Autumn’s Best New Books: Marlon James, Barbara Kingsolver and More
Marlon James Returns to Jamaica With The Disappearers
Opening the autumn schedule on September 3, Marlon James releases The Disappearers via Hamish Hamilton, marking a distinct return to his native Jamaica and the gritty realities of his Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings. Following a detour into mythic fantasy, James grounds his latest longlisted novel in the harrowing 1980s beating of a group of gay actors rehearsing for a play in Kingston. According to Associated Press reporting, the narrative weaves together humor, popular culture, and stark lived experience. “I refuse to believe there is any lesson to be learned from suffering an atrocity,” James writes in the text, “other than always be on guard for the ways people turn on you.”
Biographies and Memoirs: From Political Operatives to Presidential Legacies
Nonfiction dominates much of the September slate, led by American Scoundrel from Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, publishing on September 1. Bird, co-author of the Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus, traces the influence of political operator Roy Cohn alongside Goldmark. The authors utilized government archives, historical documents, and dozens of interviews. To the writers’ surprise, Donald Trump answered their cold calls on his personal cell phone for the project. According to the book’s acknowledgments cited by AP News, Trump was gracious on the calls but declined an in-person meeting, stating, “I’m the president. I’m very busy. I have China calling. I have Russia calling. I cannot do it.”
Political memoirs also take center stage this autumn with former President Joe Biden’s upcoming release, Promise Me, America. While memoirs offer leaders a primary platform to define their public legacy—highlighting milestones such as the 2020 election victory, major green energy legislation, and the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—public curiosity remains focused on untangling complex administration backstories and health disclosures during his time in the White House.
Booker Contenders and Masterpieces of Alienation
Emma Cline joins James on the Booker longlist with Switzy, published by Chatto & Windus on September 10. Known for her exploration of alienated youth in The Girls, Cline turns her focus to a retired businessman facing dementia who travels to a Zurich clinic for an assisted dying procedure. The narrative utilizes brief, affectless passages to track a once-valuable person reckoning with his past, concluding that “He had always stayed on the surface. His whole life.”
Additional highlights arriving throughout September and October include Colm Tóibín’s Pyrenees-set sequel The Bridge via Picador on September 3, China Miéville’s monumental 1,000-page supernatural fantasy The Rouse on September 17, and Yiyun Li’s historical piano-prodigy novel Music Against the Night on October 13. Barbara Kingsolver follows her Pulitzer-winning Demon Copperhead with Partita on October 6, centering on a talented Tennessee pianist named Livia whose past reemerges after a call from an old flame.
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