Min Jin Lee returns this fall with a sweeping new project. According to Publishers Weekly, the National Book Award finalist will release American Hagwon on September 29 through Cardinal ($36). Set in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis, the maximalist novel spans Seoul, Sydney, and Southern California, following two siblings who work as after-school tutors.
Literary Fiction Highlights and Major Releases
Fifteen years after his bestselling debut The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach revisits his familiar Midwestern college setting. According to Publishers Weekly, Little, Brown will publish Harbach’s The Brightness on October 27 ($32). The story reunites the original novel’s friend group in their late 20s for a wedding while introducing a current student entangled in a campus scandal.
Two-time National Book Critics Circle Award winner Edwidge Danticat explores themes of displacement and survival in her new book. According to Publishers Weekly, Knopf will release Danticat’s Dèy on August 25 ($29). The narrative centers on a Haitian American woman navigating the aftermath of a mass shooting.
Historical and International Narratives
Booker Prize winner Marlon James examines the aftermath of a violent targeted assault in his upcoming release. According to Publishers Weekly, Riverhead will publish James’s The Disappearers on September 1 ($32). Set in 1980s Jamaica, the novel follows the survivors of a homophobic attack that leaves one man dead, tracing their lives into the following decade.
Yiyun Li turns to the Napoleonic era in her latest work of fiction. According to Publishers Weekly, Farrar, Straus and Giroux will release Li’s Music Against the Night on October 13 ($29). The book tracks Irish composer John Field—inventor of the nocturne style later popularized by Chopin—alongside pianist Adelaide Percheron as she travels from French India to Paris.
Prominent Authors Return With Sophomore and Road Novels
Bonnie Garmus follows her major bestseller with a new protagonist working in the New York literary scene. According to Publishers Weekly, Scribner will publish Garmus’s Peck & Peck on October 13 ($30). The sophomore novel features a young New Yorker who rejects money-obsessed peers to pursue poetry and takes an editorial job at a prestigious journal.
Barbara Kingsolver explores memory and past romance in her upcoming book. According to Publishers Weekly, Harper will release Kingsolver’s Partita on October 6 ($32). The story focuses on an aging married woman drawn back into her past by a phone call from an old lover she met decades earlier at a music conservatory.
Patrick deWitt delivers a cross-country road narrative set during the Vietnam War era. According to Publishers Weekly, Ecco will publish deWitt’s Dodge City on September 29 ($28). The protagonist loses his college deferment after an expulsion brawl and plans to flee to Canada, visiting family members along the route from California to the Northeast.
Additional Notable Fall Debuts and Longlist Highlights
Independent and university presses are rounding out the season with experimental fiction and translated collections. According to Publishers Weekly, Akashic will release the autofiction debut Our Greatest Work: A Novel by Twins by Sam and Joe Eichner on November 10 ($28.95), while Algonquin publishes Gabriel Bump’s novel Don’t Stop Snowing on the same date ($29). Archipelago is set to release Scholastique Mukasonga’s translated story collection, Murmurs from the Hills: Rwandan Tales, on November 10 ($21).
