This is the third installment of Entropy’s “Month in Books” feature, where we highlight small press new releases at the end of every month. If you’re a press and don’t see your books here, we’d love to include you! Email dennis@entropymag.org with your forthcoming catalog.
Action Books
The Country of Planks by Raul Zurita, translated by Daniel Borzutzky
246 pages – Action Books / Amazon
“Raúl Zurita is like Jeremiah, a weeping biblical prophet reminding his people of the sins of omission and the embarrassments of complacency. Chile is a minuscule country at the end of the world with more poets per capita than anywhere else. Zurita is a giant among them, like Mistral, Neruda, and Parra. His voice maps the agony lived under tyranny and its aftermath and Daniel Borzutzky’s translations capture it with admirable precision.”
—Ilan Stavans, editor of The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry
Dark Museum by María Negroni, translated by Michelle Gil-Monteiro
32 pages – Action Books / Amazon
Artistically Declined Press
Letters to Quince by Jenny Drai
112 pages – Artistically Declined / Amazon
Brooklyn Arts Press
Responsive Listening: Theater Training for Contemporary Spaces, edited by Camilla Eeg-Tverbakk and Karmenlara Ely
128 pages, 8 photographs – BAP / Amazon
Black Lawrence Press
Oh My Darling by Cate O’Toole
46 pages – Black Lawrence / Amazon
The New Sorrow Is Less Than the Old Sorrow by Jenny Drai
41 pages – Black Lawrence / Amazon
Boss Fight Books
Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham
99 pages – Boss Fight / Amazon
“In the beginning, a small unlicensed game development company was hit with divine inspiration: They could make a lot of money (and escape the wrath of Nintendo) by creating games for Christians. With the release of the 1990 NES platformer Bible Adventures, the developers saw what they had made, and it was good. Or, at least, good enough.
Based on extensive research and original interviews with Wisdom Tree staff, Gabe Durham’s book investigates the rise and fall of the little company that almost could, the tension between faith and commerce in the Christian retail industry, culture’s retro/ironic obsession with “bad games,” and the simple recipe for transforming a regular game into a Christian game: throw a Bible in it and pray nobody notices.” —From the Boss Fight website
Broken River Books
On the Black by Ed Dinger
304 pages – Amazon
Scores by Robert Paul Moreira
110 pages – Amazon
Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again? by Nate Southard
256 pages – Amazon
Death Don’t Have No Mercy by William Boyle
194 pages – Amazon
“William Boyle does for the small damaged towns of New York what Nelson Algren did for Chicago: he makes the streets sing with piss-pot poetry and gut-bucket blues. These are edgy stories about people who would have to pull themselves up to walk the line, people who spend so much time in bars, drunks and bartenders start to look like family. In here, hardship is a given, failure too, but Boyle’s beautiful prose infuses his characters with a deep sense of knowledge and dignity and awareness, so hope is always present, no matter how dim the light.” —Dave Newman
Visions by Troy James Weaver
134 pages – Amazon
The Blind Alley by Jake Hinkson
320 pages – Amazon
Civil Coping Mechanisms
Today I Am a Book by xTx
120 pages – CCM / Amazon
“Today I Am A Book is maddening, the ‘I’ bringing you in close only to wink and push off again. It is an alluring, irresistible book. And it was written by xTx. That should be all you need to know. She is a master and we are her grateful subjects.” —Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls
This Boring Apocalypse by Brandi Wells
124 pages – CCM / Amazon
Wake by A.T. Grant
264 pages – CCM / Amazon
How to Pose for Hustler by Andrea Kneeland
160 pages – CCM / Amazon
Asuras by Jayinee Basu
122 pages – CCM / Amazon
Curbside Splendor
Little Boy Needs Ride by Chris Bower, illustrations by Susie Kirkwood
150 pages – Curbside Splendor / Amazon
Dalkey Archive Press
The Sea by Blai Bonet (Catalan Literature Series)
140 pages – Dalkey / Amazon
Past Habitual by Alf MacLochlainn (Irish Literature Series)
95 pages – Dalkey / Amazon
Dzanc Books
The Zoo, a Going by J.A. Tyler
136 pages – Dzanc / Amazon
In The Zoo, a Going, the commonplace act of a family visiting the zoo becomes a window through which a child contemplates the breakdown of his family, the loss of a brother he never knew, and his strained relationship with his father, newly back from a war that he cannot comprehend though he can feel its ripple effects. As they travel from cage to bar to glass, Jonah sees himself and his family through the lens of the animals in each fake landscape, and hovers on the edge of the terrible knowledge of adulthood: what his mom and dad have done and haven’t for him, and what he has and hasn’t done in return. He realizes, as he goes, the complexities of growing up, of maturing, and he too how much power words have, both those he utters and those he doesn’t. Equal parts short story, novel, and prose poetry, The Zoo, a Going is part of Dzanc’s commitment to new voices and writers who break the mold to reach something deeply human. —From the Dzanc website
Like a Woman by Debra Busman
256 pages – Dzanc / Amazon
Flood Editions
Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann
96 pages – Flood / Amazon
Graywolf Press
Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso
104 pages – Graywolf / Amazon
All Who Go Do Not Return: A Memoir by Shulem Deen
288 pages – Graywolf / Amazon
Greying Ghost Press
Drummer by Chad Reynolds
Greying Ghost
Gauss PDF
Blackmar-Diemer Gambit by Andy Martrich
Gauss PDF
Chomo Analects by Nals Goring & Zach Phillips
Gauss PDF
Crocs’ Bible by Jesi Gaston
Gauss PDF
She ws a very rare gal, i think by Nadia John
Gauss PDF
caps 0w – 146w, iPhone 6+, 0w 2015, Provider/Processor ‘Chris Sylvester’ by Chris Sylvester
Gauss PDF
Horse Less Press
Every Living One by Nathan Hauke
68 pages – SPD
Ladybox Books
The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert by Rios de la Luz
120 pages – Amazon
“Rios de la Luz’s writing blows minds and breaks hearts. A sort of new and bizarre Tomás Rivera, Rios is able to blend the familiar of the domestic with the all the wilderness of the universe. Her stories will grab you in places you didn’t know you had, take you by those places to where you’ve always wanted to go—though you never knew how to get there. Buy this book and enjoy that journey.” —Brian Allen Carr “In The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert, Rios de la Luz’s writing is electric and alive. It grabs you and pulls you into her universe, one that is both familiar and foreign, a place where Martians find love, bad guys get their ears cut off, and time travel agents save lost children. In this innovative, heartfelt debut, de la Luz takes her place as a young author that demands to be read and watched.” —Juliet Escoria
Jigsaw Youth by Tiffany Scandal
166 pages – Amazon
Melville House
Cat out of Hell by Lynne Truss
256 pages – Melville House / Amazon
An Exaggerated Murder by Josh Cook
336 pages – Melville House / Amazon
The Dead Moutaineer’s Inn by Arkady Strugatsky
256 pages – Melville House / Amazon
Milkweed Editions
Pictograph by Melissa Kwansy
80 pages – Milkweed / Amazon
New Directions
The Strange Case of Rachel K by Rachel Kushner
96 pages – New Directions / Amazon
The Musical Brain and Other Stories by César Aira
240 pages – New Directions / Amazon
The author of at least eighty novels, most of them no more than 96 pages long, César Aira has been called “the author who can’t be stopped” by the New York Review of Books. The Musical Brain & Other Stories is the first collection of his stories to appear in English and comprises twenty tales about oddballs, freaks, and crazies. Aira, with his fuga hacia adelante or “flight forward” into the unknown, gives us imponderables to ponder and bizarre and seemingly out-of-context plot lines to consider, as well as thoughtful and passionate takes on everyday reality. The title story, published in the New Yorker, is the centerpiece of this exhilarating collection of characters, places, and ideas—the crème de la crème of Aira’s many short stories. —From the New Directions website
The Dream of My Return by Horacio Castellanos Moya
160 pages – New Directions / Amazon
Nightboat Books
The Devastation by Melissa Buzzeo
184 pages – Nightboat / Amazon
Publishing Genius
Valparaiso, Round the Horn by Madeline ffitch
246 pages – Publishing Genius / Amazon
The short stories of acclaimed playwright Madeline ffitch speak for themselves, loudly and clearly. ffitch is a fearless writer, and these 11 stories seem both magical and tethered to their rural landscapes. Here you’ll find a passionate scientist studying a forgotten species of Mud Turtle, a janitor who brings up his daughter in the basement of her middle school, a construction worker who actually minds where he pees … and a whole lot more. Throughout, you’ll be astonished and engaged by the colloquial fluency of her prose, the honesty of her piquant characters, and the intriguing and earthy backdrops that ground everything in this imaginative world. —From the Publishing Genius website
Red Hen Press
How to Carry Bigfoot Home by Chris Tarry
144 pages – Red Hen / Amazon
Rose Metal Press
In the Circus of You: An Illustrated Novel in Poems by Nicelle Davis and Cheryl Gross
104 pages – Rose Metal Press / SPD
Semiotext(e)
I’m Very into You: Correspondence 1995–1996 by Kathy Acker and McKenzie Wark
160 pages – MIT Press / Amazon
Solar Luxuriance
Circle of Dogs by Amandine André, translated by Kit Schluter and Jocelyn Spaar
28 pages – Solar Luxuriance
“This poem lingers and moves like slime mold across language in patterns similar to Allemann’s Babyfucker and Krasznahorkai’s Animalinside, taking the “corpse of words and mix[ing] words with words” to summon language as an alchemized, feral mixture brewing below the surface of an absurd politics. André conjures a devotional to the breakdown of the border between mind and body in a world where the most resonant gesture against an overwhelming violence is the shoe of Muntadhar al-Zaidi spiraling through time, space, and media towards the idea of G. W. Bush’s blank and inscrutable masks. Power functions on the world stage as language degenerates in poetry: here is a poem about dogs giving head to head; here is a poem reminiscent of your own powerless and beautiful life.” —Aaron Apps
Sundress Publications
Confluence by Sandra Marchetti
Sundress Publications
Tin House Books
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
382 pages – Tin House / Amazon
Two Dollar Radio
The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell
368 pages – Two Dollar Radio / Amazon
Ugly Duckling Presse
Wolfman Librarian by Filip Marinovich
104 pages – UDP / Amazon
Fantasy by Ben Fama
88 pages – UDP / Amazon
Unnamed Press
Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Z. Hossain
256 pages – Unnamed / Amazon
Wakefield Press
A Dilemma by Joris-Karl Huysmans, translated and with an introduction by Justin Vicari
96 pages – Wakefield / Amazon
Originally published in book form in French in 1887, Joris-Karl Huysmans’s A Dilemma remains a particularly nasty little tale, a mordantly satiric and cruel account of bourgeois greed and manipulation that holds up as clear a mirror to today’s neoliberalist times as it did to the French fin-de-siècle. Written in-between Huysmans’ most famous works—his 1881 Against Nature, which came to define the Decadent movement, and his 1891 exploration of Satanism, Down There—A Dilemma presents some of the author’s most memorable characters, including Madame Champagne, the self-appointed Parisian protector of women in need, and the carnal would-be sophisticate notary Le Ponsart, who wages a war of words with the bereft pregnant mistress of his deceased grandson with devastating consequences. In its unflinching portrayal of how authoritarian language can be used and abused as a weapon, this novella stands as Huysmans’s indictment of the underlying crime of the novel itself: a language apparatus employed to maintain the appetites of the ruling class. —From the Wakefield Press website
