‘Headshot’, Rita Bullwinkel.
The appeal of a novel about teenage girl boxers’ risks being limited to those in and around the ring. But Headshot punches above its weight. Rita Bullwinkel’s second book – following her collection of short stories, Belly Up – centres on eight young women competing in a tournament in Reno, Nevada. It’s a taut tale of intimacy, violence, control, joy, and desire.
‘Headshot’ is out now.
‘Wandering Stars’, Tommy Orange.
Tommy Orange made a splash in 2018 with his debut novel, There There, which followed Native American characters in Oakland, California, the author’s hometown. Expectations are high, then, for Wandering Stars, which serves as both a prequel and a sequel. The book centres on multiple generations of a family and the fallout of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre, in which more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed by the US Army.
‘Wandering Stars’ is out now.
‘The Morningside’, Téa Obreht.
The third novel from the Belgrade-born US author of The Tiger’s Wife and Inland began as a short story in The Decameron Project, an anthology commissioned in 2020 by The New York Times Magazine. It unfolds in a not-too-distant future in a place called Island City and follows 11-year-old Silvia, who together with her mother is forced to leave their home and move into a high-rise managed by her aunt. There, Silvia begins to unearth a few troubling family secrets.
‘The Morningside’ is out now.