Hello friends and family of THL,
We’re here with our quarterly-ish installment of our newsletter to say hello introduce you to Triangle House Review’s Issue 32: The Self!! We’re so excited to be featuring brilliant writers including Alice Martin, Na Zhong, Rob Franklin, and more. We’re *also* unveiling our new masthead, including editors Emmeline Clein, Milo Walls, Becca Schuh, Lexi Kent-Monning, Rob Franklin, and Mariah Stovall.
In fact, we’re so excited about this new issue and all the new beginnings that have been happening over here at Triangle House that we are throwing a PARTY!! And we would love to see you there, so be sure to read the relevant information below and share with your cool friends.
Your 20$ donation not only supports artists in future issues but includes light bites + drinks from Springs Brewery and Yola mezcal... JOIN US! We have a headcount max, so an RSVP (sent to publicity@triangle.house!!) goes a long way, and first come first served otherwise!
THL BOOKS IN THE NEWS
We can’t, of course, have a newsletter update without telling you all about the latest book news happening over at Triangle House Literary. It’s been an incredibly busy summer in the best way, and we’ve enjoyed all sorts of celebrations…
DEAL OF THE DAY
Described by agent Emma Dries as “the book of her heart” for the past year plus, we are so thrilled to report that THE LONGEST NIGHT will be coming to bookstores near you very soon, from none other than Jenny Xu at Atria! This reported book about Indigenous communities in Alaska and the very real, very terrifying presence of the climate crisis is not one to miss. The writing is as vivid and sharp as the landscape (Dr. Lezak actually took the photo above on one of his many trips to Alaska).
Any Person Is The Only Self by Elissa Gabbert
Out this past June, APITOS continues to buzz in all the best literary circles. Read just some of the praise this gorgeous essay collection has received below, and if you’d like to come see Elissa in-person, she still has a few events lined up for this summer and early fall!
The Geek-Out Book Club at Une Année Brewery in Chicago, IL, August 14 at 7 p.m., in conversation with Kathleen Rooney (we will be discussing Lonesome Dove!).
Longfellow Books in Portland, ME, August 29 at 7 p.m., in conversation with Maureen Thorson.
The Brookline Booksmith in Boston, MA, September 10, in conversation with Laura van den Berg.
Praise for Any Person Is The Only Self:
“A work of embodied and experiential criticism, a record of its author’s shifting relationships with the literature that defines her life . . . Gabbert is a master of mood, not polemic . . . In place of the analytic pleasures of a robustly defended thesis, we find the fresh thrills of a poet’s perfected phrases and startling observations. Any Person Is the Only Self is both funny and serious, a winning melee of high and low cultural references, as packed with unexpected treasures as a crowded antique shop . . . She is a fiercely democratic thinker, incapable of snobbery and brimming with curiosity.”
— Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
"Terrific . . . A collection about reading, akin to Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris or Alejandro Zambra’s Not to Read . . . Gloriously scattershot . . . An expression of gratitude for both the act of reading in itself and for reading as a route to conversation, a means of socializing, a way to connect . . . Gabbert replicates the random swirl of a good night out . . her work sings."
—Lily Meyer, The New York Times Book Review
“Gabbert is one of my favorite living writers, whether she’s deconstructing a poem or tweeting about Seinfeld. Her essays are what I love most, and her newest collection—following 2020’s The Unreality of Memory—sees Gabbert in rare form: witty and insightful, clear-eyed and candid. I adored these essays.”
—Sophia M. Stewart, The Millions (Most Anticipated)
“Any Person is the Only Self is absolutely brilliant, full of clarity and mystery and light: Gabbert effs the ineffable, describes the impossible to describe—the state of reading, what it means to remember. I’m still thinking about these essays, by which I mean still thinking about Gabbert’s own thoughts; I keep bringing them up in conversation. Elisa Gabbert is one of my favorite living writers.”
—Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Souvenir Museum and Bowlaway
“It’s hard to think of another essayist whose intellect is so inviting, so companionable, yet so confident and persuasive—Elisa Gabbert isn’t just brilliant, she makes you feel brilliant too . . . Erudite, entertaining, inexhaustibly compelling.”
—J. Robert Lennon, author of Pieces for the Left Hand and Let Me Think
YOU ARE THE SNAKE by Juliet Escoria
A story collection from our “cult favorite,” Juliet Escoria, You Are The Snake has teeth that bite and won’t let go. Don’t take our word for it (though you should) - the praise has been continuous since before pub day earlier this summer.
Praise for You Are The Snake:
The Orange County Register, A New Spring Book You Won't Want to Miss
Nylon, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Title
"Cult favorite Juliet Escoria left San Diego for West Virginia and is back with a new collection of stories full of razor-sharp insights." —Jim Ruland, Los Angeles Times
"Juliet Escoria isn’t afraid of writing monstrous characters . . . These stories are daring and intricately crafted. But what’s really powerful about them is that, somehow, the reader still comes away sympathizing with the characters . . . The attention she pays to her characters’ darkest inner desires and the unflattering truths she dares to uncover feel more honest than most contemporary fiction." —Emily Gould, The Cut
"You Are the Snake expounds upon Juliet Escoria’s original and charming voice. Examining girlhood, desire, and yearning, Escoria’s stories are jolts of electricity that call to mind Mary Gaitskill, Elle Nash, or Julia Armfield, often pulling you in in just a few quick moments." —Sam Franzini, Our Culture Mag
"You are the Snake is evidence of a life lived on the edge of a knife . . . This book feels like a triumph . . . a model for how writing about darkness need not always come implied with a whip or a prayer, but with a ruthless eye and a killer sense of humor." —Blake Butler, Dividual
"You are the Snake [is] poised to become an instant classic." —Barrie Miskin, Write or Die
"A sharply observed and unflinching collection that perfectly captures the electric joys and sorrows of living a half-feral life." —Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Department of Speculation
"Smart and grimy, raw and moving. There is no one making more interesting work than Juliet Escoria. These stories are so beautiful and make me so uncomfortable, but that’s Escoria for you." —Chelsea Martin, author of Tell Me I'm an Artist
The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
Unabashedly the novel of the summer, The Coin is getting its well-deserved flowers. We’ve known this book, and this writer, was special from the very beginning, and it’s been nothing short of an absolute delight to see everyone else show so much love to this singular title.
Praise for The Coin:
A Bookshop Editor's Pick * A Goodreads Editors' Pick
New York Post, A Best New Book
Named a Best Book of the Summer by Time, Elle, & Vulture
Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Seattle Times, Vulture, Marie Claire, Ms., Bookshop, Literary Hub, The Millions, & Electric Literature
"[A] smart, sneering novel of capital and its consequences . . . In a spiraling, hallucinogenic plot, The Coin draws a dotted line between the narrator’s grandmother’s garden in Palestine and a splatter of excrement on New York City subway tiles; between her grandfather’s birthplace of Bisan—'now a low-income town in Israel, housing mostly Jewish families from Morocco and no Palestinians'—Stokely Carmichael and a Gucci window display appropriating the language of revolution . . . The whiplash feels intentional, funny in an absurdist way, like the narrator’s existential seesawing between jaded American consumerism and the sadness and guilt of displacement . . . The novel’s power is not in cohesion, but in chaos." —Lauren Christensen, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] sharp and disarming debut novel . . . Zaher is expert at crisp turns of phrase that reveal how brittle her narrator is . . . A sturdy novel about an unsteady person is no small feat, and Zaher’s prose is remarkably controlled." —Mark Athitakis, The Washington Post
"Birkin-bag economics meets colorism and racism and feminism and more—it’s beyond intersectionality—in Zaher’s stunning and surreal debut novel of a young Palestinian woman who lives and teaches in New York City." —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
"The Coin, the Palestinian journalist Zaher’s debut—which is, yes, about a woman unraveling in New York City—feels arrestingly new . . . Her narration is spiky and honest, her choices gleefully, consciously bad. The pleasure she takes in making those decisions and then recounting them is what makes The Coin both unusual and compelling. Our protagonist denies herself nothing she wants, and she denies her audience no detail. The combination renders the book tough to put down." —Lily Meyer, The Atlantic
"[An] unusual, powerful novel . . . Zaher captures the suffocating pain of isolation and loneliness in a manner that feels chillingly universal." —Connie Ogle, The Star Tribune
"Wondrous . . . Capitalism, materialism, love, lust, friendship, purity, the natural world, cleanliness, place, and self-image are all explored in this thunderous, lightning-speed, fast-reading tale. Zaher, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian, writes with passion and holds nothing back in her buzzy, strong debut." —Library Journal (starred review)
"When past and present, self-indulgence and self-loathing collide, the result is a bold and terrifying reinvention . . . Brilliant." —Booklist (starred review)
"[A] hypnotic debut . . . Zaher’s writing is deeply arresting, especially when her narrator is energized by her newfound sense of self-possession in New York, where she walks the streets wearing a 'violent' and 'sexual' perfume and carries a Birkin bag, which thrillingly transforms her into an object of desire . . . A tour de force." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An absorbing fiction debut with a disquieting tale about race, class, morality, and artifice . . . A perilous journey, rendered in sensuous prose." —Kirkus Reviews
“The Coin is a filthy, elegant book, keen on the fixations that overtake the body and upend a life.” —Raven Leilani, author of Luster
"The Coin is a brilliant, audacious, powerhouse of a novel. A story of obsession and appetite, politics and class, it is deliciously unruly. An exceptional debut by an outrageous new talent." —Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies and A Separation
"I loved this bonkers novel. I was hooked by the voice, and mesmerized by the glamorous and sordid hijinks. I have never read such a strange and recognizable representation of post-2016 New York City, its luxury and squalor. Zaher is a writer to watch." —Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot
With that, we’re signing off, for now! So much more to come this fall. In the meantime, enjoy Issue 32, come to our party, and read more books!!
xoxo,
THL
In what city is your party??