Current BooksCurrent Zine

• 

  Meeks

  Julia Holmes

  July 2010: A dark satire rendered with the slapstick humor of a Buster Keaton film, this debut novel follows a hapless bachelor who must find a wife before the end of the summer or be confined forever in the city factories.

• 

  Redemption in Indigo

  Karen Lord

  July 2010: In this funny, fresh fable, a villager leaves her husband and finds she can manipulate chaos.

• 

  Old Men in Love: John Tunnock’s Posthumous Papers

  Alasdair Gray

  The first US edition (updated with the author’s corrections from the UK edition) of a novel that British critics lauded as one of the best of Gray’s long career.

• 

  Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 25

  Gwenda Bond, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, Susannah Mandel, Richard Parks, Haihong Zhao

Chuntering On and On

Award Season: World Fantasy Awards Mon 30 Aug 2010

A little late (but better that than never): huge congratulations to all the World Fantasy Award nominees, those we know and those we don’t. Having been a juror, I know how much a nomination is worth! And, there’s a ton of stuff I haven’t read on here so it makes a good reading list.
I’ve occasionally [...]

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& now the first review for Under the Poppy Mon 30 Aug 2010

Publishers Weekly is again first off the blocks with their take on Kathe Koja’s huge sexy historical novel, Under the Poppy:
“The latest from Koja (Skin) is a page turner with riveting language and
close attention to sensory detail. Set in late 19th-century Brussels, the
story follows the adventures of puppeteer Istvan and brothel owner Rupert
who bond as [...]

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West Coast Holmes Fri 20 Aug 2010

If you’re in Portland (Monday, 8/23) or Seattle (Wed. 8/25) next week don’t miss the Meeks roadshow. Then, on Thursday the 26th Julia will be reading with our own Jedediah Berry at the Porter Square Bookshop in Cambridge (that place next to Cambridge, not that place in England). Fingers crossed I’ll see you at the [...]

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Latest Eruption of Fiction Into the Universe

Meeks

July 20, 2010 · 9781931520652 · trade paperback

An August 2010 Indie Next Notable Book

New: Read excerpts from Meeks at The Collagist, BenMarcus.net, and Conjunctions.

“Meeks is a wild, woolly, sly, gentle and wry first novel. . . . It’s a book whose singular vision keeps returning to me at odd moments, one of the most original and readable novels that’s come my way in a long time.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“The novel is a postmodern parable about American passion and paranoia, like The Great Gatsby as told by Don DeLillo.”
—The New York Observer

“The satire here has plenty of bite, but instead of winking at the reader, Holmes evokes her world with luminous prose.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Holmes is a wonderful writer.”
—The Stranger

“A highly imaginative debut finds a stark Darwinian logic in a rigidly hierarchical society. . . . Holmes has fashioned a terrifying and utterly convincing world in which the perfect human being is one stripped of all illusions.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Holmes has created a fabulously surreal dystopia where to be married is the only way to find true happiness. Bachelors spend their days cultivating skills to impress ladies in what is essentially a lottery, and if they aren’t successful, they are consigned to a life of civil service–or worse. Darkly comic and lyrical, Meeks provides a unique satirical lens to look at our own changing perceptions of marriage, home life, and success.”
—Emily Pullen, Skylight Books, Los Angeles

No woman will have Ben without a proper bachelor’s suit . . . and the tailor refuses to make him one. Back from war with a nameless enemy, he’s just discovered that his mother is dead and that his family home has been reassigned by the state. As if that isn’t enough, he must now find a wife, or he’ll be made a civil servant and given a permanent spot in one of the city’s oppressive factories.

Meanwhile, Meeks, a foreigner who lives in the park and imagines he’s a member of the police, is hunted by the overzealous Brothers of Mercy. Meeks’s survival depends on his peculiar friendship with a police captain—but will that be enough to prevent his execution at the annual Independence Day celebration?

A dark satire rendered with all the slapstick humor of a Buster Keaton film, Julia Holmes’s debut novel evokes the strange charm of a Haruki Murakami novel in a dystopic setting reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Meeks portrays a world at once hilarious and disquieting, in which frustrated revolutionaries and hopeful youths suffer alongside the lost and the condemned, just for a chance at the permanent bliss of marriage and a slice of sugar-frosted Independence Day cake.

Read an interview with Julia on Portland’s Reading Local:

But the farther along you go, the better you understand the world’s weird local laws — even in an entirely invented, contrived world, there’s no tolerance for lies. I think that’s just crazy and delightful.

Early Reader Reaction:

“Meeks is a feat of desolating literary spellcraft, irresistible for its bleak hilarity and the sere brilliance of Julia Holmes’s prose.”
—Wells Tower (author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned)

“The world of Meeks is cruel, cold, and weird, suffocating in laws so strange they very nearly resemble our own.  Julia Holmes is that rare artist who, with invention and mythology, reveals nothing less than the most secret inner workings of the real world we overlook every day. A masterful debut by a writer of the most forceful originality.”
—Ben Marcus (author of Notable American Women and The Age of Wire and String)

“Oh bachelors, poor bachelors, pining for their pale suits—these needy men, so poignant in their search for wives, will break your heart in twain. Splendid and limping, hilarious and painful, a quiet perfection in its idiosyncrasy, the powerful alternate reality of Meeks is also an unforgettable truth. You’ll never see marriage the same way again.”
—Lydia Millet (author of How the Dead Dream and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart)

“The life of a bachelor is always hard, but in Meeks it’s truly desperate: if you don’t have the right suit then it’s either the Brothers of Mercy or the factories. Julia Holmes’s lucid prose tightens the noose of this curious world around your readerly neck before you even know what’s hit you. An invisible enemy, a pageant, a fashion system whose signification would stymie Roland Barthes, and a society that demands everyone rush quickly to fill their odd social slot, makes Meeks a unique (and uniquely imaginative) nightmare and a severely engrossing read.”
—Brian Evenson (author of  Fugue State and The Open Curtain)

“Pity the young gentleman set loose in this world of cruel tailors, perpetual war, large-scale civic pastry and the untold rivalries of the Bachelor House! With her uncommonly assured first novel, Julia Holmes channels the surreal paranoia of Poe and the dark-comic melodrama of a lost Guy Maddin script. The strangest, most compelling debut you’ll read this year.”
—Mark Binelli (author of Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!)

Cover art © Robyn O’Neil.

More Books

• 

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  May 2010

  A major French fabulist translated into English for the first time.

• 

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  Holly Black

  In her debut collection, New York Times best-selling author Holly Black “assures her place as a modern fantasy master.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• 

  A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010

  December 2009:

  Organize your writing schedule, track deadlines, and learn about grants, contests, and workshop programs. Deadlines are built right in, along with spotlights on writing markets and helpful online resources.

• 

  Interfictions 2

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  November 2009:

  21 original and innovative writers including Jeffrey Ford, Brian Francis Slattery, Nin Andrews, and M. Rickert, and more. Introduction by Henry Jenkins.

• 

  Second Line

  Poppy Z. Brite

  October 2009:

  Two short novels of love and cooking in New Orleans, starring lovable chefs Ricky and G-man, written by the incomparable Poppy Z. Brite. “Fun foodie fiction, and readers will scarf it down.”—Publishers Weekly

• 

  Hound

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  When a book dealer’s ex-lover is murdered, he is forced to examine his past and investigate the murky depths of literary Boston. Hound is the first of a series of novels featuring Henry Sullivan, and the debut novel of a long-time Boston bookseller, Vincent McCaffrey.

• 

  Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales

  Greer Gilman

  “Sublimely lyrical Jacobeanesque dialect . . . readers who enjoy
  symbolism and allusion will cherish Gilman’s use of diverse folkloric elements to create an unforgettable realm and ideology.” —Publishers Weekly

• 

  Couch

  Benjamin Parzybok

  Three guys move a couch, save the world.
  An exuberant and hilarious debut in which an episode of furniture moving gone awry becomes an impromptu quest of self-discovery.

• 

  The Serial Garden

  Joan Aiken

  This is the first complete collection of Joan Aiken’s beloved Armitage stories — and it includes four new, unpublished stories.
  The Serial Garden is also the first title in our new imprint for readers of all ages: Big Mouth House.

• 

  The King’s Last Song

  Geoff Ryman

  “An unforgettably vivid portrait of Cambodian culture past and present.” —Booklist (starred review)

• 

  The Ant King and Other Stories

  Benjamin Rosenbaum

  A dazzling, postmodern debut collection of pulp and surreal fictions.
  Download for Free

• 

  The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories

  John Kessel

  Book Sense Pick
  Dustjackets: 1 · 2
  Interviews: 1 · 2
  Podcasts
  Download for Free

• 

  Generation Loss

  Elizabeth Hand

  Shirley Jackson Award Winner
  Start reading | Listen.
  YouTube interview
  Believer Award Short List

• 

  The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

  Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, Editors

  So good there had to be a book. Or something.
  “An otherworldly Farmer’s Almanac.”—Library Journal

• 

  Water Logic

  Laurie J. Marks

  A triumph of politics, fantasy, world-building, and intelligent design: of character, world, and magic.

  Listen to Ch.1

• 

  Endless Things

  John Crowley

  An Ægypt Novel
  “Confirms that he is one of our finest living writers, period.” —Michael Dirda

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