Casanova 20
A novel about art, desire, and mortality, Casanova 20: Or, Hot World follows a young man isolated by his extraordinary beauty and his strange friendship with an older painter Cursed by an extreme and unrelenting beauty, Adrian has drawn the frenzied attention of adoring strangers since childhood. As a twenty-nine-year-old in New York City, he spends his days drifting between affairs with women (and occasionally men) who provide him with everything he needs, from spending money to luxurious vacations to even, once, a mini yacht. With this generosity comes a dangerous possessiveness that often puts him at risk of much worse than heartbreak. But as people begin removing their masks in the spring of 2021, Adrian's aimless sexual availability is interrupted by a shocking discovery: He is no longer beautiful. Across the country, Adrian's best friend and companion, Mark, a world-famous painter, has returned to the family home in rural Northern California. He's faced with his own horrible revelation: He's dying from the same mysterious disease that will soon take his mother and sister. Despite the depth of their platonic romance, neither man reveals his fate to the other. Feeling as if he's disappearing from sight, Adrian searches for answers among his thousands of lovers. In a race against his failing body, Mark becomes obsessed with watching fifty-two VHS tapes of unknown origin, left to him by his sister, before it's too late. "An astounding writer, seemingly unconstrained by taboos and waist-deep down in the maw of life" (Torrey Peters), Davey Davis presents a modern-day Casanova figure grappling with what it means to find true intimacy when his very existence means constant exposure to the world's violent desire.
Dayspring
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - WINNER OF THE 2024 DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS - One of Indigo's Top 10 Literary Fiction Books of 2024 and Top 100 Books of 2024 - One of CBC's Best Canadian Fiction of 2024 A singular, stunning debut that transcends and transfigures genre--at once a bold retelling of biblical tales and an unforgettable contemporary coming-of-age story, connected in collapsing time across millennia. There are few love stories in the holy books. Love is what ruins. Love is what costs. Love is a flaming sword at our backs, a garden left to ruin and to wild. In Dayspring, Anthony Oliveira brings to vibrant, glorious life the gospel according to the disciple Christ loved--his companion in the days before the crucifixion, the only instrument that remembers with fidelity his sound. Sacred, profane, and rich with explicit desire and a poetic attention to form, Dayspring weaves electric and heart-wrenching stories of passion, grief, destruction, and survival into a narrative unmoored in space and time, one that re-examines and re-frames great and doomed figures from scripture and history, even as it casts its keen eye on the trials of modern life. Seamlessly blending fiction, memoir, and verse in the exhilarating tradition of Anne Carson and Madeline Miller, Dayspring is an immersive, mesmerizing work, one that wrenches beauty from cataclysm and finds bliss in apocalypse.
We Could Be Rats
A "one-sitting-read" (Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author) about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination--from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space. Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid's inability to conform to the expectations of polite society. But Sigrid's detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She's haunted by the pains of her past--from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta's friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward. "A must read" (Haley Jakobson, New York Times Editor's Choice author), We Could Be Rats is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.
Minor Black Figures
A bold novel about a black painter caught up in the currents of art, faith, and desire.New York simmers with heat and unrest as Wyeth, a painter, finds himself at an impasse in his own work. After attending a dubious show put on by a collective of careerist artists, he retreats to a bar in the West Village where he meets Keating, a former seminarian. Over the long summer, as the two get to know each another, they talk and argue about God, sex, and art. Meanwhile, at his job working for an art restorer, Wyeth begins to investigate the life and career of a forgotten, minor black artist. His search yields potential answers to questions that Wyeth is only now beginning to ask about what it means to be a black artist making black art amid the mess and beauty of life itself. As he did so brilliantly in the Booker Prize finalist Real Life and the bestselling The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor brings alive a captivating set of characters, this time at work and at play in the competitive art world. Minor Black Figures is a vividly etched portrait, both sweeping and tender, of friendship, creativity, belief, and the deep connections among them.
Punk-In
BrodieMy rock band has reached the pinnacle of success but fame has its price. Sooner or later, people let you down or sell you out. Except Ivan Cross. My manager, my muse, my obsession. There's nothing in this world that I want more than Van. And I always get what I want.VanFour years ago, I was selected to manage a hot new band called Wayward Lane. I knew I was in for an exciting ride - and a world of trouble - and it's all because of their lead singer, the provocative Brodie James. We've always butted heads but lately, that tension is higher. When Brodie insists on an impromptu concert in New Orleans at Halloween, I make it happen. The city, the food, the music, it's intoxicating. So is Brodie, and I'm not sure I can resist his pull any longer. Even though Brodie could have anyone he wants, all wants is me.Punk-In is a bi awakening, age gap, friends to lovers MM romance filled with sizzling chemistry, an unforgettable Halloween concert, and a HEA fit for a rockstar.
