Categorie archieven: American Novel

American Novel, Amerikaanse Schrijvers, China, Chinese geschiedenis, coming-of-age roman

Ha Jin – Looking for Tank Man

Ha Jin Looking for Tank Man review review and information of the content of the new novel by the Chinese American writer and poet about hidden history of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Other Press will publish the new Ha Jin novel, on October 21, 2025.

Ha Jin Looking for Tank Man review

  • “Looking for Tank Man is a deeply moving and important novel, shaped by meticulous research and illuminated by Ha Jin’s singular voice. Spanning Harvard, Flushing, and Beijing, it traverses geographies and timelines to tell the powerful story of one young woman’s quest for knowledge, and how her findings reshape her understanding of her homeland and herself. This is a novel that captures the urgency of reckoning with atrocity, the intergenerational weight of history, and how the past—once uncovered—continues to shape our moral consciousness. A vital, haunting story about truth, memory, and the price of knowing.” (Michelle Min Sterling, author of Camp Zero)
  • “A timely cautionary tale about authoritarian rule and a sensitive portrayal of the power of knowledge and the challenges of academia.” (Booklist)

Ha Jin Looking for Tank Man

Looking for Tankman

  • Author: Ha Jin (United States)
  • Book type: Novel about Tiananmen Square protests
  • Publisher: Other Press
  • Released: 21 October 2025
  • Length: 368 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 19.99
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new novel by Ha Jin

A Harvard student from China discovers the fraught, hidden history of the Tiananmen Square massacre in this powerful novel of protest and suppression from the National Book Award–winning author.

When the Chinese premier visits Harvard, international student Pei Lulu encounters a lone protester, who will drastically change her understanding of the People’s Republic and her own place in the world. For the first time, Lulu learns of the 1989 protest movement and the government’s violent response. Determined to find out more, she seeks answers from her family, who share surprising stories of their involvement, and from a formative university course based on powerful firsthand accounts.

At once a compelling coming-of-age tale and a poignant tribute to the courage of activists, Looking for Tank Man keeps this tragedy alive in the public memory and warns against the dangers of authoritarian regimes.

Ha Jin, real name Jin Xuefei (金雪飞), was born February 21, 1956 in Liaoning, China. He grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.

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Gish Jen – Bad Bad Girl

Gish Jen Bad Bad Girl review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author of Chinese descent. St. Martin’s Press will publish the new Gish Jen novel, on October 21, 2025. 

Gish Jen Bad Bad Girl review

  • “What an amazing f***ing novel, wild like love and twice as revealing. Gish Jen has written the multigenerational mother-daughter epic of our new century. Bad Bad Girl spans decades, oceans, continents, generations, languages, showing us we can escape almost anything—except the voices of our parents. Intergenerational mother-daughter mayhem of the absolute best smartest vexing most moving kind.” (Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
  • “Sharp and compassionate … Some relationships are so complex that truth can’t do them justice.” (Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times)

Gish Jen Bad Bad Girl

Bad Bad Girl

  • Author: Gish Jen (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Knopf
  • Released: 21 October 2025
  • Length: 353 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 30.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new novel by Gish Jen

The award-winning author of The Resisters returns with an engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.

My mother had died, but still I heard her voice. . .

Gish’s mother, Loo Shu-hsin, is born in 1924 to a wealthy Shanghai family whose girls are expected to restrain themselves. Her beloved nursemaid—far more loving to than her real mother—is torn from her even as she is constantly reprimanded: “Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!” Sent to a modern Catholic school by her progressive father, she receives not only an English name—Agnes—but a first-rate education. To his delight, she excels. But even then he can only sigh, “Too bad. If you were a boy, you could accomplish a lot.” Agnes finds solace in books and, in 1947, announces her intention to pursue a PhD in America. As the Communist revolution looms, she sets sail—never to return.

Lonely and adrift in New York, she begins dating Jen Chao-Pe, an engineering student. They do their best to block out the increasingly dire plight of their families back home and successfully establish a new American life: Marriage! A house in the suburbs! A number one son! By the time Gish is born, though, the news from China is proving inescapable; their marriage is foundering; and Agnes, confronted with a strong-willed, outspoken daughter distinctly reminiscent of herself, is repeating the refrain—“Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!”—as she recapitulates the harshness of her own childhood.

Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written: genre-bending, courageous, wise, and as immensely incisive as it is compassionate.

Gish Jen is born August 12, 1955 in Long Island, New York. She is a second-generation Chinese American. Her parents emigrated from China in the 1940s. Bad Bad Girl is het sixth novel. She als published non-fiction. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute and the Guggenheim Foundation as well as of a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and of a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short work has appeared in the New Yorker and other magazines, and have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She delivered the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University.

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Brandon Taylor – Minor Black Figures

Brandon Taylor Minor Black Figures review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author. Riverhead Books will publish the new Brandon Taylor novel, on October 14, 2025. 

Brandon Taylor Minor Black Figures review

  • “Taylor’s most accomplished novel – a sustained, idiosyncratic portrait of an artist.” (The New York Times Book Review)
  • “Brandon Taylor is a literary superstar … Taylor’s third novel [is] a smart and soulful exploration set in the world of art (both contemporary and historical). The book deftly explores race and sexuality, religion and community, and the way love can change a life.” (The Boston Globe)
  • “A meditative, illuminating portrait of friendship and competition, belief systems and the connections between us all.” (People)
  • “Dazzling … a poetic meditation on Black art, friendship, young love and intimacy.” (USA Today)

Brandon Taylor Minor Black Figures

Minor Black Figures

  • Author: Brandon Taylor (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Riverhead Books
  • Released: 14 October 2025
  • Length: 400 pages
  • Format: hardcover / paperback / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 39.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new novel by Brandon Taylor

The story of a gay Black painter navigating the worlds of art, desire, and creativity.

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.

Brandon Taylor is born June 1, 1989 in Prattville, Alabama. He  the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He lives in New York City.

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Jennifer Niven – Meet the Newmans

Jennifer Niven Meet the Newmans review and information of the content of the novel by the American writer. MacMillan will publish the new Jennifer Niven novel, on January 15, 2026. 

Jennifer Niven Meet the Newmans reviews

  • “This story of a famous fiction TV family in 1960’s America and their subsequent unravelling is as thoughtful as it is entertaining. The writing thrums with energy, and the characters feel wholly believable. Definitely a recommend from me.” (Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things)
  • “Very unique and cleverly written. A big fat family drama and huge slice of social history in the 1960s when life for each family member pivots, attitudes are challenged and relationships are tested. This family is like a simmering pot on the stove, waiting to boil over. And when it does, it’s a recipe for drama.” (Jo Thomas, author of Love in Provence)

Jennifer Niven Meet the Newmans

Meet the Newmans

No family is perfect

  • Author: Jennifer Niven (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Pan Macmillan
  • To be released: 15 January 2026
  • Length: 400 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new Jennifer Niven novel

Los Angeles, 1964.

For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favourite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now the Sixties are in full swing, and the Newmans’ perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch.

Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and rock ‘n’ roll idol Shep may finally be in real trouble.

When Del is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands. She hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964 America.

Can Dinah Newman bring her family together to change television history? Or will she be cancelled before she ever had the chance?Maybe it’s time for perfection to fall out of style…

Jennifer Niven was 14 May 1968 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ze is an American author of thirteen books, fiction and nonfiction, including All the Bright Places, which she also adapted for film. Her award-winning books have been translated into more than seventy-five languages and have sold upward of 3.5 million copies worldwide. Jennifer has loved television and film her whole life and has been lucky enough to develop projects with Netflix, Sony, ABC and Warner Bros. She divides her time between coastal Georgia and Los Angeles with her husband and literary cat.

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Jay McInerney – See You on the Other Side

Jay McInerney See You on the Other Side review and information of the content of new novel by the American author. Knopf will publish the Jay McInerney novel, on April 14, 2026. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Jay McInerney See You ont the Other Side reviews

Whenever a review of See You on the Other Side, Jay McInerney’s new novel, appears in the media, we’ll highlight it on this page.

Jay McInerney See You on the Other Side

See You on the Other Side

  • Author: Jay McInerney (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Knopf
  • To be released: April 14, 2026
  • Length: 304 pages
  • Format: hardback / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 30.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new Jay McInerney novel

Once again brilliantly combining the lyrical observation of F. Scott Fitzgerald with the laser-bright social satire of Evelyn Waugh, Jay McInerney gives us the stunningly accomplished and profoundly affecting final volume in the tetralogy charting the marriage of Russell and Corrinne Calloway, now in their sixties, against the backdrop of various crises that have bedeviled our society in the past forty years.

The celebration of the thirty-fifth wedding anniversary of Russell Calloway’s best friend, Washington Lee—the least likely monogamist of his acquaintance somehow having become over the years a model husband and father—at the Odeon in the Spring of 2020 sparks an at once funny and moving autumnal reckoning with mortality as the specter of the Covid-19 virus spreads. In this moment of unprecedented upheaval—frantic and fraught real-time response, piercing personal and political impact—the Calloways find themselves and their marriage tested in ways they could never have anticipated as fatal consequences ensue.

Jay McInerney was born January 13, 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of eight novels, two collections of short stories, and three collections of essays on wine. His latest book, Bright, Precious Days, was published in 2016. He lives in New York City and Bridgehampton, New York.

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Sarah Crouch – The Briars

Sarah Crouch The Briars review and information of novel and literary thriller. Atria Books will publish the novel by Sarah Crouch, on January 13, 2026. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Sarah Crouch The Briars reviews

  • “One of my favourite reads of the year, The Briars is a show stopping, accomplished mystery that both captivated and intrigued me in equal measure – I couldn’t put it down. From the very first page, Sarah Crouch draws you into the beautifully realised setting of Lake Lumin in the Pacific Northwest with lush, lyrical descriptions that left me both longing to visit and deeply chilled. With nuanced, likeable characters, Crouch weaves a complex plot and tightens the tension until breaking point as murder haunts the lake and the past returns to shadow the present. A complex, thrilling page turner that will stay with you long after you finish reading.” (Sarah Pearse, Author of The Sanatorium)
  • “Sarah Crouch’s delicate and tantalizing prose in The Briars builds the scaffolding for an emotionally charged mystery as a troubled game warden probes for answers in the wilds of the lush Pacific Northwest — and in the vagaries of the treacherous landscape within. With complicated twists that build to a satisfying surprise, The Briars delivers a powerful emotional experience readers won’t be able to shake long after they put the book down. One of the best books I’ve read this year.” (Julie Carrick Dalton, author of The Last Beekeeper)

Sarah Crouch The Briars

The Briars

  • Author: Sarah Crouch (United States)
  • Book type: literary thriller
  • Publisher: Atria Books
  • To be released: January 13, 2026
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 29.00 / $ 14.99 / $25.99
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the crime novel of Sarah Crouch

A lush and atmospheric novel of suspense following a young woman whose job as a game warden puts her in the path of a murderer in a small town eager to protect its own.

Desperate to escape a relationship gone bad, Annie Heston flees north to accept a job as a game warden in Lake Lumin, a picturesque town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

A cougar has been spotted in the area, and as Annie warns the community of the threat, she quickly discovers that not everyone in the tight-knit town is welcoming of outsiders, except for Daniel Barela, a reclusive carpenter who lives in the shadow of the mountain. They form an instant bond, though Annie soon comes to realize there is more to his past than meets the eye.

When the body of a young woman is found in the briars that border Daniel’s property, the peace Annie has found in Lake Lumin shatters. As she assists the local sheriff with the investigation, Annie must rely on her wilderness training and intuition to find a murderer hiding in plain sight.

Urgent and emotionally complex, The Briars is a captivating literary thriller that marries an exploration of human nature with a plot as thorny and twisted as the brambles for which it is named.

Sarah Crouch is born August 22, 1989 in Hockinson, Washington. She is the author of Middletide and The Briars, literary thrillers set in the Pacific Northwest, where she was raised. She is also known for her accolades in the world of athletics as a professional marathon runner.

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Sara Levine – The Hitch

Sara Levine The Hitch review and information of the content of the novel by the American writer. Roxane Gay Books will publish the new Sara Levine novel, on January 13, 2026. 

Sara Levine The Hitch reviews

  • “I was slobberingly, tail-waggingly delighted to read The Hitch—which is one of the most wildly comedic and unhinged novels I have ever encountered, while at the same time also being deeply relatable and strangely emotionally accurate. Not only was I laughing on almost every page, I was reading parts of it aloud to anybody around me who would listen. Give this book a trophy. It’s perfect.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, author)
  • “A hilarious, madcap novel about our human obsession with getting life “right,” and how the best laid plans can go astray, especially when the dark haunted soul of a corgi gets involved. This is the book I’ll recommend to people as a test of their sense of humor: if they laugh at the corgi, the yogurt crisis, the hero who cannot recognize the obvious even when it’s chewing on her pant leg, then I’ll know we’re destined to be friends.” (Nathan Hill, author)
  • “Sara Levine’s long-awaited follow-up to cult classic Treasure Island!!! does not disappoint: we find in The Hitch a plot as dark and concise as those of Hilary Mantel’s early novels, but propelled by Levine’s signature prose, sharp and hilarious. In this pitch-perfect comedy of manners, Rose, equal parts Thomas Bernhard, Elaine Benes, and health guru, might be too well-informed to make an informed decision, but seeing her try is a true delight. A relentlessly funny novel about loneliness.” (Camille Bordas)

Sara Levine The Hitch

The Hitch

  • Author: Sara Levine (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Roxane Gay Books
  • To be released: 13 January 2026
  • Length: 304 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook
  • Prize: $ 27.00
  • Order book from: Amazon

Blurb of the novel by Sara Levine

From the author of the cult classic Treasure Island!!!, a delightfully unhinged comedy following a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world.

Rose Cutler defines herself by her exacting standards. As an anti-racist, Jewish secular feminist eco-warrior, she is convinced she knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. When Rose offers to look after him while his parents visit Mexico for a week, her brother and sister-in-law reluctantly agree, provided she understands the rules—routine, bedtime, homework—and doesn’t overstep. But when Rose’s Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park, Nathan starts acting strangely: barking, overeating, talking to himself. Rose mistakes this behavior as repressed grief over the corgi’s death, but Nathan insists he isn’t grieving, and the dog isn’t dead. Her soul leaped into his body, and now she’s living inside him. Now Rose must banish the corgi from her nephew before the week ends and his parents return to collect their child.

With the ferocious absurdity of Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch and the dark, brazen humor of Melissa Broder’s Death Valley, The Hitch is a tantalizingly bizarre novel about loneliness, bad boundaries, and the ill-fated strategy of micromanaging everything and everyone around you.

Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. Her essays, stories, and aphorisms have appeared in various magazines including The Iowa Review, Nerve, Conjunctions, Necessary Fiction, Sonora Review, and others. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

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Ron Rindo – Life, and Death, and Giants

Ron Rindo Life, and Death, and Giants review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author. St. Martin’s Press will publish the new Ron Rindo novel, on october 11, 2025. 

Ron Rindo Life, and Death, and Giants review

  • “Life, and Death, and Giants is an intriguing and alluring novel from beginning to end. The events are startling, sad, amusing, invigorating, and informative. Reading it is like meeting a family that you never knew existed and becoming close friends in a few weeks. Highly recommended.” (Jane Smiley)
  • “A rare novel … Unbearably moving, yet hopeful and transcendent in all the best ways. Just read it. Lose yourself in it. Be changed by it.” (Jennie Godfrey)
  • “A small-town novel as magical and moral as a tall tale.” (Stewart O’Nan)

Ron Rindo Life, and Death, and Giants

Life, and Death, and Giants

  • Author: Ron Rindo (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
  • To be released: 11 October 2025
  • Length: 336 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook
  • Prize:
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new book by Ron Rindo

A remarkable child transforms a small rural community – and, soon, the world.

In Lakota, Wisconsin, a young, unmarried Amish woman births a miraculous, eighteen-pound baby, and no one in the community knows what to make of the boy.

Raised by his brother on a struggling farm, Gabriel Fisher walks at eight months, communicates with animals and possesses astonishing athletic abilities. When his brother dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout grandparents and, for a time, he disappears into the anonymity of Amish life.

But then, aged seventeen and nearly eight feet tall, Gabriel is spotted working in a hayfield by the local football coach and his life changes for ever.

In Life, and Death, and Giants, Gabriel’s extraordinary, timeless story is told by those whose lives are transformed by him: the veterinarian who delivers him and becomes his mentor; his grandmother, who is troubled by a deep void in her faith; the salty bar owner who acts as a bridge between the Amish and English communities in Lakota; and the football coach who tries to counsel Gabriel as his fame explodes, with consequences that no one could have anticipated.

Ron Rindo is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. He has published one previous novel, Breathing Lake Superior, and three short story collections. He lives in Pickett, Wisconsin.

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Chris Kraus – The Four Spent the Day Together

Chris Kraus The Four Spent the Day Together review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author. Scribner will publish the new Chris Kraus novel, on October 7, 2025. 

Chris Kraus The Four Spent the Day Together review

  • “The novelist Chris Kraus doesn’t demand your attention but earns it. There’s a steady quality to her observations and her truth-dealing, one that makes you want to see more clearly and live more deliberately. Some writers make life seem like a game. Kraus, who is also a filmmaker and art critic, makes it seem like a project.” (The New York Times)
  • “This is a novel of the American moment by a writer whose antennae are attuned to subtle connections and strange cross-currents. Chris Kraus has a gift for making intimate things part of a pattern and for making that pattern a fresh and engaged way of dramatizing the way we live now.” (Colm Tóibín)
  • “The Four Spent the Day Together is searing politics by storytelling, a novel constructed through counterpoint as it moves among the drowned, the drowning, and the survivors of the brutal American landscape we live in now.” (Siri Hustvedt)
  • “Unlike so many books one reads, this book is a real book. Chris Kraus is one of America’s best—purest, least corporate, most bracingly weird—writers. She’s an artist of the margins: of crime and addiction and fallenness, of the indignity of poverty and the injustices of class. She’s serious but never, ever a drag: funny and ironic, a gentle spirit who knows, when need be, how to wield a knife. American literature would be healthier—more vital, more fun—if more people read Chris Kraus.” (Benjamin Moser)
  • “The intelligence and honesty and total originality of Chris Kraus make her work not just great but indispensable…I read everything Chris Kraus writes; she softens despair with her brightness, and with incredible humor, too.” (Rachel Kushner)

Chris Kraus The Four Spent the Day Together

The Four Spent the Day Together

  • Author: Chris Kraus (United States)
  • Book type: American novel, crime novel
  • Publisher: Scribner
  • To be released: 7 October 2025
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: $ 29.00 / $ 14,99 / $ 24.99
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new book by Chris Kraus

On the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, at the end of the last decade, three teenagers shot and killed an older acquaintance after spending the day with him. In a cold, depressed town, on the fringes of the so-called “meth community,” the three young people were quickly arrested and imprisoned.

At the time of the murder, Catt Greene and her husband, Paul Garcia, are living nearby in a house they’d bought years earlier as a summer escape from Los Angeles. Locked into a period of personal turmoil, moving between LA and Minnesota—between the art world and the urban poverty of Paul’s addiction therapist jobs, the rural poverty of the icy, depressed Iron Range—Catt turns away from her own life and towards the murder case, which soon becomes an obsession. In her attempt to pierce through the brutality and despair surrounding the murder and to understand the teenagers’ lives, Catt is led back to the idiosyncratic, aspirational lives of her parents in the working-class Bronx and small-town, blue-collar Milford, Connecticut.

Written in three linked parts, The Four Spent the Day Together explores the tensions of unclaimed futures and unchosen circumstances in the age of social media, paralyzing interconnectedness, and the ever-widening gulf between the rich and poor.

Chris Kraus was born in 1955 in New Yrol City. She is a writer and critic. She studied acting and spent almost two decades making performances and experimental films in New York before moving to Los Angeles where she began writing. Her novels include Aliens & Anorexia, I Love Dick, Torpor, and Summer of Hate. She has published three books of cultural criticism—Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness, Where Art Belongs, and Social Practices. I Love Dick was adapted for television and her literary biography After Kathy Acker was published by Semiotext(e) and Penguin Press. A former Guggenheim Fellow, Kraus held the Mary Routt Chair of Writing at Scripps College in 2019 and was Writer-in-Residence at ArtCenter College between 2020–2024. She has written for various magazines and has been a coeditor of the independent press Semiotext(e) since 1990. Her work has been praised for its damning intelligence, vulnerability, and dazzling speed and has been translated into seventeen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Portia Elan – Homebound

Portia Elan Homebound review and information of the content of the coming-of-age novel by the American author. Chatto & Windus will publish the Portia Elan debut novel, on May 7, 2026. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Portia Elan Homebound reviews

  • “A joy – at once a gripping mystery that confidently spans centuries, and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human…. it kept me up all night!” (Madeline Miller)
  • “Homebound is the most original and arresting novel I’ve read in a very long time. Elan has created a century-spanning epic that’s also an utterly intimate story of love, loss, and found family. What a joy; what a marvel.” (Anna North)

Portia Elan Homebound

Homebound

  • Author: Portia Elan (United States)
  • Book type: American debut novel, coming-of-age novel
  • Publisher: Chatto & Windus
  • To be released: 7 May 2026
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
  • Prize: £16.99 / £ 8.99 / £ 14.00
  • Order book from: Amazon

Blurb of the novel by Portia Elan

Six hundred years. Five interlocking lives. One computer game. And the many paths that can lead us home.

  • 1983: a grieving teenager can’t wait to leave home.
  • 2083: a scientist makes a radical discovery about the human spirit.
  • 2586: a pirate captain navigates the perils of a flooded world.
  • Meanwhile: an astronaut is on a rescue mission in deep space.

It’s 1983 and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. In the meantime, she has work to do: her uncle, the only person who understood her, has left her a half-finished game to complete.

What Becks is coding will outlast her by centuries and shape the lives of a scientist, an astronaut and a desperate sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. It will connect these four pioneering women across time, vast oceans and far-distant planets and introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew and bring them home.

Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a wild and precarious sea adventure, a space odyssey. As it slips through time, loss, creativity, found family, it journeys deep into humanity’s future and capacity for love.

Portia Elan studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria before returning to California, where she has worked as a waitress, bookseller, teacher and public librarian. She was a 2016 Lambda Literary Fellow and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound is her first novel.

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