Jenny Shank

Cowboys and East IndiansNina McConigley195 pages, softcover: $15.95.FiveChapters Books, 2013. In her captivating debut story collection, Casper-raised author Nina McConigley examines with wit and empathy what it means to be “the wrong kind of Indians living in Wyoming.” Although prejudice and ignorance surface, there are few bad guys in this game of cowboys and Indians, […]

A Guide to Being BornRamona Ausubel195 pages, hardcover, $26.95.Riverhead, 2013. When an innovative style is a writer’s main goal, emotional subtleties tend to fall by the wayside. Ramona Ausubel, raised in New Mexico and now based in California, crafts literary fiction that manages to keep out the chill. The stories in A Guide to Being […]

We Live in WaterJess Walter192 pages, softcover: $14.99.Harper Perennial, 2013. In 13 sharp, witty stories, Spokane’s Jess Walter captures the gritty, quirky and heartbreaking lives of a variety of Pacific Northwesterners. Walter convincingly inhabits each character he creates, from a hungry meth addict wheeling an enormous TV toward a hoped-for pawnshop payout to a blue-collar […]

Little CenturyAnna Keesey336 pages, paperback:$16.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. When Esther Chambers moves to central Oregon from Chicago in 1896, she finds herself caught in a range war between cattle ranchers and sheepherders. Anna Keesey’s elegant debut novel, Little Century, resurrects the complex West of those early days, in prose that captures the rhythms and […]

The Five Acts of Diego LeónAlex Espinoza304 pages, hardcover: $26.Random House, 2013. Diego León, the protagonist of Alex Espinoza’s second novel, makes his way to the U.S. during the turmoil of the Mexican revolution, hoping to achieve stardom at a time when Hollywood’s major studios each “had a Latin actor under contract.” Espinoza, who was […]

SpectacleSusan Steinberg137 pages, softcover: $14.Graywolf Press, 2013. San Francisco-based writer Susan Steinberg experiments with form and structure as she examines the roles men and women play in her arresting story collection, Spectacle. “The woman,” she writes, “is supposed to know the subtle difference between being a woman and performing one.” An unnamed woman narrates these […]

The Snow ChildEowyn Ivey416 pages, softcover: $14.99.Reagan Arthur Books, 2012. Eowyn Ivey’s surefooted and captivating debut novel, The Snow Child, begins in 1920, as Mabel and Jack, middle-aged homesteaders in Alaska, try to rough it through their second winter there. They’d moved West to escape painful memories of their only child, stillborn 10 years earlier, […]

Evel Knievel DaysPauls Toutonghi293 pages,hardcover: $24.Crown, 2012. Khosi Saqr Clark, the narrator of Pauls Toutonghi’s funny and winsome second novel, Evel Knievel Days, isn’t a typical native of Butte. Sure, he loves Montana and enjoys the annual Evel Knievel Days spectacle, complete with its “American Motordome Wall of Death,” but his neurotic nature (“the obsessive-compulsive’s […]

Elsewhere, CaliforniaDana Johnson276 pages, softcover: $15.95.Counterpoint, 2012. Dana Johnson’s thoughtful and affecting first novel, Elsewhere, California, is narrated by a girl named Avery, whom we first meet as a child growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the ’70s and ’80s. When her brother is threatened by gangs, their parents decide to move to […]

California writer T.C. Boyle’s 14th novel, San Miguel, continues his exploration of the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., which began with last year’s When The Killing’s Done. This time, Boyle focuses on windswept San Miguel Island and the histories of two very different families who inhabit it between 1888 and 1945. […]

Sugarhouse: Turning the Neighborhood Crack House into Our Home Sweet HomeMatthew Batt258 pages, softcover: $14.95Mariner, 2012. Matthew Batt is a perpetual student, earning his Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah while his wife, Jenae, works — until she finally gets tired of supporting his grad-school habit. “I got home from ‘class’ one night, […]

Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a LifeBy Harrison Candelaria Fletcher147 pages, softcover: $14.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2012. When Colorado writer Harrison Candelaria Fletcher was almost 2 years old, his father, a pharmacist, died, leaving behind a wife and five children. His mother, who was 29 years younger than her husband, grew up in a […]

Beautiful RuinsJess Walter352 pages, hardcover: $25.99.Harper, 2012. Beautiful Ruins, Washington author Jess Walter’s dashing sixth novel, spans two continents and five decades, creating a panoramic view of the lives it encompasses. The paths of its nine main characters intersect in places as various as Italy, Hollywood, Seattle, and Sandpoint, Idaho, in the course of this […]

The FlamerBen Rogers257 pages, softcover: $14.Aqueous Books, 2012. Ben Rogers’ engaging first novel, The Flamer, is the coming-of-age story of a young Nevada pyromaniac named Oby Brooks. Oby discovers his love for conflagrations when his father donates the family’s dilapidated house to the Reno Fire Department to burn “for training purposes.” The boy watches the […]

Let the Birds Drink In PeaceRobert Garner McBrearty152 pages, softcover: $14.99.Conundrum Press, 2011. In Colorado writer Robert Garner McBrearty’s fresh and funny new story collection, Let the Birds Drink In Peace, a boy tells his mother he plans to do something great when he grows up. “Everybody feels like that when they’re young,” she replies. […]

Before the End, After the BeginningDagoberto Gilb194 pages, hardcover: $24.Grove Press, 2011. Before the End, After the Beginning, Dagoberto Gilb’s remarkable new fiction collection, begins with an arresting story written in lowercase letters, titled “please, thank you.” The reason becomes clear when a nurse reminds the narrator that he’s suffered a stroke, much as Gilb […]

LambBonnie Nadzam275 pages, softcover: $15.95.Other Press, 2011. After his marriage dissolves over an affair with a coworker and his father dies, David Lamb drives to a parking lot near his Chicago home to think. “Nothing before him but the filthy street and bright signs announcing the limits of his world: Transmission Masters and Drive Time […]

The Little BrideAnna Solomon314 pages, softcover: $15. Riverhead, 2011. Anna Solomon’s fascinating first novel The Little Bride begins in Russia in the 1880s, when Minna Losk, a 16-year-old orphan, signs up to become a mail-order bride. After the death of her father, Minna worked for a while as a maid for a once-wealthy woman. Now, […]