December 6th
New Fiction
Felicia and Edgar meet as their mothers are dying. Felicia, a teen from an island nation, and Edgar, the lazy heir of a wealthy German family, come together only because their mothers share a hospital room. When Felicia's mother dies and Edgar's "Mutter" does not, Felicia drops out of high school and takes a job as Mutter's caregiver. While Felicia and Edgar don't quite understand each other, and Felicia recognizes that Edgar is selfish, arrogant, and often unkind, they form a bond built on grief (and proximity) that results in the birth of a son Felicia calls Armistice. Or Army, for short. Some years later, Felicia and Army (now 14) are living in the basement of a home owned by Oliver, a divorced man of Portuguese descent who has two kids--the teenaged Heather and the odd little Hendrix. Along with Felicia and Army, they form an unconventional family, except that Army wants to sleep with Heather, and Oliver wants to kill Army. Then Army's fascination with his absent father--and his absent father's money--begins to grow as odd gifts from Edgar begin to show up. And Felicia feels Edgar's unwelcome shadow looming over them. A brutal assault, a mortal disease, a death, and a birth reshuffle this group of people again to form another version of the family. Ian Williams Reproduction is a profoundly insightful exploration of the bizarre ways people become bonded that insists that family isn't a matter of blood.
In deepest Cornwall, the mansion Kittiwake has seen many pass through its doors since it was bought by American heiress Peggy Carmichael seventy years ago. Over the decades, the keys have been handed down through the family, and now it belongs to Bel's adoptive brother, Lance. It's where he'll be celebrating his 50th birthday, and Bel is invited. But Bel barely feels like she's holding it together as it is, and in going back to Kittiwake, she will be returning to the place where it all began - where, following the death of a child, a sequence of events was set in motion, the consequences of which are still rippling down through the generations . . . Poignant and bittersweet, compelling and heart-breaking, Inheritance is a book about all that we inherit from our families, from bestselling author Jenny Eclair.
"If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am," says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex-a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister - feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra. As Barbra fends off Alex's unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex's brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary's wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor's history, they must figure out a way to move forward-with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children. Jami Attenberg’s ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to-maybe, hopefully-break free.
New Non-Fiction
George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
In 1938, eighteen-year-old Phyllis Ellsworth packs her bags, says goodbye to her anxious parents and sets off from her quiet seaside home for the Hackney Hospital in London's bustling East End, where she is to fulfill her dream to train as a nurse. At first, it is a whirlwind of long days, hard work, new friends and plenty of mischief, but just ten months later Britain declares war on Germany and life at the hospital is transformed. Phyll's days become an endless cycle of air-raid sirens, injured servicemen and anxiously waiting for news of loved ones. And when she falls in love with a handsome young solider, Alistair, Phyll's work provides the only distraction from worrying about his safety. Bandaging the Blitz is a true story of coming-of-age in terrible times, of the blossoming of first romance into a life-long love affair, and of a young woman whose eagerness to do good in the world brought her suddenly face-to-face with death and drama in all its many guises.