Jesse Ball
2) Autoportrait
Author
Description
A work of unflinching honesty, Autoportrait is a hypnotic memoir of reflection, loss, and everyday joy from one of America's best contemporary novelists. Jesse Ball has produced fourteen acclaimed works of deeply empathetic absurdism in poetry and fiction. Now, he offers readers his first memoir, one that showcases his "humane curiosity" (James Wood) and invites the reader into a raw and personal account of love, grief, and memory. Inspired by the...
4) Census
Author
Description
Learning that he does not have long to live, a widower needs to figure out how to provide for his developmentally disabled adult son. Taking a job as a census taker, the two leave on a cross-country journey through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet. They meet the townspeople, some of whom welcome them into their homes, while others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are wary of their presence. As they approach...
5) The curfew
Author
Description
The author of "The Way Through Doors" and "Samedi the Deafness" returns with this tender, spellbinding novel of a father and daughter living in a city ruled by fear. William and Molly lead a life of small pleasures, riddles at the kitchen table, and games of string and orange peels. All around them a city rages with war. When the uprising began, William's wife was taken, leaving him alone with their young daughter. They keep their heads down and try...
Author
Description
How to Set a Fire and Why, Jesse Ball's singular, blistering new novel, tells the story of a teenage girl who has lost everything -- and will burn anything. Lucia's father is dead, her mother is in a mental hospital, and she's living in a garage-turned-bedroom with her aunt. And now she's being kicked out of school - again. Making her way through the world with only a book, a zippo lighter, a pocketful of stolen licorice, a biting wit, and a striking...
Author
Description
The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers' Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on...