Michael Schaub
Michael Schaub is a writer, book critic and regular contributor to NPR Books. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Portland Mercury and The Austin Chronicle, among other publications. He lives in Austin, Texas.
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Tupelo Hassman's novel about a group of teenagers at loose ends in a tiny town run by Christian fundamentalists has some dark moments, but ultimately it's as heartwarming as it is beautifully written.
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In her debut collection, Kimberly King Parsons writes with the unpredictable power of a firecracker, bringing flashes of illumination to sharp, compassionate stories about longing and disappointment.
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Rajia Hassib's novel wrestles with heavy themes — survivor's guilt, religion, family and revolution — but it's never didactic. It's an honest, engrossing portrait of two very different sisters.
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Jordi Puntí's new short story collection is full of men living on the edge — almost always because they've put themselves there. They're maddening characters, and Puntí regards them with sympathy.
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Sarah Elaine Smith's debut novel, about a girl from an impoverished, broken family who impersonates a missing neighbor in order to get motherly attention, is otherworldly in its beauty and power.
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Colson Whitehead's harrowing new novel is based on a true story about a brutally abusive reform school in Florida where the grounds were pocked with the unmarked graves of the boys who died there.
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This debut story collection from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the TV show BoJack Horseman, has some excellent, risk-taking work in it — but stumbles sometimes over its higher concepts.
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Peter Houlahan's account of the violent robbery and its aftermath is based on interviews with civilians, officers and robbers involved; his prose reads like a crime novel in the best way possible.
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Nicole Dennis-Benn packs a lot of uncomfortable truths into this novel about a Jamaican woman who emigrates to New York looking for an old love and a new life, leaving her mother and daughter behind.
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Ryan Chapman's debut novel opens in the middle of a prison riot as the unnamed narrator cowers in fear for his life — which doesn't seem like a setup for comedy, but it's packed with dark laughs.