Nonpareil Books Series

Twelve stories of immigrants who navigate the ancestral past of India as they remake their lives—and themselves—in North America. These are stories of fluid and broken identities, discarded languages and deities, and the attempt to create bonds with a new community against the ever-present fear of failure and betrayal. “The narrative of immigration,” Bharati Mukherjee once wrote, “is the epic narrative of this millennium.” Her stories and novels brilliantly add to that ongoing saga. In the story “The Lady from Lucknow,” a woman is pushed to the limit while wanting nothing more than to fit in. In “Hindus,” characters discover that breaking away from a culture has deep and unexpected costs. In “A Father,” the clash of cultures leads a man to an act of terrible violence. “How could he tell these bright, mocking women,” Mukherjee writes, “that in the darkness, he sensed invisible presences: gods and snakes frolicked in the master bedroom, little white sparks of cosmic static crackled up the legs of his pajamas. Something was out there in the dark, something that could invent accidents and coincidences to remind mortals that even in Detroit they were no more than mortal.” There is light in these stories as well. The collection’s closing story, “Courtly Vision,” brings to life the world within a Mughal miniature painting and describes a light charged with excitement to discover the immense intimacy of darkness. Readers will also discover that excitement, and the many gradations of darkness and light, throughout these pages from the mind of a master storyteller. Darkness is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

Discover the unique mind and humane vision of an under-recognized American author. Encompassing themes of race, education, fame, law, and America’s past and future, these essays are James Alan McPherson at his most prescient and invaluable. Born in segregated 1940s Georgia, McPherson graduated from Harvard Law School only to give up law and become a writer. In 1978, he became the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But all the while, McPherson was also writing and publishing nonfiction that stand beside contemporaries such as James Baldwin and Joan Didion, as this collection amply proves. These essays range from McPherson’s profile of comedian Richard Pryor on the cusp of his stardom; a moving tribute to his mentor, Ralph Ellison; a near fatal battle with viral meningitis; and the story of how McPherson became a reluctant landlord to an elderly Black woman and her family. There are meditations on family as the author travels to Disneyland with his daughter, on the nuances of a neighborhood debate about naming a street after Malcolm X or Dr. Martin Luther King, and, throughout, those connections that make us most deeply human—including connections between writer and reader. McPherson writes of his early education, “The structure of white supremacy had been so successful that even some of our parents and teachers had been conscripted into policing the natural curiosity of young people. We were actively discouraged from reading. We were encouraged to accept our lot. We were not told that books just might contain extremely important keys which would enable us to break out of the mental jails that have been constructed to contain us.” The collection’s curator, Anthony Walton, writes, “In his nonfiction, McPherson was often looking for a way ‘beyond’ the morasses in which Americans find themselves mired. His work is a model of humanistic imagining, an attempt to perform a healing that would, if successful, be the greatest magic trick in American history: to ‘get past’ race, to help create a singular American identity that was no longer marred by the existential tragedies of the nation’s first 400 years. He attempted this profound reimagining of America while simultaneously remaining completely immersed in African American history and culture. His achievement demonstrates that an abiding love for black folks and black life can rest alongside a mastery of ‘The King’s English’ and a sincere desire to be received as an American citizen and participant in democracy. It is time for that imaginative work to be fully comprehended and for this simultaneously American and African American genius to assume a fully recognized place beside the other constitutive voices in our national literature.” This is a collection for any reader seeking a better understanding of our world and a connection to a wise and wickedly funny writer who speaks with forceful relevance and clarity across the decades. On Becoming an American Writer is part of Godine’s Nonpareil imprint: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

“Midnights is both a comedy of errors and an affectionate portrait of small-town police, those beleaguered souls charged with the task of keeping their neighbors in line....A reminder that those assigned to protect are often vulnerable and quietly heroic.”—Time Funny, touching, revealing, here is the view from a rookie cop’s patrol car, during midnight shifts, in a (mostly) peaceful town. With a rich cast of characters, this is a classic memoir of the fear, surprises, excitement, embarrassment that comes with a protecting and serving a small community. “When I was twenty-three years old, five months out of college, with a degree in music, and without any idea of what to do with myself, I took a job as a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts,” so writes Alec Wilkinson. “Music, huh?” the police chief said during the job interview. “That'll be a big help.” Wilkinson’s main qualification was familiarity with the town of 2,000 people from summers there growing up. Committing himself to a year wearing a uniform and carrying a gun, and with no training, Wilkinson was sent out to keep the peace, hoping nothing would happen. There are high-speed chases and stopping drunk drivers, one of whom tries to set Wilkinson's hair on fire. There are domestic squabbles. “The first six months were murder for me,” Wilkinson’s partner confides on his first night. “After that, when I found out the people I thought were my friends weren't really my friends, I felt better off.” There is an attempted bank robbery. The teller convinces the robber that his haul ($300) is too much to carry around in cash. The robber is still listening to investment options when the police arrive. Throughout there are conversations with his eight fellow officers who Wilkinson comes to respect and admire. “Nobody ever calls you when they're behaving themselves,” one admits. “As a rule, you always get called when people are at their worst. It's sad. It depresses me.” The job is often thankless. “Right now I work on the police force,” another officer says, “my wife stamps cans in the supermarket, and she makes more money than I do.” This is experiential journalism at its most poignant and entertaining—and it launched the career of Alec Wilkinson: writer, interviewer, essayist, and author. This is for any reader looking for insight into the real lives of police officers, outside of large cities, across America. It is also for anyone looking for a marvelously engaging read. Midnights is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

“Earnest, amusing, and contemplative....though Beattie is known for her fiction, her nonfiction has just as much to offer.”—Publishers Weekly “Shimmering prose and critical acumen on display in an eclectic collection.”—Kirkus Reviews As deeply rewarding as her fiction, a selection of Ann Beattie’s essays, chosen and introduced by the author. From appreciations of writers, photographers, and other artists, to notes on the craft of writing itself, this is a wide-ranging, and always penetrating collection of writing never before published in book form. Ann Beattie, a master storyteller, has been delighting readers since the publication of her short stories in the 1970s and her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter. But as her literary acclaim grew and she was hailed “the voice of her generation,” Ms. Beattie was also moonlighting as a nonfiction writer. As she writes in her introduction to this collection, “Nonfiction always gave me a thrill, even if it provided only an illusion of freedom. Freedom and flexibility—for me, those are the conditions under which imagination sparks.” These penetrating essays are stories unto themselves, closely observed appreciations of life and art. The reader travels with Ms. Beattie to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to learn about the legacy of the painter, Grant Wood, and his iconic painting American Gothic; to the famed University of Virginia campus with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry; to Key West, Florida for New Years with writer and translator, Harry Mathews; to a roadside near Boston in a broken-down car with the wheelchair-bound writer Andre Dubus. There are explorations of novels, short stories, paintings, and photographs by artists ranging from Alice Munro to Elmore Leonard, from Sally Mann to John Loengard. Whatever the subject, Ms. Beattie brings penetrating insight into literature and art that’s both familiar and unfamiliar—as she writes, “This, I think, is what artists want to do: find a way to lure the reader or viewer into an alternate realm, to overcome the audience’s resistance to being taken away from their own lives and interests and priorities.” Ann Beattie’s nonfiction (originally published in Life, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The American Scholar, among others) is a new way to enjoy one of the great writers of her generation. Readers will find much to love in this journey with a curious and fascinating mind. More to Say is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

A gripping and compassionate tale of family and faith, whispers and accusations, and the deeply hidden truths we’re compelled to uncover. After surviving a near-fatal accident, thirty-year-old Lizzy Mitchell faces a long road to recovery. She remembers little about the days she spent in and out of consciousness, save for one thing: She saw her beloved deceased uncle, Father Mike, the man who raised her in the rectory of his Maine church until she was nine and he was accused of improprieties, dismissed from his church, and Lizzy was sent away to boarding school. Was Father Mike an angel, a messenger from the beyond, or something more corporeal? Though her troubled marriage and her broken body need tending, Lizzy knows she must not only uncover the details of her accident, but also delve deep into events of twenty years earlier, when whispers and accusations forced a good man to give up the only family he had. With deft insight into the snares of the human heart, Monica Wood has written an intimate and emotionally expansive novel full of understanding and hope. Any Bitter Thing is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

“This is the most glamorous book you’ll read this year. Or any year.”—Washington Post When forty-year-old Alison Rose got a job as a receptionist at the New Yorker in the mid-80s, she was taken up by the writers there—“a tribe of gods,” who turned her from a semi-recluse into a full-fledged writer for the magazine. These kindred souls formed an impromptu club: Insane Anonymous (a “whole other world that was better than sane”). Rose was unlike anyone in the group. As Renata Adler said of Alison’s path, “It was the most nuanced, courageous, utterly crazy way to have wended.” In Better Than Sane, Rose takes us from her childhood to her years at The New Yorker, revealing how, often, she “didn’t care enough about existence to keep it going” and preferred to stay in her room with her animals and think. She writes about growing up in California, daughter of a movie-star-handsome psychiatrist who was charming to friends but a bully and a tyrant to his family; moving to Manhattan in her twenties, sleeping in Central Park, subsisting on Valium, Eskatrol, and Sara Lee orange cake; moving to Los Angeles, attending the Actors Studio, living with Burt Lancaster’s son “Billy the Fish,” encountering Helmut Dantine of Casablanca fame, who gave her shelter from the storm, and about meeting Gardner McKay, her childhood TV idol, and becoming sacred, close, lifelong friends; and, finally, returning to New York, where she found the inspiration to pursue a career as a writer. This Nonpareil edition includes a new introduction by acclaimed author, Porochista Khakpour.

The acclaimed author’s controversial 1967 debut was a novel of men at war—with themselves. Lieutenant Dan Tierney is a Marine aboard the vast but labyrinthine and claustrophobic USS Vanguard, an aircraft carrier on patrol in the Pacific in 1956. Forced by the illness of his commanding officer to assume control of the Marines on board, Tierney must make decisions that will alter the lives of his troops and the shape of own future. When a minor infraction committed by a promising young Private named Ted Freeman leads to a major investigation, a secret culture of initiation rituals and homosexuality is exposed. Torn between protecting Freeman and safeguarding the Marines' reputation, Lt. Tierney must come to terms with the tragic reality of a system he had once idealized. The Lieutenant explores the culture and politics of the United States military at the start of the Vietnam War, and reveals the insecurities of the men whose lives were defined by it. This Nonpareil edition includes a new introduction by novelist and memoirist, Andre Dubus III.

“A superb collection...Page after page, Gallant dazzles. Her voice and sensibility are penetrating, canny, graceful, and incisive.”—Washington Post Best of the Year from Our Pages—The New Yorker Enthralling essays on the expatriate experience in Paris and shrewd literary criticism by one of the twentieth century’s finest writers. Mavis Gallant is revered as one of the great short story writers of her generation, but she was also an astute observer and formidable reporter. This selection of Gallant’s essays and reviews written between 1968 and 1985 begins with her impressions of the Parisian student uprising in May 1968. Originally published in The New Yorker, “The Events in May” inspired Wes Anderson’s film The French Dispatch and Gallant herself served as inspiration for the journalist portrayed by Frances McDormand. Paris Notebooks presents a whole range of subjects portraying French society, ranging from architecture and literature to the gripping story of Gabrielle Russier, a young French schoolteacher driven to imprisonment, madness, and suicide as the result of an affair with one of her students. Also included are Gallant’s astute reviews of books by major figures such as Vladimir Nabokov, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, and Günter Grass. No matter what form she’s working in, Mavis Gallant’s flawless prose is always full of wit and acuity. This Nonpareil edition includes a new introduction by acclaimed literary biographer Hermione Lee.

A stirring memoir of a young, single woman's laborious struggle to save her family’s New England apple farm from going under during the Great Depression. The Orchard is an exquisitely beautiful and poignant memoir of a young woman’s single-handed struggle to save her New England farm in the depths of the Great Depression. Discovered by the author’s daughter after the author’s death, it tells the story of Adele “Kitty” Robertson, young and energetic, but unprepared by her Radcliffe education for the rigors of apple farming in those bitter years of the early 1930s. Alone at the end of a country road, with only a Great Dane for company, plagued by debts, broken machinery, and killing frosts, Kitty revives the old orchard after years of neglect. Every day is a struggle, but every day she is also rewarded by the beauty of the world and the unexpected kindness of neighbors and hired workers. Animated by quiet courage and simple goodness, The Orchard is a deeply moving celebration of decency and beauty in the midst of grim prospects and crushing poverty. In addition to a foreword and epilogue by Betsy Robertson Cramer, the author's daughter, this Nonpareil edition includes a new afterword by award-winning author Jane Brox.

“Charming, delightful, and a great companion for gardeners and naturalists alike.”—Booklist Lavender, basil, hyssop, balm, sage, rue — the thinking gardener’s guide to herbs. Writer/naturalist Henry Beston, a founding father of the environmental movement, believed that a strong connection to nature is essential. “It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live,” Beston says in his now-classic Herbs and the Earth. In this book, Beston shares one of those connections as seen through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners. “A garden of herbs,” he writes, “is a garden of things loved for themselves in their wholeness and integrity. It is not a garden of flowers, but a garden of plants which are sometimes very lovely flowers and are always more than flowers.” Whether you are already a committed herbalist or just dreaming of planting your first small garden, this book is a powerfully rich source of inspiration and information. As Roger B. Swain observes in his moving introduction, Herbs and the Earth has an intensity that evokes the herbs themselves, as if, pressed between the pages, their aroma has seeped into the pages. This Nonpareil edition includes both an introduction by Roger B. Swain and an afterword by Bill McKibben.

“Illuminating . . . Handling strong emotions—shame, love, grief—without fuss, Maxwell gives the bald facts of life a poignant shimmer.”—Wall Street Journal As a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975, William Maxwell helped shaped several generations’ sense of the literary short story. At the same time, Maxwell himself was also an exceptional novelist, short story writer, essayist, children’s author, and memoirist. Given unique, unfettered access to Maxwell’s private papers, Alec Wilkson—whose memoir My Mentor explores his twenty-five-year friendship with Maxwell—has gathered a stunning and revealing collection of some of Maxwell’s lesser-known and previously unpublished works of nonfiction and fiction. The Writer as Illusionist includes biographical sketches; remembrances of fellow authors, such as the poet Louise Bogan and short story writer Maeve Brennan; a 1941 nonfiction piece about Bermuda that was the only piece of long reporting Maxwell ever published in The New Yorker; and Maxwell’s thoughts on the craft of writing, many of them made privately. While Maxwell often said he never kept a journal because anything worth writing about was something a writer would remember, The Writer as Illusionist proves otherwise: included are many notes from his private journals, including some that became parts of his revered novels, such as The Folded Leaf. Re-reading Maxwell’s work leads Wilkinson to think “I am still often amazed—at the subtlety of the art, the depth of what he saw, at his capacity for dramatizing situations that require a rare hand and eye.” Maxwell passed away in 2000 at the age of ninety-one. The Writer as Illusionist celebrates his legacy in American letters and is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series.