Going to the Sun

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Andrew Holleran

Reeling from the recent death of his invalid mother, a worn, jaded professor comes to our nation's capital to recuperate from his loss. What he finds there -- in his repressed, lonely landlord, in the city's mood and architecture, and in the letters and journals of Mary Todd Lincoln -- shows him new, poignant truths about America, yearning, loneliness, and mourning itself. Since Andrew Holleran first burst onto the scene with 1978's groundbreaking Dancer from the Dance, which has been continuously in print, he has been dazzling readers and critics with his haunting, brilliant prose. The Publishing Triangle ranks Dancer from the Dance at #15 on its list of the 100 best lesbian and gay novels ever, along with titles by Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf. A new Andrew Holleran book is a major literary event; with Grief, Holleran is poised to reach a wider audience than ever before.

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Caleb Carr

Meet Dr. Gideon Wolfe, expert criminologist of the new millenium. A professor at New York's John Jay University in the year 2023, he lives in an era that has seen plague, a global economic crash, and the 2018 assassination of President Emily Forrester. In this turbulent new world order, Wolfe's life and everything he knows are turned upside down when the widow of a murdered special-effects wizard enters his office.The widow hands him a silver disc from her husband's safety deposit box, hoping that Wolfe's expertise in history and criminology will compel him to track down her husband's killers. The disc contains footage of President Forrester's assassination, the same video that has been broadcast countless times on TV and over the internet-with one crucial, shocking difference: This version shows that before the video was released, it was altered with sinister special effects.This explosive discovery will lead Gideon Wolfe on an electrifying journey from a criminal underworld of New York to the jungles of Africa and on a quest to find the truth in an age when all information can be manipulated. With this novel, Carr has boldly established a new genre-future history-combining the best elements of mystery and thrillers with unique historical insight. Breathtakingly suspenseful,Killing Time unfolds as the work of a master novelist.From the Hardcover edition.

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Jack Gantos

Irrepressible Joey must draw upon all of his emotional reserves to face his latest challenge. His good-for-nothing dad shows up, having won the lottery and acquired a new identity. Carter Pigza is now Charles Heinz; he's won back Joey's mother, Fran (renamed Maria); and Joey is expected to forgive him his past sins and reinvent himself as Freddy Heinz. Dad has big plans for the family. He's bought a run-down diner and will use his son to drum up business by standing by the roadside in a bee costume. Mom is on a spending spree and pressures Joey to forgive his father and do as he says. But Joey senses how wrong this is, and his struggle is palpable. By the time he concedes, his father has given up on the diner idea and has spent all of his money on losing lottery tickets. As usual, when the chips are down, Carter takes off, just as Fran is about to have a baby. Gantos tells the tale with unfailing humor, delicious wordplay, and many hilarious scenes, but this is the darkest Joey book to date. Carter's unreliability is a given, but Fran Pigza's willingness to buy into the surreal scene is unsettling and underscores the fact that Joey is really on his own. Nevertheless, readers will cheer as his indomitable spirit prevails; he neither rescinds nor regrets his forgiveness, and he is thrilled to have a baby brother. The appearance of Junior Pigza promises a new purpose in Joey's life, the possibility of a future ally in his crazy world, and, perhaps, adventures to come.

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Brian Keith Jackson

An African American Breakfast at Tiffany's--a hip, refreshingly candid tale of identity and self--discovery from the critically acclaimed author of The View from Here and Walking Through Mirrors.Mason Randolph, a black preppie of impeccable Southern pedigree, is bound for Stanford Law School after graduating from college. Before embarking on the path to his golden future, however, he takes a detour through Harlem, where he intends to live "authentically" with "real black people." Mason takes the name "Malik" and moves into the orbit of the ever--fabulous Carmen, uptown diva and doyenne of Harlem. Carmen, always ready to have a handsome young man at her fabulous soirees and to add to her devoted entourage, happily takes him under her wing. Fueled by his parents' money and dodging the people who remember him as Mason Randolph, "Malik" masquerades as a "ghettonian," exploring the wonders and pleasures of a Harlem in the midst of a second Renaissance. But his odyssey takes a different turn when he meets Kyra, whose world mirrors the one he has abandoned. As he contemplates the choices Kyra has made, and begins to reexamine his own presumptions about identity and authenticity, Mason realizes that everyone has something to hide and that to get what we want, we have to be willing to let go of our secrets.People compared Brian Keith Jackson's remarkable first novel, The View from Here, to the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, and Publishers Weekly called it "an extraordinary debut...[by] a formidable craftsman and exceptionally gifted storyteller." A novel rich in humor and insight, The Queen of Harlem will earn Jackson a much--deserved place in the center of today's literary landscape.From the Hardcover edition.