Annie McDermott

"From the winner of the prestigious FIL Prize in Romance Languages comes this masterpiece saga, set in the twilight of the late twentieth century, of two clashing families in coastal Portugal. With the grand sweep of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, this enduring tale transports us to a picturesque seaside town haunted by its colonial past. Considered one of Europe's most influential contemporary writers, Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge has captivated...

"A writer begins keeping a notebook of handwriting exercises hoping that, if he is able to improve his penmanship, his character will improve too. What begins as a mere physical exercise is filled involuntarily with reflections and anecdotes about living, writing, and the sense--or nonsense--of existence"--

The third and final installment of Ariana Harwicz's "Involuntary Trilogy" finds us on familiar, disquieting ground. Under the spell of a mother's madness, the French countryside transforms into a dreamscape of interconnected imagery: animals, desire, the functions of the body. Most troublingly: the comfort of a teenage son. Scorning the bourgeois mores and conventionality of their small town, she withdraws him from school and the two embark on ever...

A man and a woman meet in Lisbon and fall in love. City of Ulysses is their story, and the city's love story besides. It is a story that leads readers down multiple paths, through myth and history, reality and fantasy, literature and the visual arts, the past and the present, male and female relations, the crisis of civilization and the need to reimagine the world.

"A granddaughter and grandmother, alienated from their community, live among various sombras, shadows of the dead with whom they alone can pray and commune. When the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws the unwanted attention of locals, the women combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice"--