SOHO PRESS Spring-Summer 2009
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SOHO PRESS Spring-Summer 2009 distributed by SSohooho CCatalogatalog SSpringpring 22009.indd009.indd 1 110/9/20080/9/2008 11:31:30:31:30 PPMM History’s famous literary duo, Johnson and Boswell, are stalked by Boswell’s mad younger brother he year is 1763. Twenty- Ttwo-year-old James Boswell of Edinburgh is “The Brothers Boswell is such an impressive book, both for its eager to advance himself in ability to inhabit its source material and for how well it shines on its London society. Today his own merits. Many novels claim to be literary thrillers, but rarely are sights are set on furthering they quite this literary and quite this thrilling. Philip Baruth has his acquaintance with Dr. written a remarkable work.” Samuel Johnson, famed for —David Liss, author of The Whiskey Rebels his Dictionary; they are go- ing to take a boat down the Thames to Greenwich. Watching them secretly And what makes you simply want to murder the pair of them, is John Boswell, James’s younger brother. As such, more than anything else, is the perfectly ludicrous way they seem he inherits neither the title to complete one another. Not quite opposites, but diff erent in a of Laird of Auchinleck, nor thousand complementary ways. Two odd human fractions who the estate. Instead, he has been sent to serve in the Army. After a have stumbled somehow onto the secret of the whole number. short period, he was found to be insane and has only recently been re- leased from confi nement. Having set out for London, John has stalked his older brother for days. Consumed with envy, John is planning to —excerpt from The Brothers Boswell take revenge on his brother and Johnson for presumed slights. He car- ries a pair of miniature pistols that fi re a single golden bullet each and there is murder in his heart. National Advertising May 2009 Philip Baruth National Publicity Fiction is an award-winning commentator for Vermont Pub- Reading Group Guide ISBN: 978-1-56947-559-1 lic Radio and a graduate of Brown University with an Bookstore co-op is available 6 X 9 • 336 pps M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at $24 Hardcover Irvine. His previous novel, The X President (Bantam, 2003) received critical acclaim. He teaches at the Uni- versity of Vermont. World English: Soho Press, Inc. All other rights: John Hawkins 3 SSohooho CCatalogatalog SSpringpring 22009.indd009.indd SSec1:2-Sec1:3ec1:2-Sec1:3 110/9/20080/9/2008 11:31:57:31:57 PPMM A supernatural epic set in 1960s Bombay fter her mother’s Adeath crossing the border from Pakistan to “In“In her stunningstunning debut novel ShShilpailpa AgAgarwalarwal takes on India during Partition, thethe ghosts that bedevilbedevil young PinkyPinky Mittal’sMittal’s extended baby Pinky was taken in family and dispatches them with rambunctious wit and by her grandmother, Maji, affection. The result is like fi nely wrought mirror work, a the matriarch of the pow- glittering tapestry of vibrant contradictions, erful Mittal family. Now characters, and mysteries. Haunting Bombay fl irts thirteen years old, Pinky deliciously with the true spirit of India.” lives with her grandmoth- —Aimee Liu, Flash House er and her uncle’s family in a bungalow on the Ma- labar Heights in Bombay. And the girl once again remembered the feel of warm While she has never really been accepted by her un- skin, the sweet breath of laughter. And the loss was cle’s family, she has always so deep, so intense that she felt a deep hatred boil had Maji’s love. up inside her chest for those who had cast her out that morning, severing her from the only place she One day, as monsoons engulf the city, Pinky opens a mysteriously bolted door, unleashing the vengeful ghosts of a drowned infant and regarded as home. its nursemaid. Three generations of the Mittal family must struggle to As the fi rst drops of elixir touched her tongue, come to terms with their secrets amidst hidden shame, forbidden love, her desire was not love. and a call for absolute sacrifi ce. But revenge. —excerpt from Haunting Bombay April 2009 National Advertising Fiction National Publicity Shilpa Agarwal ISBN: 978-1-56947-558-4 Reading Group Guide was born in Bombay and currently lives in Los Ange- 6 X 9 • 368 pps Bookstore co-op is available les. She is a graduate of Duke University and UCLA $24 Hardcover and has taught at both UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. As an unpublished novel, Haunting Bombay won the 2003 First Words Literary Prize for South Asian Writ- ers. It is her fi rst novel. World English: Soho Press, Inc. All other rights: Inkwell Management 5 SSohooho CCatalogatalog SSpringpring 22009.indd009.indd SSec1:4-Sec1:5ec1:4-Sec1:5 110/9/20080/9/2008 11:32:10:32:10 PPMM Silesian Station Kiyo’s Story DAVID DOWNING A Japanese-American Family’s Quest for the American Dream KIYO SATO John Russell plays a dangerous spy Winner of the 2008 William Saroyan game on the eve of WWII Prize for Nonfi ction “Grade: A.... Downing’s mingling of Praise for Kiyo’s Story, originally published historyh and thrills makes this a must read.” as Dandelion Through the Crack: —Rocky Mountain News “Vividly honest, deeply moving.” “Russell is a canny and likable —Bill Hosokawa, Out of the Frying Pan: protagonist.” Refl ections of Japanese American —BookPage “A magnifi cent memoir, fully worthy of be- “Wry, secretive and clever…. Russell is ing compared to Farewell to Manzanar. goodg company in this intelligent thriller.” I cannot praise its pointillist realism, its Zen- —Hadassah Magazine like austerity, highly enough. Exquisite.” —Kevin Starr, California: A History “Twists and turns aplenty make this es- pionagep novel a superb read full of tension “Taken simply as a family chronicle, and suspense…. An amazing piece of it is moving and graceful. But it is fi ction which I hope is part of a much also a powerful, thought-provoking larger series.” historical document.” —Crimespree Magazine —James Fallows, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy ummer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American hen Kiyo’s father left Japan, his mother toldld him hi never to return: there h was Scitizenship when his girlfriend Effi is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his Wno future there for him. Shinji Sato arrived in California determined to new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now plant his roots in the land of opportunity even though he could not become a citizen or own land. Education was his watchword. he’s being blackmailed. To free Effi , he must agree to work for the Nazis. Can he turn this situation to his advantage? He and his wife and their nine American-born children labored in the fi elds to- gether, building a successful farm. Yet at the outbreak of World War II, when Kiyo, DAVID DOWNING is the author of numerous works of fi ction and nonfi ction the eldest, was eighteen, the Satos were ordered to Poston Internment Camp. for both adults and children, including Zoo Station, the fi rst novel featuring John Russell. He lives in Guildford, England. This memoir tells the story of the family’s struggle to endure in these harsh condi- tions and to rebuild their lives afterward in the face of lingering prejudice. May 2009 April 2009 Fiction Reading Group Guide National Advertising Memoir ISBN: 978-1-56947-573-7 Book store co-op is available National Publicity ISBN: 978-1-56947-569-0 6 X 9 • 320 pps Bookstore co-op is available 6 X 9 • 352 pps $13 Paperback $25 Hardcover North American rights: Soho Press, Inc. All other rights: Mulcahy and Viney All rights: Soho Press, Inc. 6 7 SSohooho CCatalogatalog SSpringpring 22009.indd009.indd SSec1:6-Sec1:7ec1:6-Sec1:7 110/9/20080/9/2008 11:32:40:32:40 PPMM A man recalls his bittersweet days at Eton and his torrid affair with an older woman. eventeen-year-old Kim is a “WhatWhat a read! EveryEvery schoolboschoolboy’sy’s dream comes true iinn ththisis Sstudent at one of Britain’s deftly-written treatment of illicit romance. A triumph.” most extraordinary institu- —Alexander McCall Smith tions, Eton College—crammed with over a thousand boys and “My own piano teacher was called Mr Bagston and frankly I not a girl in sight. His head is don’t think any power on earth could have persuaded us to cre- full of the Falklands War and a ate a scene of the kind Coles so movingly describes.” possible army career, until the —Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and author of day he hears his new piano Have I Got Views for You teacher, India, a beautiful but pained young woman, playing “An outstanding debut novel. A wonderful story of fi rst love. a prelude from Bach’s Well- Few male authors can write about romance in a way which ap- Tempered Clavier. Kim’s life peals to women—but Coles has managed it quite brilliantly.” will never be the same again. —Sunday Express (UK) An intensely passionate aff air develops between him and his twenty-three-year-old teacher, and he wallows in the wild and unac- The year was 1982 and the school was Eton College, a seething customed thrill of fi rst love. Twenty-fi ve years later, Kim recalls that cauldron of pubescent boys and humming testosterone. It was every- heady summer and how their fl edgling relationship was so brutally thing you’ve heard about it and more.