Fall 2012 Preview and Giveaway

Fall Fiction Preview and Giveaway!

(Hey, you: the contest info is at the bottom, but you should read the whole thing first!)

It’s the hottest  week on record here in Minneapolis—ok, I made that up, but it sure feels like it— and here at Coffee House, it’s that time of year when things get to be a little nuts. The spring season has winded down and it’s all about fall. And while the crisp fall weather is still far away, our minds are pretty far into the autumn months and the (amazing!) books we have coming down the pipeline.

We also have a new staff member who has joined our ranks this week. Caroline Casey, our new Marketing and Sales Director, is getting her feet wet and diving in head first  — that’s a bit of a mixed metaphor, but you get the picture. See our full press release on the new addition to the CHP family and feel free to get in touch with Caroline at caroline@coffeehousepress.org, or if you’re more into brevity, on Twitter at @Casey_CAC.

Onwards to the giveaway, right? So, to celebrate summer, and to anticipate the awesomeness of fall that is just ahead on the horizon, we’re giving you a sneak peek of our Fall 2012 fiction, and a chance to win advanced reader’s copies, or galleys, so that you can get a head start on your fall reading.

Without further ado, here are our Fall/Winter fiction offerings. What are you most looking forward to?

Hold It Til It Hurts by T. Geronimo Johnson
Release Date: September 2012
Giveaway: one uncorrected, advanced reader’s copy

In a sentence: A riveting debut—a black Afghanistan veteran in search of his lost brother amid the chaos of Hurricane Katrina.

In a phrase:  a literary tour of the first decade of the 21st century

In a word: odyssey

First sentence:
That evening after his father’s funeral, once the last mourner bid solemn farewell and vanished into the foggy grove separating his childhood home from the nearest neighbor, Achilles’ mother summoned him into the kitchen, the only room free of streamers and balloons, and handed him a big blue envelope that bore no return address or postmark, only his name spelled out in his father’s heavy-footed block print.

Praise:
“The magnificence of Hold It ’Til It Hurts is not only in the prose and the story but also in the book’s great big beating heart. These complex and compelling characters and the wizardry of Johnson’s storytelling will dazzle and move you from first page to last. Novels don’t teach us how to live but Hold It ’Til It Hurts will make you hush and wonder.”—Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead

“This rich and sophisticated first novel brings together pleasures rarely found in one book: Hold It ‘Til It Hurts is a novel about war that goes in search of passionate love, a dreamy thriller, a sprawling mystery, a classical quest for a lost brother in which the shadowy quarry is clearly the seeker’s own self, and a meditation on family and racial identity that makes its forerunners in American fiction look innocent by comparison.”—Jaimy Gordon, National Book Award winner for Lord of Misrule

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Kind One by Laird Hunt
Release date: October 2012
Giveaway: one uncorrected, advanced reader’s copy

In a sentence: The powerful antebellum tale of three women and their evolving relationship as master, sister, friend, and captive.

In a phrase: a Faulkner-esque tale that only Laird Hunt could create

In a word: dark

First sentence:
I set a marker one hundred paces from the stream, gathered my tools and began to dig.

Praise:
“Opening with a prologue in the form of an extraordinarily beautiful meditation on loss, Hunt’s writing deepens into allegory, symbolism and metaphor, all while spinning forth a dark tale of abuse, incest and corruption reminiscent of Faulkner . . . Profoundly imaginative, strikingly original, deeply moving.”—Kirkus, starred review

“There is always a surprise in the voice and in the heart of Laird Hunt’s stories—with its echoes of habit caught in a timeless dialect, so we see the world he gives us as if new. ‘You hear something like that and it walks out the door with you.’”—Michael Ondaatje

“Laird Hunt’s Kind One, about two slave girls who take their white mistress into captivity, is a profound meditation on the sexual and racial subconscious of America. Nothing is sacred here. Savagery begets savagery. Women commit unspeakable violence, wives are complicit in their husband’s crimes, slave girls learn to be as cold and brutal as the masters who have raped and whipped them. Of course the center cannot hold. We watch it crumble with breath held, skin tingling, in this gorgeous and terrifying novel.”—Danzy Senna

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Read This! Handpicked Favorites from America’s Indie Bookstores edited by Hans Weyandt; Introduction by Ann Patchett
Release date: September 2012
Giveaway: a bookmark, a limited edition T-shirt, and a sampler

In a sentence: Twenty-five indie booksellers share the joy and wonder of books with must-read lists that “put a bookseller in your pocket.”Release date: September 2012

Giveaway: a Read This! bookmark, exclusive Read This! T-shirt, plus a free sample of the book

In a phrase: everything you love about books, booklovers, bookstores, and booksellers

In a word: FUN!

First sentence (of Ms. Patchett’s Intro):
Years ago, while cleaning out my desk (something I am prone to do during very long phone conversations), I found a crumpled sticky note attached to the bottom of a drawer.

Praise:
“There is no greater joy for a bookseller than introducing a reader to a book they will love for the rest of their lives.  Those of us in this business are, after all, matchmakers at heart.  So consider this little book you now hold in your hands as a sort of catalogue of matchmakers.” —Ann Patchett, From the Introduction

“These professionals demonstrate exceptional curatorial care and a discernible passion for the art of bookselling, a craft Weyandt calls a ‘combo platter of bartender/barista and priest.’ [E]ntertaining, informative, satisfying and fun—everything books should be.”—Kirkus

“If I were still a bookseller, I’d be thrilled to share this wealth with my customers. As a reader, I’m deeply intrigued by the range of selections. . . . Do yourself a favor. Add Micawber’s Top 50 project to your must-read list.” —Robert Gray, Shelf Awareness

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The Way of the Dog by Sam Savage
Release date: February 2013
Giveaway: one uncorrected, advanced reader’s copy

In a sentence: A disillusioned artist looks for meaning in the wreckage of his life, and finds it in unexpected places.

In a phrase: hopeful portrait of late-life loneliness

In a word: melancholy

First sentence:
I am going to stop now.

Praise for Sam Savage:
“Sam Savage creat[es] some of the most original, unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction. . . ”—Poets & Writers

[Sam Savage has] become one of America’s funniest, cleverest, and most vital writers of fiction.” —Michael Schaub, Bookslut

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OK, finally—how do you enter? There are several options:

Post a link to this blog entry to your Facebook page and tag Coffee House Press in the post (You have to tag us for this to count, which means you must first like our page.www.facebook.com/CoffeeHousePress)

OR

Post this link to your blog. (And then send your blog URL to kelsey@coffeehousepress.org)

OR

Retweet this link on Twitter and include our handle: @Coffee_House_.

OR

Comment on this post below

Do any of the above* and you are entered into a chance to win an advanced copies (or in the case of Read This!, a T-shirt, bookmark, and sampler) of each of our Fall 2012 fiction titles (Hold It Til It Hurts by T. Geronimo Johnson; Kind One by Laird Hunt; Read This! by Hans Weyandt, Ann Patchett, editors; and The Way of the Dog by Sam Savage), plus a limited-edition broadside.

*If you do all four options (Facebook, Tweet, blog, and comment), your name will be entered four times into the drawing. If you do two of them, you get two entries, and so forth. But only one entry per medium will be counted, so it doesn’t matter how many times you retweet, you only get one Twitter entry.

Get it? Good!

Contest ends Friday, July 13 @ 5 PM Central Time (6 PM EST).