This Week's New Book Releases

Here is a list of some new and upcoming books:

A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs






Release Date: April 29th
St. Martin's Press


When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl. Something dark and secretive that could not be named.

Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten’s childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn’t exist for him.

With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Table will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It’s a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

It's been quite a year for Augusten Burroughs and his brother John Elder Robison who relleased his book earlier this year, Look Me in the Eye, a book about his childhood and living with Aspberger's syndrome. I did an interview with Robison a few months ago, we talk about his brother Augustine, the process of writing his book, and the infamous family of psychiatrist Dr. Finch. Click here to read the interview.




Quicksand by Iris Johansen






Release Date: April 22nd
St. Martin's Press

Returning from Johansen’s New York Times bestselling thriller, Stalemate, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan is still reeling from the disappearance of her daughter, Bonnie. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, she enlists the clairvoyant skills of Dr. Megan Blair to help find her. No strangers to looking for clues where there seem to be none, the two women use their highly specialized talents to hunt down Bonnie’s elusive kidnapper and return her to her mother’s arms. But is Bonnie still alive? Will the two women find her in time? Iris Johansen strikes again with this non-stop, action packed thriller, keeping readers turning pages well into the night.


Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon






Release Date: May 1st
McSweeney's Press

Michael Chabon's sparkling first book of nonfiction is a love song in 16 parts — a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection. His own fiction, meanwhile, is explored from the perspective of personal history: post-collegiate desperation sparks his debut, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; procrastination and doubt reveal the way toward Wonder Boys; a love of comics and a basement golem combine to create the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; and an enigmatic Yiddish phrasebook unfurls into The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

Release Date: May 1st
William Morrow Publishing

Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others we keep to protect those we love. A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised no one more than herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to leave urban life behind and head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she and her beloved husband, Teo, have made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships in her new home. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt. Perfectly manicured, impeccably dressed, and possessing impossible standards, Piper is the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake. Over a shared love of literature and old movies, Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman who has also recently arrived in town, ostensibly to send her perceptive and brilliant son, Dev, to a school for the gifted.

Sunday at Tiffany's by James Patterson
and Gabrielle Charbonnet






Release Date: April 28th
Little Brown and Company

As a little girl, Jane has no one. Her mother, the powerful head of a Broadway theater company, has no time for her. She does have one friend-a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael-but only she can see him.

Years later, Jane is in her thirties and just as alone as ever. Then she meets Michael again-as handsome, smart and perfect as she remembers him to be. But not even Michael knows the reason they've really been reunited. Sundays at Tiffany's is a love story with an irresistible twist, a novel about the child inside all of us-and the boundary-crossing power of love.


Incandescence by Greg Egan






Release Date: May 1st
Night Shade Books

The long-awaited new novel from Hugo Award-winning writer Greg Egan! The Amalgam spans nearly the entire galaxy, and is composed of innumerable beings from a wild variety of races, some human, some near-human, and some entirely other. The one place that they cannot go is the bulge, the bright, hot center of the galaxy. There dwell the Aloof, who for millions of years have deflected any and all attempts to communicate with or visit them. So, when Rakesh is offered an opportunity to travel within their sphere, in search of a lost race, he cannot turn it down!

So Brave, Young, and Handsome
by Leif Enger






Release Date: April 22nd
Atlantic Monthly Press

A stunning successor to his best selling novel Peace Like a River, Leif Enger’s new work is a rugged and nimble story about an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him.

In 1915 Minnesota, novelist Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives simply with his wife and son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, Blue, over two decades ago, has lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back to his past--heading to California to seek Blue’s forgiveness. Beguiled and inspired, Monte soon finds himself leaving behind his own family to embark for the unruly West with his fugitive guide. As they desperately flee from the relentless Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton who’s been hunting Glendon for years, Monte falls ever further from his family and the law, to be tempered by a fiery adventure from which he may never get home.

New Author Interview: John Elder Robison, author of "Look Me in the Eye"

Loaded Questions with Kelly Hewitt

John Elder Robison
author of Look Me in the Eye

I have long been a fan of Augusten Burroughs and have read all of his books. I can vividly remember reading about his elder brother, John Elder Robison, and his struggles throughout life that eventually resulted in a diagnosis of Asperger's. I wanted to know more.

In Look Me in the Eye John Elder Robison offers another look at the childhood of he and his brother Augusten Burroughs. Robison details the birth of his brother, the beginning of his family's interactions with Doctor Finch and his family, who later came to be a major force in Augusten Burroughs' life and a significant part of his memoir Running with Scissors.

Robison has written a thoughtful book full of stories from his sometimes difficult childhood. He writes about the beginning of his mother's madness and the gradual increase of his father's alcoholic tendencies. One cannot help but feel for Robison, a big brother who loved his younger brother but yearned for freedom. Robison details his young adulthood and all of the chaos that ensued and his successful adulthood in which the skill he has learned have payed off.

Robison is intelligent, capable of almost anything he undertakes. The headline of his web page list him as an author, photographer, and machine aficionado but I honestly get the feeling that his is being modest. Perhaps more importantly, Robison is an excellent spokesman for his disorder. He has striven to give Asperger's a face and to educate the world about it. Robison is an attentive writer, focused and dedicated to the stories he tells and to representing Asperger's.

I would certainly recommend this book for the sometimes hillarious and other times devestation stories and for the courage that writing Look Me in the Eye took.

Kelly Hewitt: Augusten Burroughs, your brother, writes in the prologue about his suggesting that you write a book of your own. He said that it was a very short time before you returned to him with a chapter. What were your immediate thoughts when he brought up the idea? Had you already thought about writing a book?

John Elder Robison: I had been pondering the idea for a while, and when my father's death unlocked many childhood memories I just resolved to do it, and Look Me in the Eye is the result.

Some folks have expressed surprise that I could write it so smoothly and quickly, but to those people I'd point out that I had no bad habits to unlearn and no preconceived notion of what writing is like to hold me back. And if you read my brother's books, he always says he learned the craft of storytelling from me, so it should not surprise people that I can still tell stories at age 50.

In fact, I like to think I can do it better today - with my greater life experience - than I could when I was 21, back when my brother listened to my stories of the road.

Kelly: In Look Me in the Eye you write about Doctor Finch and his family and the fact that you and your father stopped visiting him many years before your mother or the events your brother writes about in Running with Scissors. Was there any hesitation to mention The Finch family, especially after all the trouble you brother has had in the last few years?

John: The doctor and his family played only a peripheral role in Look Me in the Eye, but they certainly deserve mention, and I did not hesitate to do so. After what's already been written about the Finches my treatment of them is - in my opinion - very mild but still true and fair in the context of my own story.

Kelly: You write about going to visit Dr. Finch's office and about having therapy sessions with your mother, father, and Dr. Finch. What was the relationship like early on between your parents and the doctor?

John: It started like the other shrink-family relationships I'd experienced but then after a few years it got weird. That was when my father and later I backed out. Remember, in the early days, he accomplished things for me that no one before ever could. Like getting my father to stop hitting me.

Kelly: Reading your book is in some ways like reading a prequel to your brother's works. You spent time with Hope, Dr. Finch, and Neil Bookman. How do you feel about your brother's later depiction of them?

John: Well, with respect to Bookman . . . he tried all the same diddling stuff on me and the first I knew of him and my brother was reading about it in RWS. That was pretty shocking to me.

Hope was always nice to me as I say in my story, but my brother had a lot more experience with her and some of his memories are obviously different.

With respect to the doctor . . . he started out as a brilliant psychiatrist, but the events in my brother's book really chronicle the doctor's own descent into madness, in my opinion.

Kelly: There are quite a few fun and light-hearted chapters in this book. But there are certainly darker stories of alcohol, mental illness, and abuse. Did those chapters take longer to write? Did you find writing them to be therapeutic?

John: I found the dark chapters troubling to write, and I did not reread them again. They did not take any longer to write. The process in general could be described as therapeutic but I think that would refer to the whole writing effort, not just to the writing of dark material.

Kelly: In the book you often discuss the kinds of differences you have noticed over the years between the feelings and thoughts of most people and those experienced by Aspergians. You write about adapting and learning to say what other might expect of you, expressing sympathy for the death of a stranger, for instance. Are there other situations where you have learned to adapt and therefore react in a manner that is not natural to you?

John: Many of the behaviors I display today, like looking people in the eye, are not natural or automatic. I had to learn them by a processes of concentration and hard work. I do them because they allow me to fit in better and they cause other people to feel more comfortable around me.

It's important to point out that my internal thoughts and my overall actions are not changed one bit as a result of subtle behavioral changes like looking people in the eye.

Kelly: Were you happy to have been largely left out of Running with Scissors? What was your initial reaction to the book?

I wasn't happy or sad. I was not there at the times my brother wrote about, and I had no place in those particular stories. My initial reaction was of sadness and then anger as I remembered how bad our childhood really was.

Then, when people started to read it, I got worried. Every time a friend said, "I'm gonna read your brother's book!" I thought, they'll never speak to me again when they read that!

But the reverse happened. The warm and supportive response of readers to RWS is really what gave me courage to tell my own story, which had been a shameful secret in my mind for so long.

Kelly: Look Me in the Eye hasn't even been officially released yet and it is already a best-seller, showing up in Amazon.com's Top 100. Does that shock you? How does it feel to have a successful book before it even releases?

John: Well, as soon as I started my blog moms began to write me, and then Aspergian people started to write. I realized that autistic spectrum conditions affect millions of people, and when you add the friends, families, teachers, and counselors . . . it's a story that could speak to a huge number of people. I had no idea of that when I wrote it.

However, that fact became apparent to me some months ago.

Then I did my first public appearance, with several other authors. The other writers were novelists who'd made up Aspergian figures, or moms who wrote about their kids. There was a dramatic difference in how that writing was received, as compared to mine. Especially among the autistic people in the crowd. That showed me there was a real hunger for stories from the horse's mouth, as it were, instead of someone watching the horse from outside the pasture.

As to how I feel . . . the whole process is just amazing. It's gone so smoothly, and so fast. . . so different from what I'd read about the process of producing a book. And everyone has been really wonderful. Crown put the best people in the business to work on my book, and then booksellers loved it, then critics, and now readers. So I just hope it stays like it is - remarkable and fresh and exciting.

Kelly: I think that you have done a great job discussing Asperger's and shedding light on a disorder that makes some things different for you but nothing impossible. What do you hope to accomplish by speaking out about Asperger's?

John: I hope to show the world at large that people aren't so different after all.

I hope to inspire young people who struggle to find their way and fit in.

I hope to show parents and people who work with Aspergians what it's like to be one.

I hope to increase the level of tolerance and understanding in the world by a little bit.