JANUARY 2012 HARDCOVER
American Dervish: A Novel
Ayad Akhtar
978-0-316-18331-4, $24.99
A stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world.
Hayat Shah was captivated by Mina long before he met her: his mother’s beautiful, brilliant, and soulfully devout friend is a family legend. When he learns that Mina is leaving Pakistan to live with the Shahs in America, Hayat is thrilled. Hayat’s father is less enthusiastic. He left the fundamentalist world behind with reason. What no one expects is that when Mina shows Hayat the beauty and power of the Quran, it will utterly transform the boy.
Mina’s real magic may be that the Shah household, always contentious and sad, becomes a happy one. But when Mina finds her own path to happiness, the ember of jealousy in Hayat’s heart is enflamed by the community’s anti-Semitism and he acts with catastrophic consequences for those he loves most.
About the Author: Ayad Akhtar is a first generation Pakistani-American from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds degrees in Theater from Brown University and Directing from Columbia University, where he won multiple awards for his work. American Dervish is his first novel. He lives in New York.
Publicity Tour: New York, Milwaukee, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
Publicity Contact: Nicole Dewey, nicole.dewey@hbgusa.com
APRIL 2011 HARDCOVER
In Zanesville: A Novel
Jo Ann Beard
978-0-316-08447-5; $23.99
From the acclaimed author of The Boys of My Youth, comes a debut novel about the vivid moment just before we step out of childhood.
The 14-year-old narrator of IN ZANESVILLE is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar—a sidekick, a marching band dropout, a disastrous babysitter, the kind of girl whose Eureka moment is the discovery that “fudge” can’t be said with an English accent. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed, and character is forged. In time, their friendship is tested—by their families’ claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by the first, startling, subversive intimations of womanhood. With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America’s innumerable Zanesvilles is a world of wonders, and that within the souls of the overlooked often burns something radiant.
About the author: Jo Ann Beard’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, and Best American Essays. She received a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Publicity contact: Carolyn O’Keefe, carolyn.okeefe@hbgusa.com
MAY 2011 HARDCOVER
America Pacifica: A Novel
Anna North
978-0-316-105125; $24.99
The startling debut novel about a teenage girl’s search for her missing mother on an island paradise turned dystopian nightmare.
In the not too distant future, 18-year-old Darcy lives on the island of America Pacifica—one of the last places on earth that is still habitable after the second ice age. Education, food, and basic means of survival are the province of a chosen few, while most struggle under the thumb of a mysterious, corrupt dictator. To Darcy, America Pacifica is simply home—the only one she’s ever known, made bearable by her loving though enigmatic mother. But when her mother doesn’t come home one night, Darcy is forced on a quest through the dark underbelly of the island to find her, learning along the way of the far-reaching influence of its egomaniacal leader and the disturbing, deadly truth of her mother’s role in Pacifica’s early history.
Tour: Author events in New York City
About the author: Anna North graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 2009, having received a Teaching- Writing Fellowship and a Michener/Copernicus Society Fellowship. North grew up in Los Angeles and lives in Brooklyn.
Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com
