With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan by Sarah Carson and Ghost Town by Kevin Chen.
“My cousin Galaxy’s baby fell out of a two-story window and survived.” A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents (Ecco, November 2022) by Mary-Alice Daniel. First book, memoir. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Gabriella Doob. Publicist: Kelly Doyle.
“It matters where you are born.” Extinction Theory (University of Georgia Press, October 2022) by Kien Lam. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Beth Snead. Publicist: Jason Bennett.
“‘Where are you from?’” Ghost Town (Europa Editions, October 2022) by Kevin Chen, translated from the Chinese by Darryl Sterk. Eighth of ten books, second of four novels. Agent: Gray Tan. Editor: Michael Reynolds. Publicist: Kristi Bontrager.
“This neighborhood, these boulevards / these streets named for carburetors” How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan (Persea Books, November 2022) by Sarah Carson. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Gabriel Fried. Publicist: Jonah Fried.
“Other kids always want to know about the tornado.” Pretend It’s My Body (Feminist Press, October 2022) by Luke Dani Blue. First book, story collection. Agent: Adam Schear. Editor: Lauren Rosemary Hook. Publicist: Jisu Kim.
“I am reading Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and I let the words find me because the body always knows better than the mind does; muscles remember, they witness, like trees, riddles etch disease, and I am weeping willow, crying seeds and dripping saline from my hair (this is how I got my name, y’know?).” Making Love With the Land (University of Minnesota Press, November 2022) by Joshua Whitehead. Third book, first essay collection. Agent: Stephanie Sinclair. Editor: Jason Weidemann. Publicist: Heather Skinner.
“It is third day of Interim.” Liberation Day (Random House, October 2022) by George Saunders. Twelfth book, fifth story collection. Agent: Esther Newberg. Editor: Andy Ward. Publicists: Maria Braeckel and Erin Richards.
“So far my sentence as a Black woman has been hard to hone, homed in sore white pith.” Concentrate (Graywolf Press, November 2022) by Courtney Faye Taylor. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Chantz Erolin. Publicist: Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones.
“I can’t undo all I have done to myself, / what I have let an appetite for love do to me.” Wound Is the Origin of Wonder (Norton, November 2022) by Maya C. Popa. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: Peter Straus. Editor: Jill Bialosky. Publicist: Gina Savoy.
“There was something strange, mysterious even, about the White Horse tonight.” White Horse (Flatiron Books, November 2022) by Erika T. Wurth. Sixth book, third novel. Agent: Rebecca Friedman. Editors: Maxine Charles and Zack Wagman. Publicists: Amelia Possanza and Chris Smith.
“In fifth grade, my teacher spent an entire semester on the water cycle.” The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis (Soft Skull, October 2022) by Emma Bolden. Fourth book, first memoir. Agent: Cassie Mannes Murray. Editor: Sarah Lyn Rogers. Publicist: Lena Moses-Schmitt.
“Dick jokes, ass jokes, black-women-versus-white-women jokes, Taliban jokes, Whitney Houston jokes, more sex jokes, and then, finally, the best joke of all, because it plays like a confession telegraphed directly out of the comedian’s subconscious.” My Pinup: A Paean to Prince (New Directions, November 2022) by Hilton Als. Third book, second memoir. Agent: Jeff Posternak. Editor: Barbara Epler. Publicist: Mieke Chew.
