Empire of Wild

February 1, 2020

Award-winning Métis author Dimaline makes her debut with an American publisher, Empire of Wild, the edgy story of Joan, heard fighting vituperatively with her now missing husband, who believes she spots him posing as a charismatic preacher in a battered revival tent (75,000-copy first printing). The youngest winner ever of Italy's prestigious Premio Strega, Giordano (The Solitude of Prime Numbers) returns with Heaven and Earth to limn the enduring bonds linking Teresa to three young men she meets one summer in Puglia, her father's childhood home. From debuter Mackenzie, a Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner, One Year of Ugly (60,000-copy first printing) takes a humorous approach to recount the travails of a Venezuelan family living illegally in Trinidad. A best-selling author in mass market, McKinlay moves into trade paperback original with Paris Is Always a Good Idea, the story.` of a young woman who revisits her gap year in Ireland, France, and Italy, looking for lost loves but finding something different. In the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Macomber's A Walk Along the Beach, shy Willa--especially close to sister Harper after their mother's death--is ready to follow Harper's advice about risking love until tragedy befalls Harper. Martin returns after his high-flying debut, Early Work, with the story collection Cool for America about the gap between what people want and what they achieve. Winner of the Terry Southern Prize, Nugent shows us all the stumbling antics of near-adults in Fraternity. In Poeppel's Musical Chairs, Bridget and Will hatch a plan to lure shining-star violinist Gavin Glantz back to their Forsyth Trio, which they founded together as Juilliard students, even as Bridget wrestles with multiple family complications (40,000-copy first printing).

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Starred review from April 13, 2020
Dimaline’s inventive, passionate quest narrative (after her YA novel The Marrow Thieves) draws on the Métis myth of a werewolflike creature known as Rogarou. In the predominantly Catholic First Nations community of Arcand, Ontario, tales of the Rogarou haunt the town’s inhabitants (“Broke Lent? The rogarou will come for you”). After Joan Beausoleil argues one night with her husband, Victor, over whether she should sell her ancestral land, Victor walks out and never comes back, and Joan spends nearly a year searching for him. Dimaline wrenchingly describes Joan’s rabid determination, and conveys the passion of their early relationship. Just as Joan is about to give up hope, she recognizes Victor in a revival tent at a WalMart parking lot, but he claims not to know her and to be Rev. Eugene Wolff. Shocked and angry at being told that she’s mistaken, Joan sets out to discover what happened to him. Aided by her 12-year-old nephew and an elder who convinces Joan that Victor is under the spell of the Rogarou, Joan tracks the beast in search of answers. The novel is at times sad, at times humorous, and at times terrifying. Smartly written with believable characters, a tight plot, and breathtaking sentences, this is a must-read literary thriller. Agent: Ron Eckel, Cooke International.