Read Indies 2025: A Novella and an Epic, Mysteries and Verses, Matasha and a Manifesto

The first is in my stack because Joe has been talking about Seagull Books for years—and, no wonder. What beautifully bound volumes. The Postman of Abruzzo circles around the genetic records of a village’s inhabitants, gathered and maintained by Luc over fifteen visits to the community. His wife, Laure, views them as holding a significance that she longs to understand after he has died (a heart ailment that struck when he was last in the village); so, she returns to conduct her own informal course of study. In the process of searching for what drew Luc there, she meets Yussuf. He is the postman who, in the course of his duties, frequently comes to deliver the mail when there is none (but he visits, or feeds stray cats), and occasionally does not deliver mail when there is some (the news of a villager’s spouse’s death, for instance). Readers wonder whether Laure will come to terms with her own grief with the assistance of villagers who are reconciling with the discrepancy between loss and guilt, confronting their own sorrows and horrors and responsibilities. And we wonder at the small bits of paper that preserve something truly inexpressible.

Seedtime: Notebooks, 1954–79 by Philippe Jaccottet (Trans. Tess Lewis)
“Seedtime—Jaccottet’s notebooks—is an especially good introduction to this leading francophone Swiss author, containing the poet’s observations of the natural world and his reflections on literature, art, music and the human condition.”

My previous reading of Waanyi writer Alexis Wright’s fiction was via the library (Carpentaria and The Swan Book), and I’ve often resorted to reading them aloud to focus and finish. I found the prose hypnotic, the words spooling forth in such a satisfying way, even when I couldn’t make sense of them. Without the motivation of either a duedate, or a conventional plot, I have lollygagged reading Praiseworthy, published in the U.S. by New Directions. I am still “reading it” nearly a year later—and I wonder whether I won’t still be reading it a year from now. At one point, after I had let it set for several weeks (not out of disinterest, only distracted by other books), I flipped both forward and backward, to read aloud a single random chapter in each direction. I had already been thinking of it like poetry (thanks to a comment that Bill made, while or after he read it), and that got me wondering whether it could be read like an anthology of verse. Or like some people read a sacred text, opening it at random and choosing to interpret one segment of the book as casting a broader meaning in that specific moment. Wright’s storytelling feels like shapeshifting, and I return to it without fully understanding why. As though her revisioning of the world has changed my understanding of story.

Wishlist: Adam and Eve in Paradise by José Maria de Eça de Queirós (Trans. Margaret Jull Costa)
“Eça de Queirós’s pleasure in the glories of language and his delight in skewering all complacencies are richly palpable, leaving the reader smiling and sighing: Ahhh, those Genesiac days …”

After just a few pages of Diné writer Ramona Emerson’s new mystery Exposure (2024), I remembered how much I had enjoyed the first in the series, Shutter (2022), and suddenly craved a reread (unusual as that is, with mysteries). There we meet Rita Todocheene, a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque PD: “Five and a half years of taking pictures of dead people.” Her clinical perspective is equal parts unsettling and reassuring: “I photographed one of the eyeballs, free from its bone and muscle, lying between a crushed beer can and the remnants of broken windshield glass. Number ninety-three.” But the counts are balanced by the emotions that take hold when the murdered establish a spiritual connection with her at certain crime scenes. In another writer’s hands, this could be a mark of laziness or, even, manipulation; but Emerson shifts the focus so that this feels like a natural unfolding of understanding, a deeper connection to her people’s historic exploitation and extermination. There is also a literary underbelly to these novels, a reverberation with Rita’s backstory for those who appreciate some layering. [Note: Don’t let the inclusion of some of Soho’s books in PRH catalogues deter you. PRH does their distribution, and selected titles are included in the behemoth’s catalogues, but Soho maintains their independence. For now, at least. I’ve verified this directly.]

Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay
“An epic tale of love and political violence set in earthquake-ravaged Darkmotherland, a dystopian reimagining of Nepal, from the Whiting Award–winning author of Arresting God in Kathmandu.” (Bill, check it out!)

A Family Is A House landed in my stack because I was ordering Khanh Ha’s short story collection and added Dustin Pearson’s books to the shipment, intrigued by his decision to explore the legacy of troubled and addicted parents and the impact on their dependents…in poetry. (The literal impact—violence—and the figurative impact too.) There’s a great line in the short story collection by Danila Botha that I wrote about yesterday: “I went upstairs, wondering if I’d ever meet the people who would feel like my real family.” I imagine Dustin Pearson would have flagged that passage too. With the C&R in the press’ name standing for Conscious & Responsible, no surprise that they value a creative exploration of the impact of domestic violence. What’s surprising is how specific details cast a fresh light on the scenarios presented. For instance, it IS strange when one of the siblings sprouts a tail. But what is REALLY strange? When the people who are supposed to protect us, when we are small and vulnerable, are the ones who do harm. I’m glad I have his second collection at hand.

Wishlist: Juniper Street by Joan Frank

“Nabokov wished ‘to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times;’ in Juniper Street, Joan Frank has done just that. Delving into the confluence of memory and place, she shows us the joys of the lost world, as well as its terrors—and for the reader, the great provocation to remember one’s own past. A beautiful novel.”  –Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

When Matasha opens, there’s conflict in her family home too. Arguments about whether it’s appropriate for her mother to pursue an overseas adoption when her father is opposed to the idea. What Matasha overhears, about how her parents view her and their responsibility to parent her, causes her to question everything. She feels love, she knows she is loved—but it’s not that simple anymore. At eleven years old, she recognises that she not only can, but must, be her own person. And it’s the 1970s, so views of governmental authority are also rapidly shifting—Watergate. Pamela Erens’ novel landed in my stack because I ordered her book about Middlemarch, also from IGPublishing. The novel reads quickly and easily and the family scenes are believable. It would have been perfect if only some of the dialogue wasn’t quite so correct—a few fragments or incomplete thoughts would have secured it for me—but because the characters themselves are believable, even in the context of that decade which is tough to pull off, it still works. I’ll be looking for her other novels.

Wishlist: One of the Bookmarked series I’ve not yet read, On The Man Who Loved Children by Lucy Ferriss

Here’s a book that landed in my stacks via the RJJulia Just the Right Book podcast: welcome to the Meta-Moment, a recommendation for an independently published book, by W.W. Norton, on a podcast from an independent bookseller. The interview was so inviting and conversational that I wasn’t expecting an academic tone, but it’s a slim book so I simply slowed my pace. (This is on me: she IS an academic.) The focus is on creatively responding to the systemic injustices that stifle the imagination: the vital importance of conceiving of new possibilities, different kinds of futures. Benjamin does share anecdotes and tweets—it’s not all fancy. And she shares many book recommendations (like A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky by Lynell George). She talks about “Gattaca” and “King Richard”, and how her family started an apiary during Covid, alongside those academic studies. And after I read it, I found myself referring to two different studies that were relevant in everyday conversation: one of my favourite ways to learn, just by-the-by while you were reading something you simply wanted to read.

Wishlist: Rather than share one title, check out their 100 Years of Indie Publishing Timeline.