We’re excited to share this year-end roundup of novels, novellas, short story collections, and fiction anthologies published in 2022 by independent literary publishers! (Read our year-end roundups for nonfiction, poetry, children’s books, and art and drama as well.)
Novels
Autumn House Press | January 4, 2022
Winner of the 2020 Fiction Prize, selected by Dan Chaon, this debut novel “tells the story of nine-year-old Raymond, nicknamed ‘Ray Moon’ by Molly, his adoptive caretaker, a waitress, and the former partner of his recently deceased uncle.”
The Tenderest of Strings by Steven Schwartz
Regal House Publishing | January 4, 2022
In this novel, Schwartz explores “what it takes to survive as a family in a small Western town that beckons from afar but will put its newcomers to the test of their lives.”
Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman
Regal House Publishing | January 11, 2022
Out Front the Following Sea is “a historical epic of one woman’s survival in a time when the wilderness is still wild, heresy is publicly punishable, and being independent is worse than being scorned—it is a death sentence.”
Europa Editions | January 11, 2022
Winner of the Sala Novel Award, this “riveting, feminist reply to the book considered to be Coetzee’s masterwork is also a moving story of one woman trying to put her life back together after trauma.”
The Agents by Grégoire Courtois
Translated by Rhonda Mullins
Coach House Books | January 18, 2022
In this novel, Courtois “turns his hand from literary horror to futuristic dystopianism in this unforgettable marriage between The Office, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Tron.”
Dead Fish Wind by Cooper Levey-Baker
Madville Publishing | January 18, 2022
This novel “is a bizarre coming-of-age story that is lyrical and gross, tragic, goofy, and maybe a bit tender.”
The Other Ones by Dave Housley
Alan Squire Publishing | January 18, 2022
The Other Ones “shines a light on our contemporary relationships to money, work, and one another,” following a group of office workers after their colleagues win the lottery.
Boccaccio in the Berkshires by Alan Govenar
Deep Vellum Publishing | January 18, 2022
Inspired by The Decameron, this novel “chronicles the foibles of seven women and three men, all in their twenties, who meet in an online chat room for asymptomatic pandemic survivors.”
Henry’s Chapel by Graham Guest
Sagging Meniscus | February 1, 2022
In Guest’s novel “we watch a film by proxy, through the eyes of a narrator who offers a play-by-play account, complete with probing analysis, of Albarb Noella’s Lawnmower of a Jealous God.”
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
Graywolf Press | February 1, 2022
Petterson’s first novel “features a young Arvid Janssen, who is now twelve, on the verge of his teenage years and beginning to understand more about the world and his place in it.”
Men in My Situation by Per Petterson
Translated from the Norwegian by Ingvild Burkey
Graywolf Press | February 1, 2022
Petterson’s new novel “finds Arvid Jansen in a tailspin, unable to process the grief of losing his parents and brothers in a tragic ferry accident.”
Stories of a Life by Nataliya Meshchaninova
Translated from the Russian by Fiona Bell
Deep Vellum | February 1, 2022
Stories of a Life is a “memoir-novel of one young woman’s experiences growing up around, and despite, men in the post-Soviet malaise of the late ‘90s.”
Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls
Transit Books | February 2, 2022
This final installment of Jon Fosse’s Septology follows “the lives of the two Asles as younger adults in flashbacks: the narrator meets his lifelong love, Ales; joins the Catholic Church; and makes a living by trying to paint away all the pictures stuck in his mind.”
Liberty Call by Dennis Doherty
The Mad Duck Coalition | February 4, 2022
In this novel, “Walter is the newest arrival to the U.S. Navy Base at Olongapo, in the heart of the Philippines.”
The Bear Woman by Karolina Ramqvist
Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Coach House Books | February 8, 2022
This novel blending autofiction and the essay “takes us on a journey of feminism and literary detective work that spans centuries and continents.”
Save the Village by Michele Herman
Regal House Publishing | February 11, 2022
Herman’s novel is “at once a love story about Greenwich Village and a reflection on a changing world.”
Pollak’s Arm by Hans von Trotha
Translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer
New Vessel Press | February 15, 2022
Set in 1943 in the Vatican, this novel “illuminates the chasm between civilization and barbarism by spotlighting a little-known figure devoted to knowledge and the power of artistic creation.”
The Almond in the Apricot by Sara Goudarzi
Deep Vellum | February 15, 2022
This debut novel “follows a woman and a young girl a world apart from each other whose paths cross in the most unusual of ways.”
Regal House Publishing | February 18, 2022
This novel “burns with the urgency of its young narrator who bears witness to a world of desperate people flailing inside a broken system.”
City of Incurable Women by Maud Casey
Bellevue Literary Press | February 22, 2022
According to Sigrid Nunez, this novel “is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria—and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men.”
Feminist Press | March 22, 2022
In this novel set during the ongoing pandemic, “a queer disabled woman bikes through a locked-down NYC for the ex-girlfriend who broke her heart.”
Myth of Pterygium by Diego Gerard Morrison
Autumn House Press | March 24, 2022
This debut novel is set in “a vaguely dystopian, yet also realistic, Mexico City—endless traffic jams, relentless clouds of pollution, economic hardships, and the ever-present threat of drug cartels.”
Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
Seven Stories Press | April 5, 2022
Set in the sixth century, this historical novel is written in the form of a biography by Belisarius’s manservant.
Country of Origin by Dalia Azim
Deep Vellum/A Strange Object | April 12, 2022
This novel “is a multigenerational family saga that cuts between political revolution in 1950s Egypt and the personal revolutions of four family members whose lives intersect around the disappearance of one of their own.”
Revenge of the Scapegoat by Caren Beilin
Dorothy, a publishing project | April 12, 2022
In this novel, “Iris, an adjunct at a city arts college, receives a terrible package: recently unearthed letters that her father wrote to her in her teens, in which he blames her for their family’s crises.”
Translated from Korean by Anton Hur
Feminist Press | April 12, 2022
In this novel set over the course of one summer in Seoul, Shin “explores misogyny, erasure, and repressed desire.”
Book*hug Press | April 19, 2022
This novel “is a pitiless, bold work of intense psychological realism narrated by a professionally successful but socially bankrupt anti-hero who expects global connection and local anonymity.”
Bellevue Literary Press | April 19, 2022
Phillips’s debut is a “novel of personal awakening that offers a withering critique of toxic philanthropy and the American meritocracy.”
A Strange Woman by Leylâ Erbil
Translated from Turkish by Amy Spangler and Nermin Menemencioğlu
Deep Vellum | April 26, 2022
This debut novel “by one of Turkey’s most radical female authors tells the story of an aspiring intellectual in a complex, modernizing country.”
Their Four Hearts by Vladimir Sorokin
Translated from Russian by Max Lawton
Dalkey Archive | April 26, 2022
This “grotesque, absurdist” novel “follows four individuals set upon a common goal of destruction and violence.”
Monkey Business by Carleton Eastlake
Red Hen Press | May 3, 2022
According to Lee Goldberg, this is “a raw, jarring, darkly funny primer and philosophical treatise on navigating the politics of television and lust that’s dressed up as a noir novel.”
Ready, Set, Oh by Diane Josefowicz
Flexible Press | May 3, 2022
Set in 1960s Rhode Island, this debut novel ” chronicles the struggles of a man who has just lost his draft deferment, a young pregnant woman with fragile mental health, and a UFO-chasing astronomer.”
Down to the River by Anne Whitney Pierce
Regal House Publishing | May 3, 2022
According to Tom Perrotta, Down to the River “is a deeply absorbing family saga that unfolds in the vicinity of Harvard Square during the turbulence of the late Sixties and early Seventies.”
Palace of Flies by Walter Kappacher
Translated from German by Georg Bauer
New Vessel Press | May 3, 2022
This novel “portrays a famed author in a moment of crisis: an aging Hugo von Hofmannsthal returns to a summer resort outside of Salzburg that he visited as a child.”
Saint Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber
Coffee House Press | May 10, 2022
In this “darkly comic mediation on art, obsession, and the enigmatic power of friendship…former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out.”
In the Lonely Backwater by Valerie Nieman
Regal House Publishing/Fitzroy Books | May 10, 2022
According to Dawn Raffel, “In the Lonely Backwater is not only a page-turning thriller but also a complex psychological portrait of a young woman dealing with guilt, betrayal, and secrecy. “
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Translated from French by Ros Schwartz
Transit Books | May 10, 2022
Now back in print, I Who Have Never Known Men “is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation.”
The Crocodile Bride by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen
Hub City Press | May 10, 2022
This debut novel “follows eleven-year-old Sunshine Turner and her troubled father Billy as the secrets of their family’s past swirl around them in the one-road town of Fingertip, Louisiana.”
Dalkey Archive | May 10, 2022
According to Mark Haber, this debut novel “questions the role of capitalism in creation, while proving it’s nearly impossible to make art if one thinks about it too much.”
99 Miles From L.A. by P. David Ebersole
Pelekinesis | May 13, 2022
In this novel, “Frank, a frustrated singer-turned-music professor finds himself entangled in a love affair with Shelley, a highly-educated, unhappily married woman.”
A Convergence of Solitudes by Anita Anand
Book*hug Press | May 17, 2022
This debut novel “presents the lives of two families across the Partition of India, Vietnam’s Operation Babylift, and two Quebec referendums.”
Ursula Lake by Charles Harper Webb
Red Hen Press | May 17, 2022
According to Ivy Pochoda, in this novel “Webb uses his poet’s voice to weave a haunting tale that marries the latent horrors of the natural world to the dark hearts of the humans who inhabit it.”
Translated from Spanish by Jessica Sequeira
Seven Stories Press | May 17, 2022
This novel “tells the story of the Deliuskin family’s secret interventions in music, mysticism and revolutionary thought over the course of three centuries, spanning six generations.”
Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness
Translated from Icelandic by Philip Roughton
Archipelago Books | May 17, 2022
This novel is “a feminist coming-of-age tale, an elegy to the plight of the working class and the corrosive effects of social and economic inequality, and a poetic window into the arrival of modernity in a tiny industrial town.”
What Disappears by Barbara Quick
Regal House Publishing | May 17, 2022
What Disappears is “a gripping multi-generational tale that begins in 1880s Tsarist Russia and ends in Paris at the start of World War I.”
The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali by Uzma Aslam Khan
Deep Vellum | May 17, 2022
This novel “set in the Andaman Islands over the course of oppressive imperial regimes… is a complex, gripping homage to those omitted from the collective memory.”
Seven Stories Press | May 31, 2022
In this novel, McBay “toggles between the years 2028 and 2051 to give us the experience, with breathtaking realism, of what might happen in the span of just one generation to a society that is already on the brink of collapse.”
Pelekinesis | June 1, 2022
According to Rodney Ascher, this is “not just a book about a ventriloquist but an extraordinary performance by one, as Tim Kirk expertly channels the voice of Joe McClain, a lonely small town innocent adrift in the wilderness of Hollywood.”
Remnants by Celine Huyghebaert
Translated from French by Aleshia Jensen
Book*hug Press | June 7, 2022
This novel “is an exploration of our relationships with family and perception, told through a profound investigation of a father’s life and sudden death.”
Wash Ashore: A Tale of Cape Cod by Mary Petiet
Sea Crow Press | June 7, 2022
In this novel, “when Olive Adams comes to Cape Cod to live in her aunt’s old house, she finds her fortune shifting like the sands. Can she navigate a new life in a welcoming but mysterious house?”
Now Lila Knows by Elizabeth Nunez
Akashic Books | June 7, 2022
In this novel, “Caribbean professor Lila Bonnard arrives in Vermont for a short-term teaching position and is forced to confront the terrible legacy of American (in)justice.”
I Only Cry with Emoticons by Yuvi Zalkow
Red Hen Press | June 7, 2022
This novel is “is a quirky comedy that reveals the cost of being disconnected—even when we’re using a dozen apps on our devices to communicate—and an awkward man’s search for real connections, on and offline.”
Diary of a Film by Niven Govinden
Deep Vellum | June 14, 2022
In this novel, “a filmmaker meets a woman named Cosima at an Italian espresso bar, spinning a gorgeous tale of love and the creative process.”
A Suitable Companion for the End of Your Life by Robert McGill
Coach House Books | June 14, 2022
This novel is “a darkly comic dystopian tale that probes our anxieties around boundaries, whether territorial or bodily, and our fraught desire not to die alone.”
Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love by Carlos Allende
Red Hen Press | June 21, 2022
Allende’s novel is “a campy dark comedy for the angry and the disenchanted.”
The Second Substance by Anne Lardeux
Translated from French by Pablo Strauss
Coach House Books | June 21, 2022
In this novel, “squatters at a rural gas station try to find freedom and build something new on the ashes of our petrocivilization.”
Genesis Road by Susan O’Dell Underwood
Madville Publishing | June 21, 2022
This novel “is a sprawling travel narrative that centers on Glenna Daniels, a woman from Appalachia, and her childhood best friend Carey, a gay man.”
A Good Girl by Johnnie Bernhard
Texas Review Press | July 1, 2022
This novel, published in a second edition, “examines the numbing work of raising children and burying parents through six generations.”
How We Came to Be by Johnnie Bernhard
Texas Review Press | July 1, 2022
In this novel, “Karen Anders, a high school English teacher and the adoptive mother of Tiffany, comes to terms with being a single-parent and a clumsy drunk in the multicultural melting pot of Houston, Texas.”
Translated from German by Adrian Nathan West
Archipelago Books | July 5, 2022
In this novel, “writing and smoking become intertwined through the act of remembering, as Brenner, a fallible, wounded, yet lovable antihero, searches for epiphany, to unearth memories just out of reach.”
Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé
Akashic Books | July 5, 2022
This novel “shows us an unseen Washington filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim itself.”
Till the Wheels Fall Off by Brad Zellar
Coffee House Press | July 12, 2022
Zellar’s latest book is a novel “about rural Midwestern life, nostalgia, neurodiversity, masculinity, and family—with a built-in soundtrack.”
The Mirror & The Monkey by R. S. Deese and Chuck Wadey
Pelekinesis | July 15, 2022
This novel-length fable “is both new and old, full of novelties yet awash in motifs warm from the folk unconscious.”
Madville Publishing | July 18, 2022
This novel follows a man “still grieving his wife’s early death” who “must learn that what his family needs of him is not stuff, but himself.”
Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh
Akashic Books | August 2, 2022
In this novel following an Iranian war reporter, Abdoh “captures the horror, confusion, and absurdity of combat from a seldom-glimpsed perspective.”
Beyond the Rio Gila by Scott G. Hibbard
Riverfeet Press | August 9, 2022
This historical novel “follows the U.S. Army and a Mormon Battalion—with families in tow—on an 1840s perilous trek across the daunting wilderness of the American frontier—the longest march in U.S. infantry history.”
Consecration Pond by Laura Bonazzoli
Toad Hall Editions | August 10, 2022
The linked stories in this novel, all set at the same pond in rural Maine, “offer a meditation on the nature of wisdom, the risks and gifts of allowing ourselves to be seen, and the challenge of creating meaning in the wake of loss.”
Translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
Restless Books | August 16, 2022
Winner of the 2019 French Voices Grand Prize, this novel is “about a family torn apart by secrets and the legacy of colonialism and held together by nine-year-old Pina, a girl shouldering the immeasurable weight of her family’s traumas.”
Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy by Michael Simms
Madville Publishing | August 16, 2022
In this novel, “Jesus, Xavi, Destroyer of Worlds, and the Archangel Michael incarnate as 12 year old boys in modern day Los Angeles. Their assignment is to destroy the city but Jesus isn’t so sure.”
Water Over Stones by Bernardo Atxaga
Translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa and Thomas Bunstead
Graywolf Press | August 16, 2022
This novel “follows a group of interconnected people in a small village in the Basque Country” whose “lives run together and, over time, technology and industry bring new changes as the wheel of life turns.”
Let No One Sleep by Juan José Millás
Translated from Spanish by Thomas Bunstead
Bellevue Literary Press | August 23, 2022
Let No One Sleep is a novel “in which the mundane and extraordinary collide, art revives and devastates, and identity is unhinged by the treacherous forces of contemporary society.”
Song of the Chimney Sweep by Tamatha Cain
Orange Blossom Publishing | August 30, 2022
According to Liza Nash Taylor, this novel “captures a city in time, with a well-researched, atmospheric story of love, sacrifice, family, and loss, told against the backdrop of the sixties music scene in Florida.”
Out Stealing Water by Roxane Doty
Regal House Publishing | August 30, 2022
According to Patricia Grady Fox, this novel follows “a makeshift family facing eviction from their trailers on a dirt lot in the city of Tempe.”
It’s Not Nothing by Courtney Denelle
Santa Fe Writers Project | September 1, 2022
This novel follows a woman as she “drifts from anonymous beds and bars in Providence, to a homeless shelter hidden among the hedge-rowed avenues of Newport, and through the revolving door of service jobs and quick-fix psychiatric care, always grasping for hope, for a solution.”
Voices in the Dead House by Norman Lock
Bellevue Literary Press | September 6, 2022
The ninth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, Voices in the Dead House is “a masterful dual portrait of two iconic authors who took different paths toward chronicling a country beset by prejudice and at war with itself.”
Loving the Dead and Gone by Judith Turner-Yamamoto
Regal House Publishing | September 6, 2022
In this novel, “a freak car crash in 1960s rural North Carolina puts in motion moments of grace that bring redemption to two generations of women and the lives they touch.”
Book*hug Press | September 13, 2022
Knight’s novel is an “exploration of the complexity within mother-daughter relationships and the dynamic vitality of Vancouver’s former Hogan’s Alley neighbourhood.”
Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga
Translated from French by Mark Polizzotti
Archipelago Books | September 13, 2022
This novel “recounts, in four beautifully woven parts, the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries’ determination to replace them with European Christianity.”
Translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Archipelago Books | September 13, 2022
In this novel, an unnamed narrator “tends to her husband, stricken with cancer, in the final months of his life.”
Painting Beyond Walls by David Rhodes
Milkweed Editions | September 13, 2022
According to Bennard Fajardo, in this novel “Rhodes returns to the Midwest with this tale set in the near-future about humanity’s relationship with each other, with nature, and with the self.”
2 A.M. in Little America by Ken Kalfus
Milkweed Editions | September 13, 2022
This novel “imagines a future in which sweeping civil conflict has forced America’s young people to flee its borders, into an unwelcoming world.”
Returning from Silence: Jenny’s Story by Michèle Sarde
Translated from French by Rupert Swyer
Swan Isle Press | September 15, 2022
Sarde’s novel “tells the story of a Jewish family in World War II and reaches deep into Jewish history.”
All the Tiny Beauties by Jenn Scott
Acre Books | September 15, 2022
Scott’s novel “follows five characters in California as their lives intertwine.”
Split/Lip Press | September 20, 2022
This novel “tells the coming-of-age story of Subramaniam, a second-generation immigrant of Indian descent, exploring what it means to make a life in a country both insular and boundless.”
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn
Bellevue Literary Press | September 20, 2022
Halfon’s novel is “a new installment in his hero’s nomadic odyssey as he searches for answers surrounding his grandfather’s abduction.”
Translated from the Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan
Restless Books | September 20, 2022
This novel is “a gripping examination of the complexities of military service as experienced by Abigail, a psychologist who becomes implicated in the dilemmas soldiers encounter both on and off the battlefield.”
Three Muses by Martha Anne Toll
Regal House Publishing | September 20, 2022
Three Muses is “a love story that enthralls; a tale of Holocaust survival venturing through memory, trauma, and identity, while raising the curtain on the unforgiving discipline of ballet.”
Regal House Publishing | September 27, 2022
This novel “chronicles the struggles of a writer, Harrison Mirth, a romantic man who writes about love and tries to find it through three marriages, in three cities, and always with renewable hope.”
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
Coach House Books | September 27, 2022
The Sleeping Car Porter “brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways.”
Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin
Translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang
Restless Books | September 27, 2022
This debut novel “confronts familial love, duty, mortality, and generational schism through the incendiary gaze of a tradition-bound mother faced with her daughter’s queer relationship.”
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
In My Secret Life “follows the adventures of Amelia, a freelance art and fashion model who also does adult content.”
The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane
Forest Avenue Press | October 4, 2022
Cochrane’s novel is “a loose retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ that centers queer and trans characters.”
Freeway: La Movie by Jorge Enrique Lage
Translated from the Spanish by Lourdes Molina
Deep Vellum | October 4, 2022
This “cyberpunk novel set in mid-21st century Cuba… crosses the absurdity of American pop culture with the deep, fragmented unease of Cuban-US relations.”
The Language of Bodies by Suzanne Dewitt Hall
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
Dewitt Hall’s novel “probes the seduction of vengeance using vivid, sensual imagery to explore how love transcends the particulars of body parts, and how revenge blurs the line between victim and perpetrator, hero and villain.”
Book*hug Press | October 4, 2022
This novel “explores the nature of relationships faunal and human, and reminds us of the challenges of finding one’s place in society.”
Life Is Everywhere by Lucy Ives
Graywolf Press | October 4, 2022
Ives’s novel “captures emotional events that hover fitfully at the borders of visibility and intelligibility, showing how the past lives on, often secretly and at the expense of the present.”
Angel of Ambition by Glenn Kaplan
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
In this thriller spanning “London to New York to super-yachts in the Caribbean, Angela plays a ruthless game of deception, betrayal and murder to try to win the ultimate prize.”
The Devil Hound by Franklin E. Lamca
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
Set in mid-eighteenth century Europe and the Americas, this novel follows two Romani brothers searching for their mother.
The New Empire by Alison McBain
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
Set in “a much different America than we’ve read about in the history books,” this novel “paints a vibrant picture that draws strongly on a non-Eurocentric worldview.”
The Solar System by Gregory L. Norris
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
Norris’s science fiction novel explores “some of the wonders and adventures to be experienced from Sol to Pluto within The Solar System.”
The Strangers of Braamfontein by Onyeka Nwelue
Sandorf Passage | October 4, 2022
In this novel set in Johannesburg, South Africa, “two strangers, both of them from other countries, struggle to fulfill the dreams that urged them to leave home.”
Find Me in the Time Before by Robin Stevens Payes
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
In this novel about time travel, “no spacetime is out of bounds, history is nothing like what you learn in school, and the future is yours to imagine into being.”
Catastrophe Theory by Rebecca Lowry Warchut
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
In this novel, “due to a rare brain tumor, Vera Garcia’s soccer career is suddenly sidelined at the start of her senior year.”
Some Months in 1968 by Baron Wormser
Woodhall Press | October 4, 2022
This novel follows “the Brownsons, a family of five living in suburban Baltimore, who experience one of the most tumultuous moments in American history.”
A Deadly Mermaid Fetish by Pamela Mones
Woodhall Press | October 5, 2022
In this novel “a dead girl, dressed in a tattered, mermaid costume and a harpoon jutting from her chest, washes ashore on a world-renowned beach in Florida.”
Delphic Oracle, U.S.A. by Steven Mayfield
Regal House Publishing | October 11, 2022
According to Alice Kaltman, this novel is “a multi-generational romp that rolls along with the fevered pitch of a screwball comedy.”
Coach House Books | October 11, 2022
According to Deborah Willis, in this novel “Taggart illuminates the dark corners of delusion (or is it delusion?) and a mental-health system that consigns people to endless limbo.”
Barzakh: The Land In-Between by Moussa Ould Ebnou
Translated from the French by Marybeth Timmermann
Iskanchi Press | October 17, 2022
In this novel set in the distant future, “members of the Institute for the Archeology of Human Thought unearth the bones of Gara, a young man, whose Myelin will unravel the secrets of his ancient consciousness.”
Translated from the Danish by Marina Allemano
Book*hug Press | October 18, 2022
Hunger Heart is “a sensual, profound work of autofiction about love, relationships, mental illness, and recovery by one of Denmark’s most celebrated literary writers.”
A Knit of Identity by Chris Motto
Regal House Publishing | October 18, 2022
In this novel, “Danny is left struggling to find her identity in a world that doesn’t want her. That is until she stumbles into a hole-in-the-wall bar in a small South Carolina town.”
My Manservant and Me by Hervé Guibert
Translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
Nightboat Books | October 25, 2022
“Written from the uneasy perspective of an aging, incontinent author of extremely successful middlebrow plays,” My Manservant and Me is “a story about the trials and tribulations of having a live-in valet.”
Translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter
Deep Vellum | October 25, 2022
Combining fiction with autobiography and history, Solenoid “ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.”
Believers And Hustlers by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo
Iskanchi Press | October 28, 2022
This novel is “an exposé into the underbelly of Nigeria’s Pentecostal fervor and the lives of rich celebrity posterity preachers, their motivations, rivalries, pretenses and fears.”
Roman Roulette: Murder in the Catacombs by David Downie
Alan Squire Publishing | November 1, 2022
In this Daria Vinci Investigation novel, “the glamorous and high-principled police commissioner of DIGOS, Italy’s FBI, must investigate what at first seems a simple case of suicide and in so doing attracts the attention of her boss, the Questor of the Province of Rome.”
Graywolf Press | November 1, 2022
Dr. No is “a sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising.”
A Cat at the End of the World by Robert Perišić
Translated from the Croatian by Vesna Maric
Sandorf Passage | November 1, 2022
According to Nell Zink, this novel “moves past realism and insight into the realm of expression and symbol.”
Graywolf Press | November 1, 2022
First published in 1995, this novel “unfolds to reveal the deeply entwined stories of the three generations of Little’s family, including Stan, a veteran of the Vietnam War who believes Little is his son.”
No One Weeps for Me Now by Sergio Ramirez
Translated from the Spanish by Daryl R. Hague
McPherson & Company | November 3, 2022
Ramirez’s second volume of The Managua Trilogy “is infused with his mastery of complex narrative, sharp characterization, ironic humor, and ethos of human resilience.”
Against the Grain by Anne Dimock
Woodhall Press | November 8, 2022
In this novel set in Jamestown, New Jersey, in 1962-1964, “six characters intersect in a conflict of change and complacency.”
Leave the Night to God by R. L. Peterson
Regal House Publishing | November 8, 2022
According to Matthew J. Pallamary, this novel is “a true to life ‘great escape’ seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old.”
The Age of Goodbyes by Li Zi Shu
Translated from the Chinese by YZ Chin
Feminist Press | November 8, 2022
According to Karen Cheung, this novel is “a sprawling Southeast Asian epic featuring kopitiams, mosquito coils, and serialized television dramas; a sequence of not-quite-love stories that aches with longing; and an utterly self-conscious commentary on the limits of narratives.”
Headless World, or, The Problem of Time by Ascher/Straus
McPherson & Company | November 10, 2022
“Impressionistic, disruptive, and hermetically philosophical,” this novel “confronts the invention of Time within the universe of human experience, memory and desire.”
The Last Days of Terranova by Manuel Rivas
Translated from the Galician by Jacob Rogers
Archipelago Books | November 15, 2022
This novel “tells of Vicenzo Fontana, the elderly owner of the long-standing Terranova Bookstore, on the day it’s set to close due to the greed of real-estate speculators.”
My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region by Alina Adams
History Through Fiction | November 15, 2022
Adams’s novel “is rooted in detailed research about a little known chapter of Soviet and Jewish history while exploring universal themes of identity, love, loss, war, and parenthood.”
Shadow Valley by Nik Xandir Wolf
Kelp Journal | November 15, 2022
This “epic late 80s Cali noir thriller” follows “lovers on the lam, seizing life in the face of death.”
Sea Crow Press | November 15, 2022
In this novel, “a stunning betrayal forces a young woman to flee a relationship and forge a new life in one of the most brutal landscapes on earth.”
Red Hen Press | November 15, 2022
According to Jack Smith, “MacLeish Sq. is a compelling psychological novel about personal identity, about loss, about delusion, and about the power of literature, of story, to make sense of one’s life.”
The Cyclone Release by Bruce Overby
Madville Publishing | November 15, 2022
According to Danielle Girard, this novel “speaks to the unpredictability of love and loss and the seemingly heartless way life changes on a dime, while offering readers an intimate view into the bizarre landscape of the Silicon Valley tech start-up.”
Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Archipelago Books | November 15, 2022
According to Alev Scott, in this novel “Soysal unflinchingly exposed the suffering and defiance of women in 1970s Turkey, and more broadly the conflicts inherent in personal and political loyalties which continue to resound in our time.”
Jaguars and Other Game by Brynn Barineau
Orange Blossom Publishing | November 22, 2022
According to Lynn Cullen, this novel is the “tale of three bold women who more than held their own in the rough-and-tumble world of 1808 Rio de Janeiro. ”
Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls
Transit Books | November 22, 2022
The three volumes of Jon Fosse’s Septology collected here for the first time—The Other Name, I is Another, and A New Name—are “a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience.”
The Mystery of Iniquity by Daniel Taylor
Slant Books | December 5, 2022
In this final title in the Jon Mote Mysteries, “our accidental sleuth and his sister Judy find themselves entangled in an international web of evil done and evil revenged.”
Hemlock Hollow by Culley Holderfield
Regal House Publishing | December 6, 2022
This novel, following a college professor who discovers a century-old journal, “is about how we forever haunt the places we love and how they haunt us in return.”
Oranges for Magellan by Richard Martin
Regal House Publishing | December 13, 2022
According to Jim Nichols, this novel “is a madly lyrical romp of a tale, told with great authority and populated with characters you won’t easily forget.”
Someone Speaks Your Name by Luis García Montero
Translated from the Spanish by Katie King
Swan Isle Press | December 21, 2022
This novel follows “an idealistic student who explores the power of literature in Franco’s Spain.”
Novellas
The Encantadas by Herman Melville
Wild Lot Press | May 1, 2022
Featuring a new introduction by Elizabeth Hennessy and illustrations by Eric Tonzola, Melville’s novella “records the dawn of the anthropocene as it unfolds amid the teeming, treacherous islands of the Galápagos.”
The Scent of Light by Kristjana Gunnars
Coach House Books | May 17, 2022
According to Kazim Ali, Gunnars’s five collected novellas are “comprised of a scintillating blend of fiction, autobiography, literary theory, and philosophy.”
The Reservoir by David Duchovny
Akashic Books | June 7, 2022
In Duchovny’s novella, “a former Wall Street veteran, quarantined by the coronavirus, becomes consumed with madness—or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate.”
Things to Come and Go by Bette Howland
A Public Space Books | June 28, 2022
Introduced by Rumaan Alam and originally published in 1983, Things to Come and Go is a “trio of novellas about three women’s bold exploration of the desire for belonging as it comes into conflict with the fulfillment of our individual selves.”
Three Days in the Pink Tower by EV Knight
Creature Publishing | July 12, 2022
In this novella of speculative autofiction, Knight “reclaims the narrative of her own past in an exploration of trauma, agency, and survival.”
The Legend of Dave Bradley by S. Atzeni
Read Furiously | August 2, 2022
The fifth book in the One ‘n Done series “celebrates the horrors that only exist in customer service.”
Short Fiction Collections
McMullen Circle by Heather Newton
Regal House Publishing | January 17, 2022
The twelve linked stories in this collection “explore the intertwined lives of faculty families at the McMullen Boarding School in Tonola Falls, Georgia, in 1969–70.”
Seasons of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour
Translated by Sara Khalili
Bellevue Literary Press | January 25, 2022
In this short fiction collection, “the fantastical and the visceral merge in tales of tender desire and collective violence, the boredom and brutality of war, and the clash of modern urban life and rural traditions.”
The Getting Place by Frank Soos
Red Hen Press | January 25, 2022
According to Peggy Shumaker, the nine stories in this collection “spring from the places Frank Soos loved best: the coal hills of southwest Virginia, the coves of coastal Maine, and the rivers and tundra around Fairbanks, Alaska.”
The Man With Eight Pairs of Legs by Leslie Kirk Campbell
Sarabande Books | February 1, 2022
Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, this collection of short stories “is about the ways our bodies are marked by memory, often literally, and the risky decisions we make when pushed to the extreme.”
Judgment Day & Other White Lies by Mike Hilbig
Madville Publishing | February 15, 2022
This short fiction collection “deconstructs whiteness by retelling versions of Greek, Roman, and Christian myths, concepts, and characters through a contemporary lens.”
Gentlemen Callers by Corinne Hoex
Translated from French by Caitlin O’Neil
Dalkey Archive | March 1, 2022
In this English-language debut, “every night when she goes to sleep, a woman dreams of erotic encounters with different men.”
Little Matsue and Other Tales by Larry Boyd
Spineless Wonders | March 1, 2022
Boyd’s short story collection “encompasses a magnificent thread of entangled journeys of acceptance and resignation, but also longing, and resolution.”
Nothing Resplendent Lives Here by Renuka Raghavan
Červená Barva Press | March 4, 2022
According to Jayne Martin, in this short story collection “Raghavan cuts to the heart of the human experience, revealing characters at their most vulnerable.”
The Adventurists by Richard Butner
Small Beer Press | March 22, 2022
According to Publishers Weekly, this debut short fiction collection “wends ghosts, virtual futures, and the intricacies of friendship into 16 breathtaking, intimate stories.”
Souvenirs by Andrew Colarusso and Karen An-hwei Lee
Baobab Press | April 5, 2022
A collaboration between Andrew Colarusso and Karen An-hwei Lee, this “collection of visions shared across cyberspace… celebrates fragments from the literary afterlife.”
New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker, with additional translations by Lisa Dillman, Francisca González Arias, Alex Ross, and the author
Dorothy, a publishing project | April 12, 2022
New and Selected Stories “brings together in English translation stories from across Rivera Garza’s career, drawing from three collections spanning over 30 years and including new writing not yet published in Spanish.”
Five Little Fatalities by Emily Unwin
Appalachia Book Company | April 12, 2022
This work of short fiction “tells the story of Honey, a young woman living on the edge of a widower’s farm in rural Virginia.”
The House of Grana Padano by Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman
Pelekinesis | April 20, 2022
In The House of Grana Padano, “each shimmering micro story hovers between standup comedy and the unfolding of tragedy, between the mask and the mirror.”
The Fact of Memory: 114 Ruminations and Fabrications by Aaron Angello
Rose Metal Press | April 21, 2022
In this collection of short prose pieces, Angello “explores the subtleties of recollection, imagination, and the connections, both momentary and long-lasting, between oneself and others.”
Your Nostalgia is Killing Me by John Weir
Red Hen Press | April 26, 2022
In eleven linked stories, Weir “brings his wit and compassion to the question of how a gay white guy from New Jersey lived through fifty years of the twin crises of global AIDS and toxic masculinity in America.”
The Bar at Twilight by Frederic Tuten
Bellevue Literary Press | May 10, 2022
The fifteen stories in this collection “shift seamlessly between the poignancy of memory into the logic of fairytales or dreams.”
Akashic Books | May 10, 2022
This collection of nine stories “is an updated exploration of Asian American identity, this time with characters who are presumptive model minorities in the arts, academia, and media.”
God in a Can by Robert Scotellaro
Bamboo Dart Press | May 17, 2022
God in a Can is “a collection of flash and micro fictions that looks at life through a surreal, and often humorous lens, at various societal behaviors, perceptions at a slant, and unusual scenarios.”
Moldy Strawberries by Caio Fernando Abreu
Translated from Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
Archipelago Books | May 31, 2022
In this collection of eighteen stories, Abreu “navigates a Brazil transformed by the AIDS epidemic and stifling military dictatorship of the ’80s.”
Clandestinity by Antonio Moresco
Translated from Italian by Richard Dixon
Deep Vellum | May 31, 2022
Each of the four stories in this suite “features the central character at a different time of his life: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood.”
All the Rivers Flow into the Sea & Other Stories by Khanh Ha
EastOver Press | June 7, 2022
This collection of short fiction “is a great journey where redemption and human goodness arise out of violence and beauty to become part of an essential mercy.”
God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu
A Public Space Books | June 7, 2022
The nine stories in this collection, all exploring queer male intimacy in contemporary Nigeria, ask, “can deep love and hope be sustained in spite of the dominant expectations of society, and great adversity.”
Driving Lessons by Tim Coursey
Deep Vellum | June 14, 2022
In this debut short fiction collection, “thirteen interconnected stories explore friendship and intimacy, loneliness and dislocation, and the physical contours of a dilapidated American landscape.”
A Postcard for Annie by Ida Jessen
Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
Archipelago Books | June 21, 2022
This collection of short fiction “follows the inner lives of several women on the brink, or the sidelines, of catastrophe.”
Virgil Kills by Ronaldo V. Wilson
Nightboat Books | June 21, 2022
Wilson’s short fiction collection features “linked stories alighting from a U.S., Black and Filipino imaginary through a central character, Virgil, and his accounts of race, sex, and desire.”
A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Meron Hadero
Restless Books | June 28, 2022
Winner of the 2020 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, this short fiction collection “follows characters on the journey toward home.”
Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret by Tim Jones-Yelvington
Texas Review Press | June 28, 2022
“Linked by their exploration of queer evil,” the stories in this collection follow “gnostics and mystics, ogres and queens whose defiance of the normative both liberates and confines.”
The Shehnai Virtuoso by Dhumketu
Translated from Gujarati by Jenny Bhatt
Deep Vellum | July 26, 2022
According to Publishers Weekly, “Complex characters, vibrant imagery, and descriptions of rural Gujarat State bolster each of the stories.”
Rules for Escaping by Nick Farriella
word west press | August 23, 2022
In the stories in this collection, “each of the characters have undergone or are in the midst of trauma/suffering, and are in one way or another looking for an escape.”
No Windmills in Basra by Diaa Jubaili
Translated from the Arabic by Chip Rosetti
Deep Vellum | September 6, 2022
The stories in this collection are “influenced in turn by the long tradition of Arabic folktales and the magical realism of Latin America.”
Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana by Michael Martone
Baobab Press | September 6, 2022
In this short fiction collection, Martone “conjures Winesburg, Indiana, a fictional town and all of its inhabitants’ lyric philosophies, tales of the mundane, and the sensation of being ‘lost’ in the heart of the heart of the country.”
Translated from French by Emma Ramadan
Feminist Press | September 13, 2022
This short fiction collection features stories “about violence, mental illness, and the warped contradictions of the twentieth-century female experience.”
New Vessel Press | September 13, 2022
The seventh installment in the Very Christmas series includes “mouthwatering Nochebuena meals, mysterious felines, multi-colored boxes, marvelous sweet rolls, and many a bedside tale.”
Palindrome by Elizabeth Genovise
Texas Review Press | September 15, 2022
The characters in this short fiction collection “have no choice but to confront their emotional and spiritual challenges if they wish to move forward with their lives.”
Autumn House Press | September 26, 2022
Winner of the 2021 Fiction Prize, selected by Deesha Philyaw, this short story collection “contains a range of characters who are trying to find, assert, or salvage their identities.”
Graywolf Press | September 27, 2022
Set in and around Flagstaff, the stories in Sinking Bell “depict violent collisions of love, cultures, and racism.”
The Witch Bottle and Other Stories by Suzanne Feldman
Washington Writers’ Publishing House | September 28, 2022
Winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House 2022 Fiction Award, this short story collection features “six stories from the realistic to the speculative.”
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker
Restless Books | October 4, 2022
Ponce’s English-language debut “centers the female body in a radical exploration of desire, choice, and consequences.”
Frayed Edge Press | October 11, 2022
Moreira’s cross-genre collection “explores themes of physical and emotional violence, human relationships, and the weight of politics, history, and culture on individuality and identity.”
The Anchored World: Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore by Jasmine Sawers
Rose Metal Press | October 11, 2022
This flash fiction collection is “equal parts love letter to the old tales and indictment of their shortcomings, offering a new mythology to reflect the many faces and voices of the twenty-first century.”
Some of Them Will Carry Me by Giada Scodellaro
Dorothy, a publishing project | October 11, 2022
Scodellaro’s stories “deconstruct contemporary life while building a surprising new reality of language, intimacy, and loss.”
If I Were the Ocean, I’d Carry You Home by Pete Hsu
Red Hen Press | October 11, 2022
In this debut story collection, “children and young people navigate a world where the presence of violence and death rear themselves in everyday places.”
Nomadic Press | October 15, 2022
The stories in The New Low “move around each other, creating everchanging insights between its characters. Each of whom struggle with identity, addictions, judgments, and life’s contradictions.”
Pretend It’s My Body by Luke Dani Blue
Feminist Press | October 18, 2022
This debut story collection “blurs fantasy and reality, excavating new meanings from our varied dysphorias.”
The Consequences by Manuel Muñoz
Graywolf Press | October 18, 2022
The stories in Muñoz’s new collection “are mostly set in the 1980s in the small towns that surround Fresno.”
You Have Reached Your Destination by Louise Marburg
EastOver Press | October 26, 2022
In this collection of short fiction, Marburg “captures turning points in the lives of twelve disparate women.”
Is This How You Eat a Watermelon? by Zein El-Amine
Radix Media | November 8, 2022
The seven stories in this collection “span war-torn Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United States to tell stories of transit and survival.”
Acre Books | November 15, 2022
This collection of thirteen stories “draws heavily from the genres of horror, mystery, science fiction, and myth.”
Almost Deadly, Almost Good by Alice Kaltman
word west press | November 22, 2022
In this linked story collection, Kaltman “explores how human nature is just a flip-floppy beautiful mess, and the difference between good and bad is near impossible to discern.”
This Is the Afterlife by Jeff Chon
Sagging Meniscus Press | December 1, 2022
The short stories in this collection “deal with how we navigate the fallout of what came before—and the ways we’re then destined to navigate the fallout of those subsequent actions.”
Translated From The Original: One-inch Punch Fiction by Guy Biederman
Nomadic Press | December 3, 2022
This collection of flash and micro fiction “weaves through lines of love, loss, pain, discovery, and redemption, with dollops of whimsy and notes of wonder.”
Creature Publishing | December 6, 2022
In Castro’s stories, “the descendants of Aztlan—the mythical homeland of the Aztec people—work to overthrow their oppressors and usher in the dawn of a new world.”
How To Start A Coven by Deirdre Danklin
Variant Literature | December 17, 2022
According to Honni van Riskswikj, this flash fiction chapbook is “a contemporary and striking bildungsroman for our times.”
Fiction Anthologies
Coolest Stories Press | January 11, 2022
In this anthology edited by Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey, “America’s most talented storytellers share their most courageous, compelling, unputdownable work in a collection made for story lovers.”
Screaming in the Night: Sinister Supernatural Stories, Volume 1
Sinister Smile Press | March 7, 2022
The Sinister Supernatural Stories series “brings you delicious horror that focuses on elements of the supernatural,” including stories by Nick Roberts, Matthew R. Davis, Alexandr Bond, and more.
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 29, 2022
Edited by Basma Ghalayini, this short fiction anthology “gathers 12 stories of speculation about the future of Palestinians, holding space for conversations about trauma, memory, and contemplation of change.”
Muddy Backroads: Stories from Off the Beaten Path
Madville Publishing | June 21, 2022
The stories in this collection, edited by Luanne Smith and Bonnie Jo Campbell, “move away from the norms of daily life to explore the side roads that take us away from the known.”
Pelekinesis | July 10, 2022
Edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke, this anthology features Tania Hershman serving as final judge and “provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer.”
Street Smart x 7: A Street Smart Series Omnibus
Frayed Edge Press | November 15, 2022
Edited by Alison M. Lewis, this collection includes all seven installments of Frayed Edge Press’s Street Smart Series of Short Fiction—”novelette-length works featuring contemporary urban settings, well-drawn characters, and engaging plots.”
Mine: An Anthology of Body Autonomy Horror
Creature Publishing | December 1, 2022
In this anthology edited by Nico Bell and Roxie Voorhees, “16 original horror stories explore the ownership and control—or lack thereof—that we have over our bodies.”
Graphic Novels
Radix Media | March 16, 2022
Illustrated by artist Matt L., Mortals is “a deeply meditative graphic novel about aging and posterity.”
The Solar Grid: Issue 06 by Ganzeer
Radix Media | June 29, 2022
Presented in 10 issues, this graphic series spans “several centuries after a great flood plunges much of the modern world under water.”
Good Person Trouble by Noëlle Kröger
Translated from the German by Natalye Childress
Fieldmouse Press | October 4, 2022
In this debut graphic novel, “Sebastian, the tobacconist, stands trial for the disappearance of his cousin Teresa, but all is not what it seems.”
Team Photograph by Lauren Haldeman
Sarabande Books | November 8, 2022
In this graphic novel, Haldeman “layers the warfare of soccer over the battlefields now called Bull Run Regional Park, where, growing up, her soccer team would practice and compete.”
