, 9/20)

Rae Meadows, Winterland (Holt, 11/19)*

Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things (Ecco, 11/1)*

Bushra Rehman, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion (Flatiron, 12/6)

Catherine Adel West, The Two Lives of Sara (Park Row, 9/6)

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, On the Rooftop (Ecco, 9/6)*

DEBUT

Exciting new voices abound this fall. Titles from Kashana Cauley, Delia Cai, and Blair Braverman all show promise. Plus our sampler contains work from Jonathan Escoffery, Bobby Finger, Craig Henderson, Ella King, and more.

Erin E. Adams, Jackal (Bantam, 10/4)

Sussie Anie, To Fill a Yellow House (Mariner, 11/1)

Fatimah Asghar, When We Were Sisters (One World, 10/18)

A.K. Blakemore, The Manningtree Witches (Catapult, 9/27)

S.E. Boyd, The Lemon (Viking, 11/8)*

Blair Braverman, Small Game (Ecco, 11/1)

Delia Cai, Central Places (Ballantine, 1/10)

Ann Devila Cardinal, The Storyteller’s Death (Sourcebooks Landmark, 10/4)*

Kashana Cauley, The Survivalists (Soft Skull, 1/10)

Marisa Crane, I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself (Catapult, 1/17)

Heather Darwent, The Things We Do to Our Friends (Bantam, 1/10) 

Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You (FSG, 9/6)*

Bobby Finger, The Old Place (Putnam 9/20)*

Meghan Gilliss, Lungfish (Catapult, 9/13)

Jamila Minnicks, Moonrise Over New Jessup (Algonquin, 1/10)*

Craig Henderson, Welcome to the Game (Atlantic Monthly, 11/15)*

Jennifer Herrera, The Hunter (Putnam, 1/10)

Christopher M. Hood, The Revivalists (Harper, 10/4)

Carolyn Huynh, The Fortunes of Jaded Women (Atria, 9/6)*

Jessica Johns, Bad Cree (Knopf, 1/10)

Lauren John Joseph, At Certain Points We Touch (Bloomsbury, 12/6)

Ella King, Bad Fruit (Astra House, 8/23)*

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, What We Fed to the Manticore: Stories (Tin House, 9/6)

Murray Lee, Compass (Publerati, 9/22)*

Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid (William Morrow, 9/13)

Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea (MCD/FSG, 10/4)

Onyi Nwabineli, Someday, Maybe (Graydon House, 10/4)*

Carolyn Prusa, None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive (Atria, 11/8)

Ana Reyes, The House in the Pines (Dutton, 1/3)*

Parini Shroff, The Bandit Queens (Ballantine, 1/3)

E.M. Tran, Daughters of the New Year (Hanover Square, 10/11)*

Laura Warrell, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm (Pantheon, 9/20)

LaToya Watkins, Perish (Tiny Reparations, 8/23)*

Ryan Lee Wong, Which Side Are You On (Catapult, 10/4)

Erika T. Wurth, White Horse (Flatiron, 11/1)

Iris Yamashita, City Under One Roof (Berkley, 1/10)*

Jeannie Zusy, The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream (Atria, 9/20)

COMMERCIAL FICTION

This fall, there are new titles on deck from bestsellers like Stephen King, Veronica Roth, Josh Malerman, and Elin Hilderbrand. Our sampler features work by T. Greenwood, Alice Feeney, Joel Dicker, and others.

Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Shadow Murders: A Department Q Novel (Dutton, 9/27)

Jonathan Ames, The Wheel of Doll (Mulholland, 9/6)

Jeffrey Archer, Next in Line (HarperCollins, 9/27)

David Baldacci, Long Shadows (Grand Central, 10/11)

Ronald H. Balson, An Affair of Spies (St. Martin’s, 9/13)

Jack Du Brul, Clive Cussler’s Untitled Isaac Bell 13 (Putnam, 11/8)

Marc Cameron, Untitled Jack Ryan #22 (Putnam, 11/29)

Lee Child, Andrew Child, No Plan B: A Jack Reacher Novel (Delacort, 10/25)

John Connolly, The Furies (Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 9/27)

Michael Connelly, New Harry Bosch and Renée Ballard Novel (Little, Brown, 11/8)

Patricia Cornwell, Livid (Grand Central 10/25)

Jeffery Deaver, Hunting Time (Putnam, 11/22)

Lauren K. Denton, A Place To Land, (Harper Muse, 10/4)*

Joel Dicker, The Enigma of Room 622 (9/1)*

Nelson DeMille, The Maze (Scribner, 10/11)

Janet Evanovich, Going Rogue (Atria, 11/1)

Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker (Flatiron, 8/30)*

Robert Galbraith, The Ink Black Heart (Mulholland, 8/30)

T. Greenwood, Such a Pretty Girl (Kensington, 10/25)*

Sophie Hannah, The Couple at the Table (William Morrow, 11/1)

Robert Harris, Act of Oblivion (Harper, 9/6)

Alice Henderson, A Ghost of Caribou (William Morrow, 11/15)

Elin Hilderbrand, Endless Summer: Stories (Little, Brown, 10/4)

Anthony Horowitz, The Twist of a Knife (Harper, 11/15)

N. K. Jemisin, The World We Make (Orbit, 11/1)

Iris Johansen, Captive (Grand Central, 9/6)

Craig Johnson, Hell and Back (Viking, 9/6)

Stephen King, Fairy Tale (Scribner, 9/6)

Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner, When We Had Wings (Harper Muse, 10/18)*

Mike Lupica, Untitled Jesse Stone 21 (Putnam, 9/6)

Mike Maden, Clive Cussler’s Hellburner (Putnam, 9/6)

Josh Malerman, Daphne (Del Rey, 9/20)

Jason Pargin, If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe (St. Martin’s 10/18)

Susanne Pari, In the Time of Our History (Kensington, 12/27)*

B.A. Paris, The Prisoner (St. Martin’s, 11/1)

James Patterson, Cross Over (Little, Brown, 10/31)

James Patterson, Brendan DuBois, Blowback (Little, Brown, 9/12)

Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey (Ballantine, 10/11)

Ian Rankin, The New John Rebus Thriller : An Inspector Rebus Novel (Little, Brown, 10/18)

Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto Is Back (Ballantine, 8/30)

Rebecca Roanhorse, Tread of Angels (Gallery/Saga Press, 11/15)

J. D. Robb, Desperation in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (St. Martin’s, 9/6)

Nora Roberts, The Choice: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 3 (St. Martin’s, 11/22)

Veronica Roth, Poster Girl (William Morrow, 10/18)

Alexander McCall Smith, A Song of Comfortable Chairs (Pantheon, 9/6)

Nicholas Sparks, Dreamland (Random House, 9/20)

Catherine Steadman, The Family Game (Ballantine, 11/8)

Danielle Steel, The High Notes (Delacorte, 10/11)

Danielle Steel, Without a Trace (Delacorte, 1/3)

Daniel Suarez, Critical Mass (Dutton, 1/24)

Scott Turow, Suspect (Grand Central, 9/20)

Ellen Wiseman, The Lost Girls of Willowbrook (Kensington, 8/30)*

Stuart Woods, Untitled Stone Barrington #63 (Putnam, 10/11)

Stuart Woods, Untitled Stone Barrington #64 (Putnam, 12/27)

NONFICTION

This season brings exciting new writing about art, from Bob Dylan, Jerry Saltz, Haruki Murakami, Patti Smith and Nick Hornby. Memoir selections include books from marquee names including Matthew Perry, Misty Copeland, Paul Newman, and Cori Bush, as well as powerful personal narratives such as Hua Hsu’s coming of age story of friendship and grief and Javier Zamora’s recounting of migrating from El Salvador to the US at the age of nine. In our sampler, also check out new books from Joseph Earl Thomas, Rachel Aviv, Cin Fabré, and more.

Essays, Criticism, and More

Jonathan Abrams, The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop (Crown, 10/18) 

Hillary Chute (ed.), Maus Now: Selected Writing (Pantheon, 11/15) 

Tim Cornwell (ed.), A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré (Viking, 11/8)

Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song (Simon & Schuster, 11/8) 

Jason Gay, I Wouldn’t Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders) (Hachette, 10/25) 

Felix Gillette and John Koblin, It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO (Viking, 11/1) 

Christian Gregory (ed.), The Essential Dick Gregory (Amistad, 9/14) 

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, My People (Harper, 10/11) 

Tiffany Haddish, I Curse You With Joy (Amistad, 11/29)

Nick Hornby, Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius (Riverhead, 11/15) 

Natasha Leggero, The World Deserves My Children (Gallery, 11/15) 

Zosia Mamet (ed.), My First Popsicle: An Anthology of Food and Feelings (Penguin, 11/1) 

Trixie Mattel and Katya, Working Girls: Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Professional Womanhood (Plume, 10/25) 

Frances Mayes, A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home (Crown, 8/23)

The Mountain was Shaken with Pain: Indigenous Americans and the Fight for Survival, edited by Melville House (Melville House, 10/25) 

Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation (Knopf, 11/8) 

Robin Pecknold, Wading in Waist-High Water: The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes (Tin House, 11/1) 

Paulina Porizkova, No Filter (Penguin, 11/15) 

Iliana Regan, Fieldwork (Agate, 1/10)*

Bretman Rock, You’re That Bitch (Harper, 11/15) 

Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar, The World Record Book of Racist Stories: The Ruffin Family Edition (Grand Central, 11/8) 

Jerry Saltz, Art Is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night (Riverhead, 11/1)

Patti Smith, A Book of Days (Random House, 11/15)

Amber Tamblyn, Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition (Park Row, 10/18) 

Biography & Memoir 

Julian Aguon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay (Astra House, 9/13)

David Ambroz, A Place Called Home: A Memoir (Legacy Lit, 9/13) 

Boosie Badazz, Cross the Tracks: A Memoir (Gallery, 9/20) 

Elissa Bassist, Hysterical: A Memoir (Hachette, 9/13) 

Vanessa A. Bee, Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging (Astra House, 10/11)* 

Timothy Bella, Barkley (Hanover Square, 11/1)

David Bellavia, Remember the Ramrods (Mariner, 10/25) 

Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., Christopher Benson, A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till (One World, 1/10)

Will Bettke-Brunswick, A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir (Tin House, 11/15) 

Erika Bolstad, Windfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her (Sourcebooks, 1/17)*

Kate Andersen Brower, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon (Harper, 12/6) 

Cori Bush, The Forerunner: A Memoir (Knopf, 10/4) 

Nick Cave, Sean O’Hagan, Faith, Hope, and Carnage (Farrar, Straus, 9/20)

Melanie Chisholm, Who I Am (Grand Central, 9/20) 

Misty Copeland, The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor Raven Wilkinson (Grand Central, 11/15) 

Mary-Alice Daniel, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents (Ecco, 11/29) 

Evette Dionne, Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Unshakable Soul (Ecco, 12/6) 

Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking, 11/22) 

Betty Gilpin, All the Women in My Brain: And Other Concerns (Flatiron, 9/6)

Lauren Graham, Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember (Ballantine, 11/15)

Sam Heughan, Waypoints (Voracious, 10/25) 

Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin Hill, My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy (Gallery, 10/11)

Jemele Hill, Uphill: A Memoir (Holt, 10/25) 

Hua Hsu, Stay True: A Memoir (Doubleday, 9/27) 

Brian Johnson, The Lives of Brian: AC/DC, Me, and the Making of Back in Black (Dey Street, 10/11) 

Cody Keenan, Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America (Mariner, 10/4) 

Andrew Kirtzman, Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor (Simon & Schuster, 9/13) 

Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci, The Zen of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life (Twelve, 11/1) 

Chelsea Manning, Untitled (Farrar, Straus, 10/18) 

Steve Martin, illustrated by Harry Bliss, Untitled (Celadon, 11/15) 

Ralph Macchio, Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me (Dutton, 10/18) 

Jon Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (Random House, 10/25) 

David Milch, Life’s Work: A Memoir (Random House, 9/13)

Tamera Mowry-Housley, You Should Sit Down for This: A Memoir about Wine, Life, and Cookies (Legacy Lit, 10/4)

Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir (Knopf, 10/18) 

Wendy Osefo, Tears of My Mother: The Legacy of My Nigerian Upbringing (Gallery, 9/20) 

Chris Paul, with Michael Wilbon, Sixty-One: Life Lessons from Papa, On and Off the Court (St. Martin’s, 9/6) 

Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir (Flatiron, 11/1) 

Margo Price, Maybe We’ll Make It (University of Texas, 10/4)* 

Alan Rickman, The Rickman Diaries (Holt, 10/18) 

Kelly Ripa, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories (Dey Street, 9/27) 

Paulina Rubio, A Little More of Me (HarperOne, 11/22) 

Se Hee Baek, translated by Anton Hur, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (Bloomsbury, 11/1) 

Prince Shakur, When They Tell You To Be Good: A Memoir (Tin House, 10/4)

William Shatner with Joshua Brandon, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder (Atria, 10/4) 

Margaret Sullivan, Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life (St. Martin’s, 10/18) 

Ahed Tamimi, Dena Takruri, They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom (One World, 9/6)

Shahbaz Taseer, Lost to the World: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Five Years in the Hands of Extremists (MCD, 11/15) 

Joseph Earl Thomas, Sink (Grand Central, 2/21)* 

Lynne Tillman, Mothercare (Soft Skull, 8/2) 

Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships (Simon & Schuster, 9/13) 

Jann S. Wenner, Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir (Little, Brown, 9/13) 

Michael K. Williams with Jon Sternfeld, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir (Crown, 8/23) 

Constance Wu, Making a Scene (Scribner, 10/4)

Daniella Mestyanek Young, Uncultured: A Memoir (St. Martin’s, 9/20) 

Javier Zamora, Solito: A Memoir (Hogarth, 9/6)

Politics and Current Events

Devin Allen, No Justice, No Peace: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter (Legacy Lit, 10/11) 

Rachael Bade, Karoun Demirjian, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind the Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump (Morrow, 10/4) 

Gerard Baker, What Went Wrong: How America Conquered the World and then Defeated Itself (Twelve, 11/29) 

Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 (Doubleday, 9/20) 

Andy Borowitz, Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber (Avid Reader, 9/13) 

Josh Chin, Liza Lin, Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (St. Martin’s, 9/6) 

Brandi Collins-Dexter, Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future (Celadon, 9/20) 

Gabriel Debenedetti, The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama (Holt, 9/13) 

Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, Brian Friedberg, Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America (Bloomsbury, 9/20) 

Michael Fanone with John Shiffman, Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul (Atria, 10/11) 

Anand Giridharadas, The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy (Knopf, 10/18) 

Sarah Kendzior, They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent (Flatiron, 9/13) 

Beto O’Rourke, We’ve Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible (Flatiron, 8/23) 

Maria Ressa, How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future (Harper, 9/6) 

Andrew L. Seidel, American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom (Union Square & Co, 9/27) 

Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, The January 6 Report (Celadon, 9/13) 

Kyle Spencer, Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement—and Its Plot for Power (Ecco, 9/20)

Chris Whipple, The Fight of His Life: The Inside Story of Joe Biden’s White House (Scribner, 10/18) 

Social Issues

Rachel Aviv, Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us (Farrar, Straus, 9/13)*

Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick, Noel Brown, Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know (Flatiron, 10/11) 

Douglas Brinkley, Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, and the Great Environmental Awakening (Harper, 11/15) 

Timothy A. Cavell, PhD, and Lauren B. Quetsch, PhD, Good Enough Parenting: A Six-Point Plan for a Stronger Relationship With Your Child (APA LifeTools, 9/23)*

David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: How Giant Law Firms Deny Justice, Shield the Powerful, and Endanger Democracy (Mariner, 9/13) 

Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World (Little, Brown, 9/6) 

Dara G. Friedman-Wheeler, PhD, and Jamie S. Bodenlos, PhD, Being the Change: A Guide for Advocates and Activists on Staying Healthy, Inspired, and Driven (APA LifeTools, 11/7)*

Rebecca Giblin, Cory Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We’ll Win Them Back (Beacon, 9/20)

Jessica Grose, Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainable Lie of American Motherhood (Mariner, 12/6) 

Bill Keller, What’s Prison For?: Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Columbia Global Reports, 10/4) 

Deborah G. Plant, Of Greed and Glory: The African American Struggle for Freedom and Sovereignty (Amistad, 12/27) 

Vivek Ramaswamy, Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence (Center Street, 9/13) 

Rina Raphael, The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care (Holy, 9/20) 

Diane Rosenfeld, The Bonobo Sisterhood (Harper Wave, 9/20)

David Sax, The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World (PublicAffairs, 11/15) 

Donald Yacovone, Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity (Pantheon, 9/13) 

Isaac Wright, Jr., Marked for Life: One Man’s Fight for Justice from the Inside (St. Martin’s, 11/8) 

History & Crime

Meredith Bagby, The New Guys (Morrow, 10/11) 

Antony Beevor, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 (Viking, 9/20)

Ken Burns, Our America: A Photographic History (Knopf, 10/25) 

H. W. Brands, The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America (Doubleday, 11/1) 

Katherine Corcoran, In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, A Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press (Bloomsbury, 10/18)

Matthew F. Delmont, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad (Viking, 10/18) 

Bob Drury, Tom Clavin, The Last Hill: The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII (St. Martin’s, 11/1) 

Renee Dudley, Daniel Golden, The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime (Farrar, Straus, 10/25) 

Jonathan Freedland, The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (Harper 10/18) 

Kathleen Hale, Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls (Grove, 8/16)* 

Kevin Hazzard, American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics (Hachette, 9/20) 

Bruce Henderson, Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II (Knopf, 9/27) 

Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (Mariner, 10/4) 

Nathalia Holt, Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage (Putnam, 9/13) 

Edward Humes, The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder (Dutton, 11/29) 

Steve Kemper, Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Mariner, 11/8) 

Tyler Kepner, The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series (Doubleday, 10/11) 

Ben Macintyre, Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis’ Fortress Prison (Crown, 9/13)

David McCullough, Brave Companions: Portraits in History (Simon & Schuster, 9/20) 

Simon Sebag Montefiore, The World: A Family History (Knopf, 11/29) 

Caroline Dodds Pennock, On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe (Knopf, 1/24) 

W. Scott Poole, Dark Carnivals: Horror and the Dirty Wars of American Empire (Counterpoint, 10/4) 

Thomas E. Ricks, Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 (Farrar, Straus, 10/4)* 

Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary Samuel Adams (Little, Brown, 11/15) 

RJ Young, Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (Counterpoint, 11/1)

Business, Science & Technology

Jens Andersen, The Lego Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination (Mariner, 11/15) 

Mark Bergen, Like, Comment, Subscribe: How YouTube Conquered the World (Viking, 9/6) 

Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most PowerfulConsulting Firm (Doubleday, 10/4)

Julia Boorstin, When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them (Avid Reader, 10/11) 

Bethany Brookshire, Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (Ecco, 12/6)

Chelsea Conaboy, Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood (Holt 9/13) 

Sean Carroll, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion (Dutton, 9/20) 

Dr. Ken Duckworth, You Are Not Alone: The National Alliance on Mental Illness Guide to Recovery (Zando, 9/20) 

Tori Dunlap, Financial Feminist (Dey Street, 12/27) 

George S. Everly, Jr., PhD, FAPA, Amy B. Athey, PsyD, CMPC, Leading Beyond Crisis: The Five Virtues of Transformative Resilient Leadership (APA LifeTools, 10/7)

Cin Fabré, Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street (Holt, 9/13)* 

Emily Flitter, The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America (Atria/One Signal, 10/25) 

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions (Riverhead, 10/11) 

Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older (Flatiron, 12/27) 

Jamie Fiore Higgins, Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs (Simon & Schuster, 10/4)

Ryan Holiday, Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (Portfolio, 9/27)

Gabor Maté, MD with Daniel Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture (Avery, 9/13) 

Randall Munroe, What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (Riverhead, 9/13) 

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Song of the Cell: The Transformation of Medicine and the New Human (Scribner, 10/25) 

David G. Myers, How Do We Know Ourselves?: A Research Psychologist’s Musings on the Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind (Farrar, Straus, 11/1) 

Annie Proulx, Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis (Scribner, 9/27) 

David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus (Simon & Schuster, 10/4) 

Gary Rivlin, Saving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of COVID-19 (Harper Business, 10/18) 

Stacy Spikes, Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider (Dafina, 12/27) 

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization (Holt, 9/20) 

Woo-kyoung Ahn, Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better (Flatiron, 9/13)

Part One: Fiction

Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate (Grand Central)

SUMMARY

From the author of Good Morning, Midnight comes a hopeful, sweeping story of survival and resilience spanning one extraordinary woman’s lifetime as she navigates the uncertainty, brutality, and arresting beauty of a rapidly changing world.

EXCERPT

Somewhere west of Africa, so far from land the sky is empty in all directions, a storm begins. The water is warm, the waves are high. The air is heavy with moisture. A breath of wind catches, then circles back, churning itself into something new: a closed circuit gathering power, tighter and tighter. In this way, the storm grows. It matures. Learns to hold a shape. The warm water feeds it, fattens it, then urges it westward. Electronic eyes watch as it skims across the Atlantic. Soon enough, it earns a name. Reports are written about its speed and size. Preparations are made. There are other storms in this ocean, other pockets of hot, moist wind and rain-heavy cloud. But this one—this one will outgrow them all.

Frida watches Kirby from the kitchen window while she washes Yukon Golds beneath a thin trickle of water. Scrubbing at the dim yellow skins, she decides not to peel them. Maybe the boys won’t notice if she mashes them thoroughly enough—and if they do, she will cite nutritional value. Outside, beneath a bloated purple sky knifed with the sharp fronds of a coconut palm, Kirby stacks sandbags against the door to the tool shed. Even with the AC blasting, Frida can smell the rich stink of thunder in the air, something like ozone and gasoline and dirt all mixed together. The hurricane is close now. She can taste it.

The baby kicks so hard she holds on to the counter until it stops. It feels as if this tiny, unborn thing could topple her. She asked—no, begged—Kirby to take them north, beyond the cone of uncertainty, but this is the third hurricane of the season and the third time she’s wanted to evacuate. The first one fizzled into a tropical storm before it even reached land. Heavy rain and a stiff wind and that was all. The second crawled up the opposite coast, wreaking havoc in Sarasota and Tampa, then swung back out into the Gulf. Before each one, he listened quietly to her pleas, calming her fears without succumbing to them, but then this morning something in her husband shifted. Get yourself together, he snapped. We’re not leaving. She was stung, shocked by the hardness in his voice. A new sound. Or new to her. It was just over a year ago that they met. Only six months since they married. There’s so much to learn about one another.

Even if he were not bound to these storms by his work as a lineman, he would still be bound by something else. She has always understood this about him. He would still insist that this house is the safest place for them. This house—fortified by his labor, shielded from ocean winds by the wild tangle of live oak and cypress that looms just beyond the yard, but mostly guarded by the strength of his will. And isn’t this at least partly why she fell in love with him? This faith in the strength of his own preparations. This promise of protection. A stolid, immovable weight—the anchor secreted inside his rib cage, holding him to the earth, to Frida, to Florida. If he believes they are safe, then maybe she can, too.

Resting a hand on her huge belly, she drops the last potato into the colander and twists off the faucet. The panic that has been with her all morning sharpens. It wasn’t always like this. She used to be brave. Didn’t she? The woman she was feels impossibly far away now, like a dream she can’t quite remember. A thump outside startles her, but it’s only Kirby laying down another sandbag. This is who she is now. The anxiety has become part of her. There’s something about the way the baby has been stirring today that is almost urgent enough to make her get in the truck and go north by herself. There are his keys on the table. She could just leave everything where it is: chicken already in the oven, greens on the cutting board, potatoes in the colander. Would she take her stepsons? She wouldn’t mind if they wanted to come—but she knows they wouldn’t.

All morning, the roiling clouds have been wrapping tighter and tighter around the sky and now all the blue has been squeezed out of it. Out the window, she watches Kirby admire his pile of sandbags in front of the tool shed and move on to the house, so sure his preparations are impenetrable. So sure of victory against his old adversary. The big coconut palm hanging over the yard sways. Its roots are sunk deep beneath the wilderness lurking at the edge of the property, but its trunk swings out over the lawn as if the wild is reaching for the house with those big fingerlike fronds. As if it’s trying to caress the family that lives here, or to crush them all. Or both. Frida knows all about beauty and violence arriving together. She’s seen it up close; she knows what nature can do.

Kirby lifts a conciliatory hand when he sees her there in the window, and Frida, still holding her belly, trying to shrug away this sense of dread, turns away without acknowledging him—not because she is angry but because she is frightened. When they fought earlier, he took her frantic appeals to evacuate as an insult. Why can’t you just trust me? he asked, bewildered. She didn’t know how to tell him that this is the wrong question without knowing what the right one is. They still haven’t made up.

Kirby’s boys come tearing into the kitchen just then, all arms and legs and sounds too big for those little bodies. They are immune to the fear that curls up on Frida’s shoulders, nestling softly against her neck, pressing up against her windpipe—a gentle, invisible strangle- hold. They feel only excitement in the simmering electricity of the atmosphere, the barometric pressure plummeting as each hour passes. She can almost see the current running through them: Lucas skidding across the tile floor in his dirty white socks, Flip leaping after him, midair, falling, fallen, and upright again, all in the space of a breath.

Boys, she chides, doing her best impression of a mother. She has so little to guide her in these matters—when she was growing up, her own mother’s defining characteristic was her lack of mother-ness. Everyone said so. It isn’t that Frida regrets the way Joy raised her. How could she? Her childhood was singular, spent sailing between islands, with salt in every crevice and a vision of the sun permanently etched into the backs of her eyelids. She grew up everywhere and nowhere. The Keys, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Haiti, Panama, Venezuela. The only constants during Frida’s formative years were her mother and their decrepit sailboat and the ocean itself. There was no school outside of Joy’s instruction, and the friends she did manage to make could last only until Joy announced a departure date. When they pulled anchor, Joy always said it was time to find a new pair of sea legs. What’s wrong with the old ones?, Frida would think. But she never complained. Of course she used to be brave. She had to be.

Boys! Frida says again, louder this time, but it still feels like a performance, something she’s only seen on television. They can tell, and so can she. If Joy were here, she would do all of this differently. She would be running through the house alongside them, playing their games, learning their secrets. She would be so unrelenting in her mission to win them over that finally these boys would have no choice but to love her. Except Joy isn’t here. This is the ache Frida is learning to live with.

She hears Flip and Lucas hurtling through the living room, the brisk creak of the screen door opening and then a slap as it swings back against its frame. Out of sight, Kirby roars and the boys shriek, even Lucas, who recently decided that twelve was too old for games like this. All three of them round the edge of the house, back into view—the boys darting past the window, Kirby lumbering behind them with arms overhead, fingers wiggling. Frida instructs her nerves to settle and shoos away this circling, spinning unease. See, she tells herself, it isn’t real. No one else feels it. Everything is fine. She holds this assurance. Examines it. Does she feel better? Maybe. But then the baby, turning again and again, thrusting its limbs up against the constraints of her womb, up into her intestines, dislodges the seed of calm. Everything is not fine. Frida props her stomach up against the edge of the counter and the Formica presses against her, against them both. She lets the edge dig into her, trying to quiet this spark inside her, but there is no suppressing it. Maybe this feeling is just a symptom of the murky, greenish-yellow glow outside, or the way the baby is churning inside her today, or these unbidden memories of her dead mother, or the fact that this season, more catastrophic storms have made landfall than any other…a record that will undoubtedly be broken next year, and then again the next. But most likely, she thinks, it is the cumulation of these things packed together in the dense, hot air. It is the multitude, the crush of it all, the claustrophobic humidity of the atmosphere flooding her body, swarming along the surface of her skin. Surely that’s it. It’s overwhelm. Hypervigilance. Anxiety masquerading as intuition. But isn’t there at least a chance it’s the opposite? A pulsing intuition that she is trying her best to disown. A voice telling her that staying here will cost a great deal.

Kirby stops chasing his boys and returns to the wheelbarrow. He starts slapping the bags down in front of the kitchen door, the sound almost indecent, half-moons of sweat under his arms, a slick of moisture forming at his hairline, where just a few threads of silver are creeping into the brown. His every gesture claims competency, an all-encompassing aura of stewardship—over the sandbags and the doorstep they will shelter, over the ground he’s standing on, over the boys that flit back and forth in the yard behind him, over this house, this day, this moment. Wherever he goes, he is rooted. It’s what drew Frida to him when she saw him that first time, among the wreckage of San Juan. Even there, he exuded belonging.

She had planned only to visit Joy for ten days or so. It was the tail end of the summer before her last year of Rice’s architecture program, meant to be a quick vacation to her floating childhood home. The boat was docked in their favorite marina off the coast of Puerto Rico—just for the season. With Joy, it was always just for the season. Even after Frida left at seventeen, Joy went on sailing between her favorite islands alone, never more than a handful of months in one place. She could have chosen the Caymans just as easily. Or maybe that bay off of Taboga, the one they anchored in after Joy showed Frida the Bridge of the Americas for the first time and Frida decided that one day she wanted to build such marvels. But Joy didn’t choose either of those places. She picked San Juan.

Frida was excited to take a brief reprieve from the metallic crush of her life in Houston—two jobs, an unpaid internship, and soon a full course load, all clamoring for a finite amount of energy. She ached for the unrelenting enthusiasm of her mother, the old comfort of falling asleep wrapped in waves, the way a shimmer of salt clung to everything. It was meant to be a balm after the endless hustle of Houston, where she could never seem to break even and always felt like an outsider. Then, just after she landed at Isla Verde, they named the hurricane—out there in the Atlantic, whirling all alone. Poppy, they called it. No one who had endured Hurricane Maria took its approach lightly. Everyone was as ready as they could be; it didn’t matter.

What happened next is both vivid and incomplete. A therapist she saw a few times suggested that the missing pieces would return as the shock wore off, but Frida doesn’t want them. She remembers plenty: wading through floodwater and debris, trying to convince overrun funeral parlors to cremate Joy’s remains; the crowds in front of the airport, everyone waiting for the chance at a seat on a nonexistent flight to the mainland; sitting with a roomful of strangers in the FEMA shelter, trying to remember her Spanish. And then there was Kirby, entering her field of vision like a beacon, like the first glimpse of land after so many days at sea. He was a man who knew what to do next when no one else did. She watched him and his crew survey the destruction and begin their work. Clearing debris, restringing electrical wires, planting new poles in the ground. Just one task at a time. The truth is, Kirby’s happiest when he’s fixing things. Sometimes she worries that this is the reason he married her.

Frida sets the potatoes on the stove to boil, the little diamond chips on her finger catching the witchy chartreuse light that is brewing beneath the bruised clouds—an unseen sunset illuminating the yard. Poppy was only a year ago, but time gulped Frida down whole. It feels as though she’s lived decades since then, and now somehow, she is here, looking at a life she barely recognizes. She’s loosely cognizant of the choices she made along the way: keeping the baby, saying yes when he offered this ring, breaking her lease and dropping out of grad school, moving to this little town on the east coast of Florida. But at the same time, she cannot shake the feeling that she’s been washed ashore on a strange beach. Did she really choose or did she just succumb? Is it a decision to hold on to a life raft, or is it something else? Tears form in the corners of her eyes. It’s the hormones, she chides herself. All of this is just hormones. She loves Kirby, she loves her unmet daughter, and in this house they will build the kind of family she has always coveted. There is even space for these two little boys who don’t belong to her. She doesn’t need sea legs anymore; this ground is firm. It can hold her. It can hold all of them. She checks the oven, where the chicken fat is spitting in the bottom of the pan but the bird is not yet done.

The boys wash their hands the third time she tells them to, and even though she can see them barely obeying—no scrubbing, no soap even—she says nothing, considering the battle won. She lays a stack of plates and a handful of silverware down on the table, and Flip, the youngest, begins to set them out without being asked. She tries not to let her surprise show at this small gesture. He’s always been her favorite of the two, and she likes to think that he is beginning to come around to her presence here. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him line up the plates so that the pattern at each setting is straight, his little brow wrinkling in concentration, measuring the width between the edge of the table and the dishes with his fingers so they’re all evenly placed—something she learned to do working in fine dining back in Houston. She has not taught him this, and Kirby certainly hasn’t. It must have been their mother, an exacting woman she finds fearsome and fascinating and has met only once. The divorce wasn’t clean. She can feel the fissures it left behind even when she doesn’t always understand them.

Her first summer with these boys that aren’t hers was unexpectedly hard. She had no idea what she was walking into until her lease in Houston had already been broken and the ring was on her finger and the baby was the size of a grapefruit. Kirby worked long hours, and when he was gone, the boys behaved badly. Lucas in particular, with Flip always a step or two behind. No one was thrilled about how things went—not Frida; not Kirby; not their mother, Chloe; and certainly not the boys themselves—but summers and occasional weekends and every other holiday with Kirby were what the hard- won custody arrangement decreed. Frida’s preferences had no place on the calendar. So she did her best. She is still just doing her best.

Behind her, Lucas opens the fridge and begins to root through the crisper. She watches him dump a thin plastic bag of apples out into the drawer and then move on to the shelf above it, the bag floating softly down to the tile floor like a silver jellyfish.

We’re about to eat dinner, buddy, she says. Nothing for you in there.

What is it, though? For dinner? he asks, and she knows that this exchange is futile, that he has already decided not to like whatever she has made. A sense of defeat blooms inside her. The roast chicken is evident, steaming in its pan, stuffed with lemons and parsley, rubbed with butter. It looks good, mouthwatering even, but that doesn’t matter to him.

Chicken and mashed potatoes and greens.

I don’t want that.

I thought it was your favorite.

Not the way you make it. She tries so hard not to hate this kid, but he makes it difficult. Lucas lifts the lid on the potatoes and groans. You didn’t even peel them? Isn’t there anything else?

The skins are nutritious.

From under his breath, Yeah, right.

Go tell your dad it’s almost ready, please.

He opens the kitchen door and the sandbags come up to his waist. Scrambling over them, he goes in search of Kirby, who has moved on with his wheelbarrow. Frida drains the potatoes and begins to stamp the masher down into their soft yellow-white flesh. She is ferocious in this act of mashing, channeling all of her aggression and dread and determination into a dinner that she already knows will not be enjoyed. Again, she eyes the keys to Kirby’s truck on the table, and again, she imagines leaving this kitchen without a word—potatoes half-mashed, table set, the smell of garlic still on her hands—and driving away. It would be so easy. At the same time, it is impossible.

When Lucas comes around the corner to tell Kirby that dinner is ready and it looks disgusting, he’s busy pulling out window coverings from beneath the porch. The plywood is labeled by room—nw kitchen, s hall, se bed—and crusted with a sheen of gray mildew. A hot, wet, fertile smell drenches the air, so rich with anticipation that the ferns clustered under the porch are almost quivering. In its own way, the earth is also preparing for what draws near. But Kirby does not spend his time considering such intangibles; he’s focused on what is useful.

‘Disgusting’ is a mean word, Kirby murmurs, still arranging the wood.

Well, it’s true.

Kirby steps back to count the pieces. He knows he should say something more to Lucas, but he can’t think of the right thing. All this animosity between him and his ex-wife, Chloe, has splattered onto his sons, and now onto Frida, too. He knows it’s his fault, but not seeing how to correct it, he goes on hoping it will be resolved without his intervention. These tactile preparations, however, are the kind of thing he does best, so instead of turning his attention to a conversation about feelings with a little boy who doesn’t want to have it, he looks to his checklist. The sandbags have all been stacked. The lawn furniture has been taken in. Only the windows are left now. He knows he’s overdone it with the sandbags. They’re piled higher than is useful, but he wants Frida to see that he has been listening to her. It is his visible testament to how very seriously he’s taking all of this, both the hurricane and his pledge to keep her safe. He hoped she would notice this gesture and soften, but it’s clear she’s still upset. It irks him, especially after he’s tried so hard to be patient with her, to be understanding and gentle about what she’s been through. He shouldn’t have snapped earlier, but it frustrates him that she isn’t getting better. If anything, she’s getting worse. The nightmares, the crying jags—it’s as if hurricane season has snatched away all the progress she’s made since Poppy. They’ve made. And now, the boys are back for the weekend, clamoring for his attention, not to mention a baby coming next month, a mortgage to pay, a new work crew to navigate…and first, these windows to cover. There’s a charge in the air; he can feel it pulsing. Whether it’s the hurricane coming closer or the chemistry of his many responsibilities colliding, he isn’t sure. The source hardly matters to him. All he knows is that he’s exhausted.

When he met Frida, the divorce was still new enough to sting and his determination to do better was at its peak. With Chloe and the boys, he hadn’t paid enough attention. He didn’t see it then, but he sees it now. The constant traveling, the overtime, those fleeting weekends after sixteen-hour days of storm duty when all he could do was sleep—it added up. At home, he became a visitor. It shouldn’t have surprised him when Chloe filed the paperwork, but it did. She became an enemy when he wasn’t even looking. Probably because he wasn’t even looking.

With Frida, he was determined that it would be different. He let the erratic contract work go and found a steady municipal job. Swallowed the pay cut. Bought a little house a few hours south from his boys with what was left after the divorce. Frida was still grieving the loss of her mother when they came here, but beginning to emerge from the shock of living through Poppy. She was getting better, and so was he. They were tender with each other. No one had ever been curious about his inner life the way she was. She wanted to know where he’d come from and how he felt about it and what he yearned for. It made him feel known, and that was new. Chloe had tolerated him—up until she didn’t—but Frida savored him. They painted the house a crisp white before the boxes were even unpacked, just the two of them out here in the yard with rollers and a ladder, sweating in the midday heat, feeling the proximity of all that death they’d left behind in the floodwater and at the same time, preparing for new life. Creating a way forward.

It was a different kind of partnership for Kirby. She convinced him that knocking down the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room would make the house better, then she wielded her own sledgehammer, pregnant and nauseous but determined to share the labor. And she was right. She started sketching out an addition they could build someday—another bedroom for when the boys came to visit, with a big screened-in porch where they could sit and watch the egrets hunt for grasshoppers. That’s the Frida he married: making things better at every turn. Making him better. He thought it was mutual, but lately it feels like they are both falling apart.

Dad, Lucas says, sensing that his father’s attention has wandered. He’s eager to help, to be on Kirby’s team, but Kirby is still thinking about his other team. He wants to reconcile the woman he remem- bers scrabbling across this roof as easily as if it were the deck of her mother’s boat with the doom-obsessed stranger sullenly washing potatoes in the kitchen. He wants to understand her, but he’s too tired, too irritated, to wrap his head around the transformation of these last few months. Dad! Lucas insists. Can I?

Have at it. He lets Lucas climb under the porch for the last few window coverings, just to give him something to do. Watching his oldest sort through the plywood, lining the pieces up against the siding, he notices that Lucas is organizing them so that they’re grouped by room. That’s good, Kirby says, putting them in the right order. Efficient. Lucas beams.

Kirby knows that Frida is having a hard time with the boys, Lucas especially. If it were a matter of acting out, a kick, a punch, a tantrum, that would be something he could handle. But these nuances Frida seems so upset about…it’s not his forte. He can admit that he got so carried away by the clean slate of this little white house that he neglected making the boys feel like it belonged to them, too. His life with Chloe and the boys and then his life with Frida felt separate. He didn’t think about how to integrate them. But what’s done is done, so he goes on hoping that patience is all they need. They’ll go back to their mother’s in a few days and he’ll redouble his efforts with Frida then. One problem at a time. For now, it’s just a matter of getting through the weekend.

When Lucas has retrieved the last of the plywood, he wipes his hands on his T-shirt and little gray mildew smudges appear. That’s good for tonight, Kirby says. We’ll bang ‘em up in the morning. He’d like to put them up now, but letting Frida’s dinner get cold will only make things worse. Heading in, he glimpses her standing there in the window, the curve of her hand resting on top of her belly as she frowns at him, framed by green curtains and her voluminous dark curls, as if she’s been standing there for hours, perfecting her pose, waiting for him to come round the corner so he can see this icy vision of martyrdom.

When’s the storm getting here? Lucas asks, clawing at his shirt. Always grabbing at some article of Kirby’s clothing, these boys. Always asking for a little more of him.

Tomorrow afternoon, Kirby says. But probably won’t be a direct hit. Forecast says it’ll make land farther north.

I saw the Robisons leaving this morning. Jimmy said they’re ‘vacuating. But we’re not, are we?

Well, Kirby says, and fixes his eyes on his oldest. That depends. Are you scared of a little wind? Lucas shakes his head before the question is done being asked. Are you scared of a little rain? Another shake. Then we’re not evacuating. He says this last bit as Lucas clambers over the sandbags stacked in the open doorway. Kirby doesn’t intend for Frida to hear him say all of this, but she does, and when he follows Lucas into the kitchen and catches the look on her face, puckered and tearful, he’s instantly ashamed of himself. He only meant to make his son feel safe. But then his guilt swells too big and it changes into something bitter, something charred. He can feel it turn—the apology he knows he should offer, the sorry on the tip of his tongue, burns.

Wash your hands, Lucas, Kirby says, his mouth full of ash.

I already did.

So do it again.

Lucas makes the sound of a child being forced to do hard labor and stumbles toward the sink, suddenly limp under the weight of this task. This time, he uses the soap.

Dinner is eaten quietly. The boys pick at their food. The chicken is dry. The mashed potatoes are lumpy. The greens—the greens are bright and well-seasoned, but these boys don’t like greens unless they’re cooked in molasses, the way their mother makes them, and even then they are dubious.

Eat, Kirby commands, confused by their ravenous eyes and full plates. What he doesn’t fully understand is that these boys aren’t hungry for food. They’re hungry for him. His attention. His affection. Even before the divorce they were hungry, fed on scraps when he had the time and energy to play. Now they are starving. At their other house, Chloe tells them that Kirby abandoned them all. They don’t believe this, not yet, but they’re scared that it might be true. Frida cooked you dinner and you will eat it, Kirby adds, but this only gives them another reason not to. Over the summer, Flip and Lucas tormented Frida because she has what they want. What their mother never had. It’s the only way they know how to be loyal to Chloe without sacrificing Kirby’s attention. This weekend, as always, they can’t stop thinking about how soon these precious hours with their father will end. They are such different boys, but in this yearning for more time they are united.

They don’t have to, Frida says. She can see that the harder Kirby pushes them to like her, the harder they will resist.

They do, actually, Kirby replies, his tone sharp. So the boys eat the food they don’t want because their father tells them to. Lucas tears into his drumstick. Flip shovels mashed potatoes into his mouth. Still they’re hungry. Frida is just an interloper, another heart for Kirby to feed, a reason the boys have less than they used to. She tries to win them over with kindness and pity, but this tastes wrong to them. Her smell is too mossy, her voice is too low, the food she cooks for them is wrong. She is an acquired taste that they don’t