Come and Be Shocked: Representing Baltimore from John Waters to The Wire

Mary Rizzo (Johns Hopkins University Press)

In Mary Rizzo’s latest book, she puts Baltimore in context, historically and culturally, through the lens of the arts, from film to literature to music dating back to the 1950s and up to present day. Through her research and synthesis, we learn how the arts shaped Baltimore’s identity and how key figures, such as Mayor William Donald Schaefer and John Waters, two larger-than-life characters and cheerleaders for the city, played a part in altering Baltimore’s identity. So, too, did TV, books, and films, such as The Accidental Tourist, Diner, The Corner, and perhaps the biggest influence of all, HBO’s The Wire. She also unearths Chicory, an unedited arts magazine published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library from 1966 to 1983, which featured poetry and prose written by poor, predominately Black Baltimoreans that conveyed everyday life and issues faced by these communities. As Rizzo weaves together narratives of a city long divided by race, she, too, helps to paint a picture of what Baltimore’s identity was, what it is, and what it’s becoming.

Docile

K.M. Szpara (Tor.com)

K.M. Szpara’s debut novel is a dystopian, science-fiction love story set in Baltimore that puts readers in a world where the wealthy elite live downtown and the lower-class, who have inherited millions of dollars of generational family debt, live in ramshackle houses in Baltimore County. For the poor, entering the city and volunteering as a slave, or Docile (akin to a human pet)—while being put on a strong pharmaceutical that induces compliance and memory erasure—becomes the only viable option for paying off debt. But what happens when a young man becomes a Docile and refuses the drug? What happens when slave and master fall in love? An erotic and emotionally-complex tale unfolds between the two men, told through their alternating perspectives. Think Brave New World meets Fifty Shades of Grey but with an LGBTQ bent. Don’t be surprised if this book stays with you long after you finish reading.

State of Play: The Old School Guide to New School Baseball

Bill Ripken (Diversion Books)

The way Billy Ripken sees it, baseball’s ongoing culture war—which has pit “newschool” Moneyball-style datadriven believers against “old-school” traditional baseball minds—finally reached a point where he had to say something. Actually, many things. The more eccentric member of Baltimore’s famous baseball family and a former Orioles infielder and 12-year Major League Baseball veteran, “Cal’s younger brother” has now worked for more than a decade as a studio analyst for MLB Network. And over the past few years, he’s become frustrated as he’s watched the ideas and wisdom used effectively for decades by professional baseball folks like his father, former O’s manager Cal Ripken Sr., be overshadowed by new-age statistics and concepts whose proponents claim to more accurately represent the game. Over 200 pages, Ripken opens up a vein to debunk the truths assumed in many of today’s baseball narratives in an enlightening and opinionated read on the modern version of The Great American Pastime.—CM

Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today

Rachel Vorona Cote (Grand Central Publishing)

Rachel Vorona Cote takes the idea of a woman being “too much” and turns it on its head. Too loud? Too emotional? Too dramatic? Too fat? Perhaps this “too muchness” is the source of a woman’s creativity, power, and depth. The Takoma Park author traces back societal norms to the Victorian era, citing Sense and Sensibility alongside Sex and the City, analyzing Anne of Green Gables along with Lana Del Rey and Nicki Minaj, revealing how the heroines of our collective history have been viewed. In a writing style that’s part academic, part personal essay, Cote exposes her own struggles with “too muchness,” from her bisexuality to self-harm to body image, while synthesizing a woman’s place within the cultural context of femininity. Consider it required reading for feminists of all genders.—LL

Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America

R. Eric Thomas (Ballantine Books)

You may know R. Eric Thomas from his laugh-out-loud “Eric Reads the News” column in Elle.com. In his debut book, his signature wit and references to all things pop culture shine through, but in this new format, he delves deeper into the man behind the columnist. His collection of essays acts as a memoir, with seemingly every vulnerable and awkward moment included. Reading it feels like listening to your new best friend rant and rave in your living room, partly because Thomas continually addresses you—yes, you, honey!—as if you’re having a tête-à-tête. He recounts his struggle with identity growing up black and gay on a street lined with dilapidated Baltimore rowhouses while attending Park School with predominately white, Jewish children—one of many times he’s felt like an outsider looking in. He is at once hilarious and dead serious, self-deprecating and self-realizing, poignant and tongue-in-cheek. And just how do you save your soul in America? You’ll have to read to find out whether that was a joke, too, or dead serious—or both.

Flowers in the Gutter: The True Story of the Edelweiss Pirates, Teenagers Who Resisted the Nazis

K.R. Gaddy (Dutton Books for Young Readers)

Holocaust literature has a particular sense of urgency lately, perhaps because living Holocaust survivors are getting fewer in number with each passing year and artists are creating works to educate younger generations. Baltimore writer K.R. Gaddy’s latest book is another account of the tragedy but seen through the eyes of teenagers and written for a young adult audience. Gaddy’s information-packed, historically accurate book tells the story of the Edelweiss Pirates, the name given to the thousands of teenagers who resisted joining the Third Reich and fought against the Nazis. After witnessing the Gestapo storm into houses, destroy property, and arrest family and friends, they rebel in creative ways, including distributing literature and painting anti-Nazi graffiti. The occasional typewritten page and old photographs showing the book’s protagonists, Fritz, Gertrud, and Jean, and other Pirates and street scenes, make their story that much more intriguing—and that much more real.

Chasing a Flawed Sun

Daniel McGhee (Phoenix Rising Publishing)

From page one, Daniel McGhee races down to the depths of hell on Earth and drags the reader along with him, every inch of the way. As painful as this memoir is to read—one horrifying, self-destructive story after the next—one can only imagine how painful it must’ve been to write, much less live. McGhee grew up a white, middle-class kid in Baltimore County, and in this gut-wrenchingly honest narrative, he takes us down the rabbit hole into his heroin addiction—but not before years of drinking every day and getting high on cocaine, Special K, and ecstasy (and selling them all, too), while constantly instigating fights, jumping people, pulling guns on people (seemingly nothing was off limits) and finding himself in and out of rehab—and prison. When retelling his story, he sometimes interrupts his own train of thought to comment on how ashamed he is, how lost and clueless he once was. Many addicts don’t find themselves living the happy ending, but this book serves as some hope. It’s a story every addict must know deeply, and this book would certainly resonate with them. But perhaps its greater gift lies in showing people who have not experienced addiction firsthand what it’s like—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—and why addicts keep “chasing a flawed sun.”

Felon

Reginald Dwayne Betts (W.W. Norton & Company)

Whether delivering a one-two punch reminiscent of rap or the quiet revelations of a man brimming with wisdom, the poems in Reginald Dwayne Betts’ Felon traverse the realities of re-entering society post-incarceration. Throughout the book, he explores reconnecting with family, struggling to find viable work, facing the grievance of years lost, and ultimately learning to navigate the world as an ex-con. “Redaction is a dialect after prison,” he writes in the first poem. Originally from Prince George’s County, Betts was incarcerated nearly nine years for carjacking when he was 16. After his release, he graduated from Yale Law School and has since published a memoir and four collections of poetry. Perhaps the most compelling aspect to Felon are four poems that show Betts’ redactions in legal documents that had been filed by the Civil Rights Corps to challenge the continued incarceration of those who could not afford bail. Traditionally called blackout poems, this literary device has soared to new levels of meaning under Betts’ hand. Among the thick, black lines of his redactions are the words and phrases that he’s chosen to keep, ultimately transmuting the court documents into works of art.

Father’s Day Creek: Flying Fishing, Fatherhood and the Last Best Place on Earth

Dan Rodricks (Apprentice House Press)

Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks’ writing seems particularly at ease in this collection of anecdotes on years spent fly fishing at a creek in Pennsylvania. It’s a place he calls his “spirit- home,” and he insists that everyone should have one. Rodricks provides spectacular notes on the art of fly fishing, the devastation and regeneration of natural waterways, as well as the complexity of fatherhood. It’s a tribute to the simple yet sacred moments in life, and his honest, laid-back style of storytelling evokes the feeling of a day spent in the woods, casting a line into the water.

Making Spaces Safer: A Guide to Giving Harassment the Boot Wherever You Work, Play, and Gather

Shawna Potter (AK Press)

Consider this a primer on how to make any public space safer. While on Warped Tour with her hardcore band War on Women, Baltimore’s Shawna Potter began conducting workshops that resulted in this book. Here, you’ll find step-by-step tactics for reducing harassment and handling it should it arise, whether you’re a manager, patron, or artist. As Potter puts it, if our goal is a better, nonviolent society, don’t we need better, nonviolent solutions? She offers them here.

Fake Like Me

Barbara Bourland (Grand Central Publishing)

Baltimore-based Barbara Bourland raises a magnifying glass to the contemporary art world in this compelling satire. A cast of familiar-yet-eccentric characters plays out multiple storylines—a bizarre mystery (why did the young and famous New York artist Carey Logan drown herself in a lake?), a love story (really, a few), an artist’s coming of age—but at its core, it’s a penetrating, insightful discourse into what it means to be a practicing artist navigating the cut-throat art world. It’s a must-read for art scholars and students, who will appreciate all the practical and existential questions the narrator faces—from taking on an impossible deadline after two years’ worth of paintings are lost in a studio fire, to pondering the gray area between being an artist and being a commodity. And your jaw will drop more than a few times throughout Bourland’s story, which is painted with rich imagery, exquisite details, and sensual delight.

Lady in the Lake

Laura Lippman (William Morrow)

In her latest, Laura Lippman turns back the clock to 1960s Baltimore, drawing inspiration from the city’s real-life “Lady in the Lake,” the body of a woman that was found in Druid Park Lake in 1969 and identified as Shirley Parker, an African-American barmaid. In Lippman’s fictional retelling of the eerie story, Cleo Sherwood, a bartender at the Flamingo club on Pennsylvania Avenue, goes missing on New Year’s Eve. No one seems to care except Maddie Schwartz, who recently separated from her husband and became a reporter for the Star, determined to solve this mystery by whatever means necessary. Scattered throughout the story are first-person perspectives of various characters who meet Maddie along the way. It’s perfect beach reading material—light and breezy and full of juicy gossip, set in historical Baltimore (think pre-
gentrification Inner Harbor and a buzzing Howard Street shopping district), with fun twists throughout.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

By Ruth Franklin (Liveright Publishing Corporation)

History doesn’t always celebrate the literary figures who weren’t award winners or bestsellers. But a lack of renown doesn’t mean that those writers weren’t experts of their craft. Take, for example, Shirley Jackson, a master of suspense and psychological horror who is perhaps best known for the short story “The Lottery.” Baltimore native Ruth Franklin—a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and Harper’s—gives Jackson her due in this new biography, detailing how Jackson used her own experiences to expose the isolation and exploitation of women in postwar America, decades before the 1960s women’s movement dawned. Franklin’s book is an expansive look into a woman ahead of her time.

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Uprising In the City

By Kevin Shird (self-published)

In many ways, Baltimore is still grappling with issues that were highlighted after the death of Freddie Gray—poverty, racism, and police brutality among them. Nearly two years later, Kevin Shird thoughtfully considers these issues in his latest book. The West Baltimore native is the right person to take on this topic—he worked as a drug dealer, attended college in prison, and, since his release, has become an acclaimed writer and youth advocate. He raises important points about our city, and shows us that, while we may not have all the parts assembled yet, we are capable of building a brighter future.

The Speed of Sound

By Thomas Dolby (Flatiron Books)

From the beginning, Thomas Dolby’s memoir is an honest depiction of how life doesn’t always turn out as planned. The books starts with Dolby—the pioneering electronic musician behind hits like “She Blinded Me With Science”—attempting to pitch songs to Michael Jackson (yes, the King of Pop himself) from a pay phone outside Dolby’s tour bus in the middle of Nevada. Sadly, Jackson doesn’t retain the Englishman’s songwriting services. But instead of bemoaning his bad luck, Dolby accepts—as he does throughout his career, including when his first recording deal falls through—that the entertainment industry is a roller-coaster ride and that he would rather keep his head up and look for the next opportunity. This path leads him from his days as an MTV star to a software startup in Silicon Valley, and finally to his current position as a professor at The Johns Hopkins University. Filled with reminiscences about the likes of Foreigner, David Bowie, and Shane MacGowan, The Speed of Sound is an enlightening account of a man who has lived life at his own tempo.

See our full interview with writer Thomas Dolby.

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Food Fight

By McKay Jenkins (Avery)

As GMOs—or genetically modified organisms like aspartame, sugar beets, and hydrogenated vegetable oil—have become prevalent in our food, their presence has ignited a contentious debate as the world decides whether these scientific advances are hurtful or helpful. Supporters say GMOs are our gastronomic future, as they have the potential to increase the food supply for an ever growing global population. Critics believe they are just another way for multi-national corporations to control our food system and make us more reliant on processed, unhealthy food. Baltimore writer McKay Jenkins, who teaches at the University of Delaware, explores this polarizing issue with great depth in his latest book. He takes the reader behind the scenes to scientists developing GMO crops for underserved areas and activists on the front lines of the fight to rid their communities of these engineered crops. Though Food Fight at times loses the reader in the depths of heavily detailed debates, Jenkins provides excellent context and analysis for a question we will grapple with for years to come.

When the Crowd Didn’t Roar

Kevin Cowherd (University of Nebraska Press)

In exquisite detail, Kevin Cowherd writes about the historical—and surreal—baseball game between the Orioles and the White Sox inside an empty Camden Yards, closed to fans as a result of the Uprising that had ravaged the city days earlier. No crowds yelling “O!” during the national anthem, no autographs, hot dog vendors, or Kiss Cam—just the sounds of the ball hitting bat and glove, the hollow thump of a foot on first base, the less dramatic “strike” uttered by the ump. It’s a fascinating read on a bizarre game, but the book is essentially about Baltimore as a whole and the deep unrest that permeated every corner of the city, including the ballpark.

Snowballs for Severance

Richie Frieman (The Omnibus Publishing)

Were it simply about a 9-year-old boy who changed a nearly century-old law in his hometown to allow snowball fights, this picture book would be great fun for readers of any age. But this story is even more remarkable because it’s true. Through research and interviews with pint-sized hero Dane Best and his family, local author Richie Frieman wrote and illustrated this quirky tale, complete with direct quotes and cartoonish versions of the characters who make up Severance, Colorado. He includes a short questionnaire with Dane and photos at the end, though Dane is written so true to character, by that point, we feel like we already know him.

See our full interview with Richie Frieman.

Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder

John Waters (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Waters’ flair for writing and laugh-out-loud sense of humor had us flying through his “tarnished wisdom.” And what wisdom it is: Learn public speaking, “go Hollywood” if given the chance, “be willing to change everything.” Juicy anecdotes—about his fight in court for his Pecker film title or how he was quite possibly the only director who didn’t cast Brad Pitt after an audition—run alongside his thoughts on religion, politics, gay rights, drugs, and death. This collection of essays is a must for fans, but also for aspiring filmmakers who could use a little inspiration from this larger-than-life “elder.”

Intrusive Beauty

Joseph J. Capista (Ohio University Press)

Contemporary poetry rarely has such melodic cadence, as rhythmic poetry is somehow considered unsophisticated. But Joseph J. Capista doesn’t shy away from the joys of rollicking through language’s innate richness of sound and meter. In his debut collection, the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize weaves narratives about Baltimore, being a husband and father, and the elegance and wisdom of the natural world, with little gems of insight and deep reflection sparkling throughout. The Towson University professor has the ability to see beauty in
all places, and through his keen observations, he allows us to see this beauty, too.

We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America

D. Watkins (Atria Books)

The New York Times best-selling author of The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America and The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir is back with another fresh take of life in East Baltimore and how his own life has changed since he’s seen success as a writer. In his latest, the University of Baltimore professor aims to round out the stories being told about black culture in America. His down-to-earth, casual writing style allows us to easily enter his world, and his sense of humor tends to balance some of the heavy subject matter. Some passages—including one in which he repeats the phrase “black lives don’t matter” alongside horrifying examples to indicate such—are painfully chilling. This book transcends memoir when Watkins offers solutions, including a checklist that breaks down systemic racism and allows us to think more deeply about how we can effect positive change in our communities.

See our full interview with writer D. Watkins.

All the Fierce Tethers: Essays

Lia Purpura (Sarabande Books)

Lia Purpura’s latest collection of essays examines, with a close eye, even the most seemingly insignificant details of our daily lives and thought processes: what a dot might signify; the phrase “never mind”; what irony would be like, were it personified; bloodspots on the sidewalk; the life, or lack thereof, that lies beneath the street she lives on and how it might be different, were there not a bed of asphalt choking the natural world. She brings meaning and depth to everyday observations and experiences that might otherwise pass by as minor occurrences. It’s no shocker that Purpura, Writer in Residence at the University of Baltimore, is a longtime poet and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and not one but four Pushcart prizes; her essays read like prose poems, and her love of language is palpable. Best to read this book when you’re in a quiet, contemplative head space. And read slowly to enjoy every nuance, every breath, every word.

The Real Wallis Simpson

Anna Pasternak (Atria Books)

This colorful biography peels away the layers of one of the most talked-about—and misunderstood—figures in modern history: Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced Baltimore native who stole the heart of the Prince of Wales and, so it’s been said, ultimately caused his abdication of the throne after he became King of England. Pasternak sets the record straight. What people call a fairytale love story between WE (Wallis and Edward’s shorthand for themselves) was, in many ways, a tragedy, as it becomes evident that Wallis did everything in her power to stop him from abdicating. Details about Wallis—her impeccable sense of style, her nervous temperament behind a cool and confident exterior—bring us closer to the reality of who she was.

Sketchtasy

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Arsenal Pulp Press)

Buckle up. From the first sentence of this addictive novel, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore throws you into the ride of your life with late-night clubbing and parties dripping with drugs and debauchery in 1995 Boston. Your brain may need to recalibrate to ride this sexually fluid frenzy that moves from one disjointed thought and situation to the next. Alexa, our free-spirited narrator, celebrates, and critiques queer culture in all its complexities. Her story takes you straight to the inside of both heaven and hell. Expect to ride the chaotic waves with Alexa and her friends as they navigate their world and walk the line between fun and fatal.

The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

Chris Wilson with Bret Witter (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

After reading Chris Wilson’s memoir, one word stands out: endgame. He shares his account of growing up in a violent D.C. neighborhood, receiving a life sentence for murder at 18, and the creation of his “Master Plan.” As he grows from boy to man, we see him check off each item on that list—get a high school diploma, get an AA degree—while continuing to add bigger dreams. Beating all odds, his sentence is reduced, and he ends up in Baltimore as a free man. We see him go from sleeping on a friend’s couch and mowing lawns for a living, to starting his own business (Barclay Investment Corporation), sharing his story with people all over the country, and becoming a positive member of his community. It’s a story of perseverance, hope, and redemption. And he also sets forth a challenge for readers: What is our endgame? And how are we going to get there?

Chris Wilson will be reading on February 9 at 7 p.m.at The Church of the Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles St. He will be joined by Wes Moore for a discussion on the path that led him to be an entrepreneur who employs returning citizens.

2 Parts Oxygen: How I Learned to Breathe

Tariq Touré (self-published)

This collection sometimes feels like a self-help book in the guise of poetry, complete with affirmations and messages of self-love, healing, and transcendence over collective wounds. Touré, who grew up in West Baltimore and now lives with his family in Northern Virginia, writes of stray bullets and the ancestral oppression of the black community, but also how his Islamic faith helped him overcome obstacles, with frequent references to the Holy Quran. Some poems read like ecstatic, 21st-century prayers with a call to action. He looks at racial injustices through a micro and macro lens, exploring its personal and cultural repercussions. The new father wrestles with identity, not just his own but the generations to come, and his—and their—connection to the past. What’s most striking about Touré’s collection of about 100 poems is its ability to contain so much gravity and yet allow so much light to pierce through, sometimes in the same breath.

See our full interview with writer Tariq Touré.

Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief and Our Brain

Lisa M. Shulman, MD (Johns Hopkins University Press)

In this poetic, insightful, and heartbreaking memoir, neurologist Lisa M. Shulman chronicles the diagnosis and eventual succumbing to cancer of her late husband, William “Bill” Weiner, former chair of neurology at the University of Maryland. His journal entries, her recorded dreams, and photos of meals they shared add a personal touch to the book that illustrates their love for one another, while quotes from philosophers, poets, and psychotherapists offer wisdom on death and grieving. Combined with scientific studies on traumatic brain injury and holistic approaches to healing, Shulman has created a unique book that touches on all aspects of grieving—the psychological, physiological, and those places where neurology and psychiatry overlap. It’s an invaluable aid to counselors and doctors, as well as anyone moving through grief toward wholeness.

The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins: The Life and Legacy that Shaped an American City

Antero Pietila (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)

No citizen left a more profound impact on Baltimore than entrepreneur, abolitionist, and philanthropist Johns Hopkins, who, after his death, endowed to the city the great university and hospital system that bears his name. At the same time, because he thoroughly destroyed his private papers, no comprehensive biography exists of Hopkins—but this is a good place to start. Pietila, a Baltimore Sun reporter for 35 years, delves into not just Hopkins’ formative years but the formative years of the city itself, which he helped shape through his business and real estate ventures. If readers are looking for a work that dives deep into recent controversies around its syphilis or lead paint studies, for example, that’s not this book. If readers want to learn more about Baltimore’s history, particularly that of the east side, they won’t be disappointed.

See our full interview with writer Antero Pietila.

Baltimore After Freddie Gray

Sean Yoes (self-published)

Sean Yoes hits on some heavy subject matter in his recent book: the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Uprising, the mysterious shooting of Detective Sean Suiter, and the widening, mutual distrust between the black community and the Baltimore Police Department. But he also writes about efforts that are being made to heal. In this collection of some 50 pieces originally published in the Baltimore Afro-American, he shares stories of those whose lives have been affected by violence in the city such as the Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and other groups who are rising above the cacophony to pave the way toward a brighter future.

At the Far End of Nowhere

Christine Davis Merriman (Green Writers Press)

This debut novel by Baltimore County’s Christine Davis Merriman is a first-person coming-
of-age story told by the introspective Lissa, who grows up in Baltimore during the ’50s through ’70s. We’re engaged as the chapters unfold against a backdrop of the Vietnam War, women’s lib, and the Civil Rights Movement. The historical elements of the book run even deeper, as Lissa recounts anecdotes told to her by her father—who has a sort of mad-scientist charm—and pulls stories from the diary of her mother, a nurse during World War II. At its heart, this is a moving story of a parent-child relationship that changes over time, as Lissa eventually becomes her father’s caretaker and long-held family traumas are resolved together.

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope

DeRay Mckesson (Viking)

Fours years after a white police officer killed unarmed teen Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, DeRay Mckesson takes readers inside the compelling, 400-days-long, in-the-streets response that inspired Black Lives Matter protests around the country. An activist in the ongoing civil rights movement and the host of the popular podcast Pod Save the People, Mckesson presents an intimate portrait of his experience growing up as the son of former addicts in West Baltimore, the context of the strained relationship between police and the black community in many cities, and optimism for the future. A former teacher, Mckesson knows his history and paints a way forward.

Liza Jane & the Dragon

Laura Lippman (Black Sheep/Akashic Books)

The New York Times best-selling author Laura Lippman’s foray into the arena of children’s literature is delightful and yet manages to maintain the author’s quirky sense of humor. In this tale, a little girl named Liza Jane fires her parents and hires a dragon to take their place . . . until she realizes the dragon has only one tactic for solving problems: breathing fire. Late to school? Set the secretary’s desk on fire. Pizza delivery man got delayed? A fiery blast to his car. The picture book is illustrated by Maryland painter Kate Samworth, who brings the characters to life and gives us visual clues for reading this story in a broader context. While this story is a fun romp through what might be the occasional daydream of many children, it also serves as a political allegory. The dragon has a familiar blond mane that swoops between his two horns.

Read our full interview with writer Laura Lippman.

Hummingbirds in the Trenches

Kondwani Fidel (self-published)

Kondwani Fidel’s raw, brutal, and unabashedly honest account of growing up in Baltimore and losing family and friends to murder, drugs, and gang violence is painful to read but also refreshing, uncompromising in its integrity to tell the truth as he sees it. There’s a sensitivity and a fire to the voice of this 25-year-old, who has already traveled the country and world to give lectures and readings. His new collection of memoir-esque essays, one-liners, conversation excerpts, and rhythmic poetry—referred to as “The Tracklist” in the table of contents—encompasses the writer’s ruminations and research. Here, he reflects on the repercussions of slavery and systemic racism in America: the toxic lead paint study on black youth; kids suffering in public schools without air conditioning or heat; and general poverty, depression (including his own), suicide, drugs, and blood on the streets of East Baltimore. If you’re not aware of what growing up in a rough neighborhood is like—what it’s like to be a hummingbird in the trenches—this book will pry your eyes wide open.

Read our full interview with writer Kondwani Fidel.

The Baltimore Book of the Dead

Marion Winik (Counterpoint)

Rarely does the subject of death feel so light and playful as it does in this collection of prose poem elegies by Baltimore writer and longtime All Things Considered commentator Marion Winik. To be clear, the title is somewhat misleading; this is not a historical account of people who have lived and/or died in Baltimore but rather a collection that honors the lives of the people who stayed on Winik’s mind over the years—from David Bowie to close family members and friends, many of whom do have ties to our city. In this sequel-of-sorts to her 2008 book The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, Winik pays her respects not in a traditional format, like you might find in a eulogy, but through levity, idiosyncrasies, and crisp scenes of the people who shaped her. Each piece is a remembrance that celebrates who they were and what they left behind, if only in the selective, and sometimes random, memories of those who knew them.

Homeplace

John Lingan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Homeplace is an honest, bittersweet, and at times humorous look at small-town America through the lens of Winchester, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Lingan, who grew up in Catonsville and has written for Oxford American and New York Times Magazine, examines Patsy Cline’s hometown and its longtime resident Jim McCoy, the honky-tonk owner who discovered her (and who continued to smoke, drink, and make music well into his 80s). What we ultimately see is a town in the midst of an identity crisis—from a slow-paced, Southern area known for its apple production to a burgeoning suburb of new establishments (Apple Blossom Mall, for instance) that have attracted an influx of urbanites from D.C. and Northern Virginia. But the book also feels like a travelogue at times—clearly the observations of an out-of-towner with a voice of his own. His four years of researching and writing it is evident, as he reveals the town’s (and neighboring towns’) quirks while bringing into focus a broader, nostalgic story of a vanishing way of life, as factory farms, opioids, big-box stores, and even music streaming services swallow up what once was.

Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula and the Rise of the Modern NFL

Jack Gilden (University of Nebraska Press)

No quarterback-coach combination had a more profound impact on the NFL than Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas and legendary head coach Don Shula. From the 1950s, when they played together in Baltimore, to the 1960s, when Shula coached Unitas, to the 1970s, when both men won Super Bowl titles, they helped launch the NFL into a billion-dollar industry. The title promises more than it delivers regarding their clashes, but the book well chronicles their deeply intertwined careers, including substantial interviews with former Colts greats.

Jack Gilden will be in conversation with John Eisenberg of BaltimoreRavens.com from 2-3 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Baltimore Book Festival at the Inner Harbor.

The Mermaid Handbook

Carolyn Turgeon (Harper Design)

The latest by this Baltimore writer is both timely and gorgeous—timely, because mermaids have been trending as of late (see: those “I’d Rather Be a Mermaid” shirts and accessories, and the popular abalone hair color); and gorgeous, with full-color drawings and photographs ensconced in gilded pages and an embossed cover. The release comes on the heels of Turgeon’s 2017 The Faerie Handbook and her five novels, all of which feel like an invitation to enter a magical world of the writer’s own creation. This new handbook adeptly covers these aquatic creatures, from the mainstream to the obscure, through lore, metaphysics, fashion, poetry, DIY projects, and even recipes like seaweed cookies. Turgeon also serves as editor-in-chief of Faerie Magazine, which has a cult following. In short, her Mermaid Handbook is a must for anyone who finds themselves lured by the age-old mysteries and enchantment of the sea.

A Memory of the Future

Elizabeth Spires (W.W. Norton & Company)

In this new poetry collection, Spires seems to channel Rumi or Buddha or both. The poems feel like prayers, and in some cases koans—each unique but all with a timeless, spiritual quality. To say they’re Zen-like would be both literal and figurative; references to Zen Buddhism are strewn throughout Spires’ work, and her verses unfold like meditations. The Goucher College professor of English possesses the rare gift to present lovely, solemn passages with a light touch and deft use of metaphor while simultaneously feeding her readers profound and heady truths. These little nuggets of wisdom come like offerings placed on an altar, quietly, with grace and intention.

Hear Elizabeth Spires from 12-1 p.m. Sept. 5 on WYPR interviewed by Tom Hall; 7 p.m. Sept. 7 reading at the Ivy Bookshop with Michael Collier; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26 reading at HOCOPOLITSO at Howard Community College in Columbia; and 6:30-8 p.m. Nov. 14 reading at Enoch Pratt Free Library Central Branch with David Yezzi.

Clock Dance

Anne Tyler (Knoff)

In Anne Tyler’s latest novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Baltimore author explores the passage of time and how pivotal moments come to define us. In blocks of narrative that skip ahead 10 to 20 years at a time, she tells the story of a rather ordinary character, Willa Drake, whom we meet as a daughter, wife, and mother of adult children who longs to be a grandmother. We see her through love and loss, from childhood into retirement–and we watch as she evolves (albeit slowly). It’s Tyler’s graceful prose and solid narrative, peppered with her subtle sense of humor, that makes this book a joy to read. Whether it’s Willa’s straight-and-narrow, slightly miserable second husband; her sardonic little sister; or the badass, motorcycle-riding neighbor in leather pants, these characters come to life off the page, another one of Tyler’s gifts.

Dream Away

Michael E. Northrup (Stanley/Barker)

In this beautiful, limited-edition art book, Baltimore’s Michael E. Northrup presents a series of 66 photographs of his now ex-wife that revolve around femininity, revealing the girl in the woman and the woman in the girl. These portraits also serve as a love story and an intimate look into the photographer’s own life. “As for the subject matter, we met in 1976, married in 1978, and divorced 1988,” Northrup says succinctly. We see her life—and body—change as she goes from lover to mother, from casually smoking cigarettes and skinny dipping to donning a bare-bummed baby over her shoulder and modeling breast pumps. Black-and-white images are juxtaposed with color, giving a sense of reflection on past times. With Northrup’s imaginative experiments with shadow, strategically placed objects, and curated poses, the moments-in-time feel of a family album is elevated to fine art.

Sweet Success

Liz and Jimmy Reed (Harper)

It’s a riot to follow this little day-in-the-life adventure of heroine Sprinkle Dee Scoops. Sound like a children’s book? It is; the heroine is an ice cream cone who talks. But this picture book is so adorable, clever, and witty, we suspect that adults will be just as drawn to it as kids. The images are miniature set designs made mostly with clay—a clay Sprinkle Dee Scoops, a clay bowl of cereal, a clay chocolate chip cookie and tall glass of milk, and so on. It’s obvious that some creative folks are behind this. After all, what creative person hasn’t struggled with the problem of finishing projects once started?—the central theme of the book. Those creative folks are Liz and Jimmy Reed, a husband-and-wife duo based in Columbia and founders of Cuddles and Rage. Head to their website to see their hilarious take on Romeo and Juliet (the sculpted version), Stranger Things bonus footage, and webcomics that mostly involve characters who are also food.

Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life

Charita Cole Brown (Curbside Splendor Publishing)

Brown, a lifelong Baltimorean, has written her autobiography with a cool detachment from her ongoing battle with bipolar disorder, as if a casual observer of her own story. The pace quickens each time she spirals into a hypomania cycle, which seems to grow in intensity each round, although months and even years of stability fall in between. Through family support, her lifelong Christian faith, and ultimately finding the right combination of medicine after being committed to hospitals on multiple occasions, Brown finds peace. And she does, indeed, defy the verdict placed upon her by doctors, who insisted she’d eventually need custodial care and that marrying and having children were off the table.

The Colored Waiting Room

Kevin Shird with Nelson Malden (Apollo Publishers)

This book—its title references blacks still being persecuted, despite progress—weaves together Baltimore writer/activist Shird’s memoir with that of Malden, who was a friend, barber, and confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the apex of the civil rights movement. We gain insight into King’s life and struggles, all while hearing firsthand accounts of the country’s upheaval. And for those who, like Shird, want to freshen up on their knowledge of African-American history, a helpful timeline highlights pivotal moments along the way from the era of Dred Scott to Freddie Gray.

All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

Jonathan Abrams (Crown Publishing Group)

In the first season of The Wire, methodical veteran detective Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) tells a young cop he is mentoring that in an investigation “all the pieces matter.” Apply the same to Jonathan Abrams’ collection of oral histories behind the groundbreaking show’s unflinching depiction of inner-city America and the war on drugs. The firsthand accounts from co-creators David Simon and Ed Burns, as well as the actors, directors, writers, and HBO brass, are not to be missed by fans of the show.

Musical Maryland

David K. Hildebrand and Elizabeth M. Schaaf  (Johns Hopkins University Press)

“O we’re full of life, fun, and jollity . . . we’re all crazy here in Baltimore.” Such is a song verse to celebrate the laying of the first stone of the B&O Railroad. You might find yourself singing along as you flip through Musical Maryland, a survey of the musical heritage of the Old Line State, spanning some 300 years in time, up to the late 20th century. If you read music, even better. The book is peppered with images: old-timey photographs (like The Peabody Orchestra rehearsing in Peabody Concert Hall circa 1880), colorful and beautifully drawn covers for musical scores, and, yes, small snippets of sheet music. From slave songs to the legendary stories of Eubie Blake and Billie Holiday, from the Baltimore Opera Society (in existence long before the Baltimore Rock Opera Society) to the Baltimore Orioles festival marches, and, of course, our country’s national anthem—this book is thorough and makes a great addition to any music lover’s bookshelf. And though it’s the story of our music, the music is a story of ourselves, Marylanders—sailors, artists, activists, and dreamers.

Ayurveda Beginner’s Guide

Susan Weis-Bohlen (Althea Press)

This debut book from Susan Weis-Bohlen—former owner of Breathe Books in Hampden and now an Ayurvedic practitioner and meditation instructor—serves as a primer on Ayurveda, an ancient, holistic system of medicine, as well as an abbreviated cookbook to complement the lifestyle. She lays down a strong foundation before delving into the more creative and playful aspects of daily rituals—crafting meals, yoga sequences, breathing exercises—based on your dosha (don’t worry, you’ll have a firm handle on what a dosha is—and what your dosha is—after reading this). Though Ayurveda is 5,000 years old, Weis-Bohlen also addresses modern health and dietary concerns, like environmental toxins. Through the lens of this ancient science, she covers everything from the importance of scraping your tongue in the morning to the importance of Ayurvedic-style sex. The warmth and serenity of Weis-Bohlen comes through on the pages. At times, reading it feels like a meditation in and of itself, especially if paired with a hot cup of spiced milk.

Chance Particulars

Sara Mansfield Taber (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Sara Mansfield Taber’s latest is part workbook and part how-to, and though it bills itself as an instructional guide that’s suited primarily for writers and artists, anyone wanting to more deeply understand his or her world will find its ideas useful. In fact, the book’s subtitle is fairly inclusive: A Writer’s Field Notebook for Travelers, Bloggers, Essayists, Memoirists, Novelists, Journalists, Adventurers, Naturalists, Sketchers, and Other Note-Takers and Recorders of Life. The phrase “chance particulars” is borrowed from Thomas Mallon, who says that writers should include any peculiar observations in their work. Taber, who has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University and the Bethesda Writer’s Center, builds on that idea and breaks down the methods for doing so, like talking with people, keeping records of such seemingly mundane things as gas prices and grocery lists, and using descriptions that evoke all five senses. She writes about the practicality (and joy) of keeping a commonplace book wherein you jot down any musings, snippets, or other useful information you come across. As the saying goes: God is in the details.

The Chesapeake in Focus: Transforming the Natural World

Tom Pelton (Johns Hopkins University Press)

In this book, Pelton, one the country’s leading environmental journalists, offers us a wealth of knowledge about the Chesapeake Bay, collected from his more than two decades of reporting on this ecological, cultural, and historical treasure (you may also know him from his show Environment in Focus on WYPR). His book is part history of the bay’s watershed region, part political history of its preservation, and, to a lesser extent, part personal history, as Pelton draws gorgeous imagery of scenes he’s experienced as an avid kayaker on the bay’s waters and tributaries. In total, he paints a compelling portrait of what it is he wants to preserve. Divided into four sections (The Waters, The People, The Wildlife, and The Policies), the book covers a lot of ground, from Baltimore’s sewage issues to the over-harvesting of wild oysters. The highlight, perhaps, comes toward the end, when Pelton proposes 10 realistic steps for bay restoration. We should listen to him.

Art-Activism: The Revolutionary Art, Poetry, & Reflections of Aaron Maybin

Aaron Maybin (self-published)

Some may know him as a former NFL linebacker. Others know him as an arts educator and activist. In his debut book, Baltimore’s Aaron Maybin combines his artwork—paintings, drawings, and photography—with his poetry and short essays, which are gritty and raw but also vibrant with an almost palpable energy. The works serve as Baltimore-centric meditations on what it means to be an activist, and Maybin’s voice is both vulnerable and strong as a black man born and raised here. He quickly moves from politics to religion to class to race, not only acknowledging current problems faced by local African Americans but also offering solutions and alternatives for a brighter future through grassroots efforts. Portions of the book act as anthems for a community that is rising up to meet the challenges they face, so that their children and children’s children might one day live in a better world.

Sunburn

Laura Lippman
(William Morrow)

A runaway wife in love with a private detective and the townsfolk of Belleville, Delaware, who don’t know what to make of either of them: These are the characters who populate the latest novel by Baltimore’s literary darling and New York Times bestselling crime fiction author Laura Lippman. To complicate matters, someone in town ends up dead, and suspicions arise. A homey tavern sets the stage for this tale of star-crossed lovers at best, murder and scandal at its darkest. The story takes place during the summer of 1995—strategic on Lippman’s part, as this was before smartphones and social media could track down Polly, an MIA wife trying to reinvent herself. Revisiting VHS, Murder, She Wrote, encyclopedias, pay phones, and other ’90s staples is simply fun, as are her references to Baltimore and the Eastern Shore. We also get to peer into the lives of secondary characters through snapshots—Bob, aka Baba, who runs the video store; Irving, the insurance broker who doesn’t normally attend synagogue—which adds color and dimension to the story, reminding us that these passersby have their own lives . . . and they are just as complicated as our own (though, admittedly, not as complicated as Polly’s). 

Laura Lippman will be at Ivy Bookshop for a reading, Q&A, and book signing at 7 p.m. Feb. 23.

I Wrote This Book Because I Love You

Tim Kreider
(Simon & Schuster)

It’s no surprise that when he’s not writing for The New York Times, Tim Kreider is also a cartoonist (many in Baltimore may know him for his dark-humor comic strip “The Pain—When Will It End?,” which ran for 12 years in City Paper). The Baltimore native’s second collection of essays is chock full of laugh-out-loud moments, mostly at his own expense, as he puts his love life on display with stark honesty. Like the time he briefly dated a prostitute (er, fetish model), or when he followed a girl to the circus and posed as her husband, or when he tracked down the psychologist who tested him as a child for the renowned Strange Situation study that’s used to predict attachment issues into adulthood. All the while, he’s discovered a thing or two along the way. But Kreider isn’t solely a humorist; he’s also part philosopher, part psychologist, part poet. Paired with his depth of insight into the human condition and startlingly sharp observations, this intimate collection is as hilarious as it is poignant, as it explores what it means to love and be loved—even if it’s love shared with your 19-year-old cat. 

Tim Kreider will talk about his book during at launch from 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 9 at Atomic Books.

111 Places in Baltimore That You Must Not Miss 

Allison Robicelli (Emons Publishers)

Can a newcomer write an insider’s account of Baltimore? Although she’s known for her irreverent (and James Beard Award-nominated) food writing, Allison Robicelli has only lived in Charm City for a couple of years. But, even for lifelong Baltimoreans, there are still new delights to experience in her bucket-list tribute to the city, made all the more enticing by striking photography from local shutterbug John Dean. Packed with 111 unconventional local surprises—including both hidden gems, like the American Visionary Art Museum’s Magic Farting Post, and familiar classics, like the Rawlings Conservatory and Bengies Drive-In—the book works for both the Baltimore nerd and the Baltimore newbie.

Kill Me Now 

Timmy Reed (Counterpoint Press)

In a series of journal entries written in the voice of Miles Lover—a 14-year-old kid from Roland Park with an unfortunate nickname that we can’t repeat here—CCBC professor Timmy Reed captures the angst of a teenage boy during his parents’ divorce. What’s most impressive about Reed’s work is his attention to detail. From his elaborate descriptions of Baltimore neighborhoods to evocative scenes of Miles smoking weed with his eccentric, old neighbor (whom his sisters suspect is a serial killer), Reed meticulously takes readers on a summer-long journey that is as viscerally awkward as our own teenage years. 

We Were Eight Years In Power 

Ta-Nehisi Coates
(BCP Literary Inc.)

Perhaps you’ve read Baltimore native Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay in The Atlantic entitled “My President Was Black,” in which he discusses what he perceives as the vicious backlash to Barack Obama’s presidency that resulted in the election of Donald Trump—the man he calls America’s “first white president.” This is not the first time in our country’s history that a period of progressiveness has resulted in a turn towards white supremacy, he argues. He points to the decades following the Civil War, when eight years of Reconstruction-era policies were followed by segregation, Jim Crow, and other racist tactics that kept blacks as second-class citizens. Coates uses this book as an opportunity to showcase eight essays that have previously appeared in The Atlantic, along with brand-new works that analyze the Obama years and highlight the voices, ideas, and movements for justice that arose during this time. Coates’ customarily eloquent and pointed prose is at its best here, as it forces all of us to reflect on our own beliefs and actions, as well as our identities as Americans.

What Counts As Love

Marian Crotty  
(University of Iowa Press)

As the title might suggest, the characters in Marian Crotty’s short stories are locked in a search for love—both romantic and filial. In many cases, they end up with a subpar version of what we’ve all been told it should look like. Take Karleen, a woman working a construction job to escape the clutches of her abusive husband in the title story. Or Evelyn, a mother trying desperately to maintain a relationship with her heroin-addicted daughter. Crotty, an assistant professor at Loyola University Maryland, writes her characters with an authenticity and dignity that immerses us in their worlds and causes us to examine our own quests for love. (Haven’t we all pined in vain or questioned a decision made from the heart?) This collection won the coveted John Simmons Short Fiction Award, and garnered a cover quote from none other than Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan. We can’t wait to see what this fresh voice has in store for us next.

Read our full interview with writer Marian Crotty.

You are an assistant professor at Loyola, and you have lived in states including Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. It seems like the stories in your collection have settings that you are familiar with from where you have lived.
I’m an editor at the journal The Common, which is a journal that features writing with a strong sense of place, and place is something that’s really important to me. I usually write about places after I’ve lived there, and I feel like if you can focus on the setting, it gives you ideas for things that could realistically happen.

I moved around a lot growing up. My mom is from North Carolina and we moved away when I was 3 but then moved back when I was 16, and in between we lived in Pennsylvania and Ohio. So I think I grew up seeing places not really through the eyes of a local, but more so as an outsider. I think I was always conscious of what seems possible or important to you has in some ways to do with how you see yourself in relationship to your community. For instance, when I was living in Pennsylvania, it was a really beautiful small town that had some steel industry that had left. Some people went to college and some people didn’t and that was totally normal. You would maybe go to the technical school or do other things, and that was very much because that was what people were like in that particular place.

What would you say is the connecting thread in this collection?
The connecting thread for me is love relationships that are in some way compromised—different versions of people seeking connection and settling for something that’s less than what they hoped for. In most of them it’s romantic love.

Where do you find inspiration—does it start at a character or a theme level?
Occasionally, it’s a situation either that I see in real life or that I read about. But usually it’s a person in a situation, and it’s from people that I know. The other thing I think about is experimenting with form and technique, so sometimes if I’m stuck on what to write about, I give myself a technical challenge.

How long have you been writing?
I would say that I’ve been taking it pretty seriously for like 10 or 12 years. There was time when I was sort of writing, but not writing consistently. But for the past decade or so I’ve been feeling serious about it and maybe a little more confident. It’s helpful to have some external validation, so I think once my stories started landing in better places, I was able to figure things out better, then it became more fun to do it. But also, I’m not really sure why this changed, but I think it’s important that I was reading and writing really consistently, and the fact that I was doing it all the time, the work then got better.

Was there a moment when you felt like, I’m a writer?
[Laughs] Even now, when I’m on a plane, I tell people that I’m a writing teacher. Part of it is shyness or lack of confidence or something, but I think another part of it is that I want to be focused on the work and what I want to say and I want writing to be a result of that, instead of getting really fixated on this persona of the “writer.” I think that’s distracting.

What has kept you writing short stories instead of, say, poetry or novels?
I like reading poetry, but for me, it feels as intimidating as yoga, where you have to be calm and precise. So that’s never something that I had any illusions of being able to do, even though I enjoy reading it. I have been working on a novel, but with short stories, you can learn a lot quickly. You can try out a distant third person point of view and in a couple of months build certain techniques, whereas with a novel, you’re signing up for at least a few years. For me, it was just a way of teaching myself how to write. I could practice lots of different things. 

How long have you been in Baltimore, and what’s been the most surprising thing about living here for you?
I moved here in 2014. There has been some class stuff that is subtle and unspoken that I can sense but I don’t entirely understand yet. Also, there’s an attachment to private school education that I wasn’t really familiar with. A lot of people, if they grew up in Baltimore and went to a private school, that’s a huge part of their identity. In the places where I lived, I didn’t know anybody who didn’t go to a public school. There’s a certain level of wealth in Maryland that I sometimes find shocking. I really like Baltimore. I’ve found people here to be friendly, and it’s a manageable sized city, and the literary scene here is terrific. People are really welcoming and it’s not at all competitive, but there’s also a ton of stuff going on. I love to go to readings at the Ivy, or there’s the Starts Here Reading Series, and all of that’s been really terrific.

I’m sure that’s been interesting for you looking at class in Maryland since a fair amount of your short story collection has themes related to class.
It’s something I’m always conscious of and there’s been various times of my life where I’ve felt like me and my family were on different sides of the privilege line. Like when I was in Pennsylvania, there were a lot of people who were struggling, and I didn’t feel like my family was struggling. It’s always something I’m thinking about.

Do you believe writers have to have first-hand knowledge of your subject matter for it to be successful?
I have such strong feelings about this. On one hand, of course you have to imagine things—you can’t literally just write about your own experiences. There has to be room for imagination. One of the great things about fiction is that it allows you to have empathy, and part of the point is to imagine someone else’s experience in a way that is respectful and authentic. But on the other hand, I think there’s something that happens in literary fiction where people fetishize pain and poverty when they themselves did not experience that. 

One of the things that’s problematic about that is that the literary world is made up of largely privileged people, who don’t offer very good checks and balances about whether or not it’s an accurate representation. My thoughts are that, obviously, you have to research things and be able to put in the time and research, and the other thing is you have to seek out or be willing to hear form people who are coming from that group, who have had those experiences. And if they say that you aren’t getting it right, you have to be willing to listen. 

You brought up research, which begs the question—what’s your research process like?
With all of the stories, there’s something that I researched—whether that’s going to the place, and seeing what’s actually in the parking lot. Sometimes, it’s interviewing people and talking to them. I did a fair amount of research for the title story—I talked to a police officer and an attorney and somebody who works on a construction site. Much of what they told me didn’t end up in the story, but it’s still helpful to have those conversations.

You recently had a baby. What was it like having your book come out at the same time?
It was kind of crazy because the due date was the publication date. But it’s been good. Maybe it’s a little helpful because I’m not obsessing about the book and its reception, I’m concentrating on other things, which has been kind of nice.

Now, you’re balancing writing and teaching and motherhood, so what’s your process like?
The biggest thing for me is to do whatever it is I’m doing at that moment. When I’m writing, I’m writing, so I turn my phone off, and I close out of the Internet. If I’m working on a project, then I’m at least opening the document every day, even if I’m not working on it so that I can be in that world. In the days that I’m not teaching, I try to have a block of time, and in the days that I am, I try to at least engage with the material somewhat. The summers have been really useful. For the past few summers, I’ve been doing writing residencies, which really help because you’re in a separate place and you can really focus. When I’m teaching, I try not to think, ‘Oh, I’m not writing now.’ I just focus on work, and having these separate selves.

The Ninth Hour 

 By Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)  

It could be said that Alice McDermott has perfected her subject matter. The National Book Award  winner and Johns Hopkins University professor’s most celebrated works have been set in the world of Irish Catholics in New York as they struggle to build their lives and find an identity in early 20th-century America. That was true of her last book, Someone, and it is true  of her latest. This time,  she explores how one event—a man’s suicide—reverberates through the lives of those around him, from his grief-stricken widow to the nuns who care for his ravaged family in his stead. It is in these women of the cloth that McDermott finds some of her richest characters yet—strong women who steadfastedly fight for the poor and disadvantaged but who receive little notice or acclaim. McDermott has a way of transcending the day-to-day existence of her characters to bring us slices of human truths. We find ourselves drawn into a world that, though much different from our own, is made relevant and relatable through her marvelous prose.

Read our full interview with writer Alice McDermott.

Basilio Boullosa Stars In The Fountain of Highlandtown

By Rafael Alvarez  (CityLit Press)

Twenty years ago, a city desk reporter for The Sun debuted his first work of fiction—a short story collection called The Fountain of Highlandtown, which captured the heartache, yearning, and disenchantment of growing up in blue-collar East Baltimore. Much has changed since then: that reporter, Rafael Alvarez, has added several books and a stint writing for the acclaimed TV show The Wire to his resume, subsequently establishing himself as a key voice in capturing Baltimore’s story. (He also occasionally contributes to Baltimore.) Now, he has returned to this familiar territory to bring us another collection, which, like its predecessor, revolves around his alter ego, Basilio Boullosa, an artist who is haunted by the relics of Baltimore’s past. We follow Alvarez’s path, which is ripe with nostalgia and brimming with the in-between feelings that come with understanding that we want to leave our hometown, while not knowing how. Ultimately, Alvarez’s stories serve as a reminder that we can move away, but we’re never really far from where we’ve come from. 

Award-winning writer and Johns Hopkins University professor Alice McDermott’s most celebrated works have been set in the world of Irish Catholics in 20th-century New York. The same is true for her latest novel, The Ninth Hour, in which she explores how one event—a man’s suicide—reverberates through the lives of those around him. We got the change to talk to McDermott about her latest work, real-life inspiration, and how true friends keep you honest.

It feels like we’re going into welcome familiar territory with the subject matter of The Ninth Hour. You’ve found so much fruit in Irish Catholic America. What is it about that framework that has allowed you to get so much creatively from it?
I never feel like the driving for these novels is the milieu itself. I sort of find myself ending up there. I’m not a sociologist or a social historian that’s particularly interested in those matters. For me, I start out trying to understand something about our common experience and then because as a storyteller you need the details, I am drawn back to territory that I know, but always in such a different pursuit that it never strikes me that I’ve returned to a place I’ve been before. I always feel like this is all brand new to me. Eight books into this job, I’m aware of my readers kind of rolling his or her eyes and saying, “Ohhh, we’re back here again?” [Laughs] 

But as my own first reader, I always feel that it’s such new territory because with each book you’re telling a different story, dealing with different ideas, trying to get at very different things. For me, it’s a pursuit of what’s this life of all of ours about not just Irish Americans in the New York area in the early 20th century. What’s experience like? How do we make sense of any of this? There’s a great line, I think I read it ages and ages ago, in Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir, and he talks about how we live between two darknesses—the time before we’re born and the time after we’re gone and the only light is whatever time we have here. I go to ficition for anybody who can help me to understand that period of light that we all get, no matter or how brief or long. It’s all we’ve got and there’s a lot to figure out about that.

Why do you think you end up back in Irish Catholic America?
Well, number one it’s material I’m familiar with, being Irish American myself, having grown up second generation. I grew up in Long Island at a time when all of my peers were second or third generation. Almost every grandparent I ever encountered growing up had some sort of accent—Russian, Polish, Italian, Irish. The language of that milieu I already have in my head, I already have the vocabulary, and also writing about characters who have Catholicism as a faith tradition, that also gives them vocabulary, they have ways of talking about things that they might not have the where-with-all to talk about otherwise. A lot of those things are the things I’m interested in—mortality and hope and selflessness, sacrifice, especially in this book.

In this book, you delve into vivid characters who happen to be nuns. Were you waiting for the opportunity to dive into their world with this book?
No, I think I was avoiding it at all costs. (laughs) Oddly enough, the genesis of this book was that I was thinking a lot about the idea of substitutes in the Civil War. I had a conversation with a friend who’d had a substitute in his distant family, someone who went to war so that one of his great-great uncles didn’t have to go. And that conversation stirred my interest, and I started reading historical accounts and trying to figure out how much did it cost, what was it all about? And when you’re a fiction writer, not a historian, as soon as you get something that interests you, you do a little bit of research, but you’re not looking for the historical record. It brings up this whole idea of whose life is more valuable, who puts themselves on the line for somebody else and is going to live? How long do you stay grateful to the person who stepped in? 

Once you start thinking about that, you’re thinking about who died so that we all might live. That was really what started the thoughts, and that led to the metaphors of selflessness and who gives up their lives so other lives can be saved, and that led me to nuns, and I thought, Oh my god, here they are. And then, of course, you start reading, trying to make something of what life was like in Brooklyn for these nuns and these poor families, but, again, two, three generations on, how do we look back at those lives, do we forget them, do we dismiss them? The more you read about what nuns have done in this country, the more you realize that the good things they’ve done have been nearly erased and replaced with the crazy, screaming witch or clown in a crazy habit.

Were you drawing on anyone you’d known in particular when you were coming up with the characters?
I was very aware of not modeling them in any way. I went through 12 years of Catholic school, had a lot of nuns in grammar school, a fair number in high school, but I didn’t want to use any of my own experience as models because I really wanted these to be a fresh look and to make sure that each one of them was not in any way diminished by cliché, that they were fully human, flawed, striving, thoughtful. And the thing that I loved was the more that I read, I found that there were so many orders of nuns in the New York area at this time, thousands and thousands of nuns in Brooklyn alone. It was almost like found poetry looking at the names of all the orders. It revealed so much about how they thought of themselves. The order that I created for the novel is an amalgam of a number of orders, like nuns who called themselves Little Nursing Sisters, the Little Sisters of the Sick and Poor. 

When you think about women who had such little power at that time, especially in the Catholic Church, claiming this kind of humility, oh we’re just little. But on the other hand, what their ambition is is that they’re going to go up and stand up against suffering, this tremendous egotistical ambition. All of it’s embodied in what they call themselves. That’s what fascinated me, and that’s what reconciled myself that I was writing about an order of nuns. And how much they did underground, it’s not subtle there are lots of themes about being underground in this novel, but it’s sort of the machinery of getting things done, taking care of what needs to be taken care of literally under the radar of the hierarchy of the church. It continues to happen. The role of women in the church, and especially religious orders, is still much the same.

In terms of your writing process, how long does it take you to finish a book like this?
It depends. I established a very bad habit early in my career and I keep falling into it and that is that I always have two things going simultaneously, two novels. And that kind of slows you down, but then it always seems to happen that one pulls ahead. For most of last year, I just knew that I had to stick with this novel, to put my head down and sink deeply into it to understand it. Except for a version of the first chapter that was published as a short story in The New Yorker, my poor, long-suffering editor hadn’t seen a word of it until I sent the completed novel to him in late December 2016. I was sort of emerging into the sunlight when I finished it, kind of blinking and saying, what do you think of this?

Have you had the same editor for a while?
Yes, from the very beginning. It’s very rare in publishing, but I was all of 26 or 27 and I only had written 100 pages of my first novel when my editor Jonathan Galassi, who was at that time probably all of 30 or 31, purchased it incomplete. We’ve just been working together ever since. I feel very fortunate. He’s a great editor because he just lets me go off and lock the door, go underground and write what I feel compelled to write. He’s very supportive. 

How do you balance your work with teaching?
I tend to teach one course a semester, so I’m at Johns Hopkins University generally one day a week. It’s not onerous because I still have four weekdays and weekends for my own work, and I find it energizing. I’ve always been a little bit afraid of going too deeply underground to write fiction and to forget the real world and real readers and writers. It’s the same as when my kids were small and I’d have to stop writing to go get in the car pool line. Sometimes I would say, “Well, Tolstoy never had to do this,” but on the other hand, it keeps you real, from getting too full of yourself and your own ideas. And teaching is the same way. I love hearing what my students are reading and thinking about and I love reading their work. And there’s also a reminder that it doesn’t matter what stage you’re at in this career, you’re always dealing with the same things—how to get those sentences right, how to be honest, what’s the best way to tell the story. Every story that you start, you’re a novice all over again, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done before. 

Do you find that you are drawn to students who have similar interests to you, or who are writing things that are completely different?
For me, it’s what’s on the page, and if it’s wonderful and engaging, then I’m excited about it and if it’s not yet, I think it’s an awful lot of fun to sit with a writer and say, where is it? It’s in there somewhere, how do we find it? I have never taught one of my own books, I would never be able to do that. So in some ways, even if you’re the writer at the head of the table, I think you have to approach teaching. I think it was John Barth who said, “We’re not teachers, we’re coaches.” Here’s a young writer with talent, what can I do to help this writer realize fully the talent that he or she has. I forget about myself. I’ve never been inclined to say, Oh, I wrote a scene like that once, maybe you should go read that. I’m just more like, we’re down in the ditches with these sentences, ok, how come this scene is not completely realized? Let’s figure out how we can fix that. That’s the fun part. The nice part is not thinking about yourself. 

Who do you read, and what have you liked reading recently?
Fortunately, I’ve been teaching long enough that it seems like once a week I get galleys from former students who are publishing. It’s wonderful, but it’s the obligatory reading. When I don’t have a pile of obligatory reading, I’m the most scattered reader. I pick up things that strike my fancy or that someone sent me, so I’m all over the place. I do read a lot of poetry because it reminds me of how wonderful and thrilling language can be in a not time consuming way. W.H. Auden’s series of poems on the divine hours was very much with me as I was composing The Ninth Hour. I’ve been re-reading a lot of Elizabeth Bishop just for fun, and I just finished Margot Lindsay’s novel Mercury, which was an interesting novel about a marriage and a horse. I just read a very, very short novel called Sisters by Lily Tuck, which I just found hypnotic. Claire Messud’s novel The Burning Girl, I just read in the last month. It also has wonderful, strong female characters and she’s just a wonderful writer. There’s always something that you just can’t wait to get to.

How do you gauge the opinions of your audience, and is that something that’s important to you?
I was a reader long before I was a writer, and I’m always sure that I’m a reader—there are plenty of days when I’m not sure that I’m a writer. I always feel that you have this dual personality, even as you’re composing, you’re still the first reader of your own work. But you have to get out and talk to other readers and realize where literature stands in the real world. And where it stands is not in a really important place. There are lots of people who are busy with things we really need, and literature is there and for some of us it feels like life’s blood and it feels essential, but I think it’s always a good idea for a writer to understand that there are plenty of people who don’t feel it’s essential. You want to be in some way including them, with the hope that if they do pick up this book, they might be surprised. I think it keeps you honest. 

I have a group of old, dear friends, none of whom were even English majors who read all kinds of different things, books I would never read, and I think of them as my touchstone. As the Irish say, don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t be writing just for other writers, don’t be writing to show off how much research you’ve done, or how clever you are. You should have an agreement with all readers that I’m not going to waste your time, I’m really going to get at something that we all want to think about or are puzzled by and I want to bring everybody with me.