Check This Out with Rachel Barenbaum

A beautiful, tender, yet searing debut novel about intergenerational fractures and coming of age, following a young woman who immigrates to the United States from the Philippines and finds herself adrift between familial expectations and her own desires.

An unlikely production of Euripides in a prison quarry, set in ancient Greece with a contemporary Irish accent. As funny as it is moving, the novel is an ode to the power of art in a time of war and brotherhood in a time of enmity.

Based on (mostly) true events, "The Bullet Swallower" is a magical realism western about violence and revenge, a story that asks who pays for the sins of our ancestors, and whether it is possible to be better than our forebears.

In this historical fantasy novel, a group of passengers set out on the Trans-Siberian Express train, in a journey across a magical landscape known as “the Wastelands.” Can they trust each other even as the rules seem to be changing?

The third season of in-depth author interviews continues with Essie Chambers, author of "Swift River."

Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize, there’s a lot to unpack in this novel. Sixteen year old Diamond is the only Black person in the town of Swift River, stuck in a town she hates it as much as it hates her.

Her mother is a drug addict who can’t pay the bills, and making things even worse, Diamond is buried in an obese body she can’t escape, a symbol of the generational trauma that weighs on her every single day.

"Swift River" focuses on three generations of women in one family, the trauma they endure and pass on.

It also shows us the hope Diamond holds for her future, and a historic setting in a northern ‘sundown town,’ a town where Black people are only allowed to pass through during the day.

Set around Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, a novel about one man’s family, divided, like the river that separates him from his childhood home. The novel is about belonging, the shifting nature of memory - and bloodlines. Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize.

A heartfelt epic about friendship, betrayal, and redemption during three transformative decades in Iran.

Kaliane Bradley's debut is a time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy and a testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.

In Andrew Boryga's debut "Victim," the protagonist is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns to talk about his background in just the right way to open doors to an elite college and writing gigs. The novel asks: What does real diversity look like?

“Blank” by Zibby Owens follows the story of Pippa Jones, a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. Her solution to writer's block is an idea her 12-year old son came up with as a joke.