Best Selling Books by Susan Straight

One of NPR''s Best Books of the Year “Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close–knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post–slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother–in–law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California. A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.” “Certain books give off the sense that you won’t want them to end, so splendid the writing, so lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan Straight’s new memoir, In the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churned–together blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoples, indomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.” ––Los Angeles Times

In the third novel by the author of Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights, the Thompson clan tries to deal with the chaos after their family patriarch finds the burning bodies of two white women on his property and is then accidentally gunned down by police.

In August in Rio Seco, California, the ground is too hard to bury a body. But Glorette Picard is dead, and across the canal, out in the orange groves, they’ll gather shovels and pickaxes and soak the dirt until they can lay her coffin down. First, someone needs to find her son Victor, who memorizes SAT words to avoid the guys selling rock, and someone needs to tell her uncle Enrique, who will be the one to hunt down her killer, and someone needs to brush out her perfect crown of hair and paint her cracked toenails. As the residents of this dry-creek town prepare to bury their own, it becomes clear that Glorette’s life and death are deeply entangled with the dark history of the city and the untouchable beauty that, finally, killed her.

One of The Washington Post''s Ten Best Books of 2022. Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize and the 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. One of the New York Times'' 10 Best California Books of 2022 and one of NPR''s Best Books of 2022. A New York Times Book Review Editors'' Choice. "A wide and deep view of a dynamic, multiethnic Southern California . . . Susan Straight is an essential voice in American writing and in writing of the West." —The New York Times Book Review From the National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, Mecca is a stunning epic tracing the intertwined lives of native Californians fighting for life and land Johnny Frías has California in his blood. A descendant of the state’s Indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California’s forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year, when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny, who ran from the scene, leaving Johnny without a witness. But like the Santa Ana winds that every year bring the risk of fire, Johnny’s moment of action twenty years ago sparked a slow-burning chain of connections that unites a vibrant, complex cast of characters in ways they never see coming. In Mecca, the celebrated novelist Susan Straight crafts an unforgettable American epic, examining race, history, family, and destiny through the interlocking stories of a group of native Californians all gasping for air. With sensitivity, furor, and a cinematic scope that captures California in all its injustice, history, and glory, she tells a story of the American West through the eyes of the people who built it—and continue to sustain it. As the stakes get higher and the intertwined characters in Mecca slam against barrier after barrier, they find that when push comes to shove, it’s always better to push back.

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR From the author of A Million Nightingales (“a writer of exceptional gifts and grace”—Joyce Carol Oates) comes a luminous new novel about the forces that tear families apart and the ties that bind them together. Fantine Antoine is a travel writer, a profession that keeps her happily away from her Southern California home. When she returns to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of her closest childhood friend, Glorette, she finds herself pulled into the tumultuous life of Glorette’s twenty-two-year-old son—and Fantine’s godson—Victor. After getting involved in a shooting, Victor has fled to New Orleans. Together with her father, Fantine follows Victor, determined to help him avoid the criminal future that he suddenly seems destined for. On this journey her father will reveal the wrenching secrets of his past, and Fantine will be compelled to question the most essential choices she’s made in her life.

“Straight’s portrayal of a black woman’s life is nearly miraculous in its astonishing richness of detail, its emotional honesty and its breadth of human thought and feeling.” —USA Today Evoking the Gullah–speaking 1950s community of Pine Gardens, South Carolina, I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots follows Marietta Cook, a maid with a growing interest in the civil rights movement, as she raises talented twin boys destined for pro football glory and comes to find peace in an often unjust world. Imbued with extraordinary resilience and joy, Susan Straight’s debut is a celebration of an extraordinary soul and a novel with a beautifully vivid sense of place.

When she is sold away from her family, Moinette begins to prepare herself for an escape to freedom, journeying through a world of brutality, sexual violence, loss, and struggle to find her way out of the bonds of slavery.

“A writer of exceptional gifts and grace.” —Joyce Carol Oates A young fireman battles to provide for his family—and struggles to avoid the traps of crime and poverty that surround him. A resident of impoverished Rio Seco, California, Darnell Tucker works part–time as the lone black member of the fire department. Cutbacks to the state budget force him to search for new work, and the low–paying positions he finds rival firefighting in their peril. His path blocked by economics, institutionalized racism, and the dangers of the place he lives, Darnell must find a way to persevere. Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights is a stark and thoroughly convincing portrait of life on the margins.

Sharron''s father has disappeared, and she tries to cope with her feelings of loss through the love of a stuffed dog he gave her.

A young Mexican mother struggles to reconnect with her child in America—a “heartrending, take–no–prisoners” novel (Publishers Weekly) and National Book Award finalist. A vital and unsparing vision of America from National Book Award finalist Susan Straight. At three years Elvia was placed in foster care when her mother, Serafina, an undocumented migrant worker, was deported. Twelve years later, Serafina risks everything to return to the United States and the daughter she was forced to abandon.

“Aquaboogie is a love story in fragments . . . A book by a writer whose love for her characters infuses her work with the dignity and urgency they so clearly deserve.” —The New York Times Book Review Full of defiance and tenderness, Aquaboogie chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of the residents of Rio Seco. In “Aquaboogie,” art student Nacho finances his class out East by working as a janitor, subject to torment by his white coworkers. In “Back,” elderly Pashion sleeps wrapped around the body of her dying husband L. C., all the while recalling their 49 years of marriage and thinking about the sleeping pills she has secreted away for when life becomes unbearable. In “The Box,” Shawan carries her radio everywhere; since her best friend was gunned down, music is the only thing that can get her through the day. In these and other stories in this powerful collection, the author gives voice to those on the margins while demonstrating her great affection for her characters.

“All the heavy hitters, from Michael Connelly in Los Angeles to Joyce Carol Oates in suburban New Jersey . . . an important anthology.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Features Dennis Lehane’s story “Animal Rescue,” the inspiration for the movie The Drop starring Tom Hardy. Launched with the summer 2004 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir, the groundbreaking Akashic Noir series now includes over sixty volumes and counting. The stories in USA Noir “represent the best of the U.S.-based anthologies, and the list of contributors include virtually anyone who’s made the best-seller list with a work of crime fiction in the last decade . . . a must-have anthology” (Booklist, starred review). Featuring stories by: Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Susan Straight, Jonathan Safran Foer, Laura Lippman, Pete Hamill, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Child, T. Jefferson Parker, Lawrence Block, Terrance Hayes, Jerome Charyn, Jeffery Deaver, Maggie Estep, Bayo Ojikutu, Tim McLoughlin, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Reed Farrel Coleman, Megan Abbott, Elyssa East, James W. Hall, J. Malcolm Garcia, Julie Smith, Joseph Bruchac, Pir Rothenberg, Luis Alberto Urrea, Domenic Stansberry, John O’Brien, S.J. Rozan, Asali Solomon, William Kent Krueger, Tim Broderick, Bharti Kirchner, Karen Karbo, and Lisa Sandlin. One of Zoom Street Magazine’s Favorite Books of 2014 One of “100 Best Books for Readers Young and Old,” HispanicBusiness.com “Perhaps the single most impressive feature of the collection is its range of voices, from Joyce Carol Oates’ faux innocent young family to Megan Abbott’s impressionable high school kids to the chorus of peremptory voices S.J. Rozan plants in a haunted thief’s head. Eat your heart out, Walt Whitman: These are the folks who hear America singing, and moaning and screaming.”—Kirkus Reviews

When Gaila''s baby sister Delphine drops Bear E. Bear into the mud, Mama makes sure he gets nice and clean in the washing machine.

From National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, a captivating new novel about a group of nurses fighting through the first year of a pandemic and the beloved California community they will risk their lives to protect In August 2020, a group of nurses are working in the ICU at a hospital in San Bernardino at the height of a Covid surge: Larette Embers, whose husband Grief is an Animal Control officer; Cherrise Martinez, whose husband died years ago in a car crash, and whose daughter Raquel has been sent to a Coachella date farm to live with her great-aunt to avoid the virus; and Marisol Manalang, born in the Philippines but living in Sacramento. To safeguard their families, the nurses are living in a makeshift RV camp close to the hospital; they share food and cigarettes yet keep their work private. For this is a country in crisis, and they are assisting strangers at the edge of death with infinite tenderness and growing desperation. As the nurses struggle with the skyrocketing number of sick patients, Cherisse’s daughter goes missing. Grief''s friend Johnny Frias, a California Highway Patrol Officer, joins the search to find her, and the resulting journey will lead to new love and loss, pushing all of our characters to their breaking points. Brilliantly highlighting both the quiet heroism and extraordinary bravery of first responders, Sacrament once again proves that Susan Straight is the “essential voice in American writing and in writing of the West” (The New York Times).

Faced with having to create a new life for herself after a devastating personal loss, the author takes a leap of faith and follows a vision she has had of working with young people in a province of China near the border with Southeast Asia. She has no idea what she will do or how she will do it, but goes with friends on a six month quest and ends up staying nearly 8 years. The book takes us on a poignant journey of discovery and connection leading to deep understanding of the Chinese culture and great love for the young people and minority villagers she comes in contact with. This is a book which challenges our notions of aging, of healing and of possibility in a time of great upheaval throughout the world. It poses the question of how one person can make a difference in bringing more love to the planet, in the face of fear.

From National Book Award finalist Susan Straight comes a haunting historical novel about a Louisiana slave girl''s perilous journey to freedom. Daughter of an African mother and a white father she never knew, Moinette is a house maid on a plantation south of New Orleans. At fourteen she is sold, separated from her mother without a chance to say goodbye. Bright, imaginative and well aware of everything she risks, Moinette at once begins to prepare for an opportunity to escape. Inspired by a true story, A Million Nightingales portrays Moinette''s experience-and the treacherous world she must navigate-with uncommon richness, intricacy, and drama. Moinette es una «hija del placer», el placer efímero que un caballero blanco captura en una africana sin derecho a elegir los empleos de su cuerpo. Moinette se asoma a la vida en una plantación de Luisiana donde los esclavos cosechan el azúcar que endulza los días de los hombres libres. Ella es una niña que observa, que estudia las conductas y aprende desde el oscuro rincón de los silenciados. Ni siquiera se le concede un adiós cuando a los 14 años cambia de amo y es separada de su madre. Ese drama la deja sola frente al horror de un sistema inmisericorde, pero también pone a prueba su carácter. Ya no hay resignación: la huida se convierte a partir de entonces en el único horizonte. Al fondo brilla la tenue e improbable llama de la libertad.

La revista Luvina y la Editorial de la Universidad de Guadalajara reúnen estos cien Cuentos de Asia, Europa y América para celebrar el número 100 de Luvina y sus veinticinco años ininterrumpidos de publicación. Son textos representativos de la literatura universal contemporánea que Luvina ha publicado, especialmente en los números dedicados al país invitado de honor de la Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara. Es una muestra formada por distintas literaturas, en el afán de nombrar nuevos y originales mundos, en una dimensión habitada en su totalidad por la lengua. Cada uno de los cuentos permite internarse en la singularidad humana al mismo tiempo que en los entramados de los relatos, cuya belleza encierra vitalidad y resignificación de lo real gracias al encuentro de la creatividad y la imaginación del autor, la obra y el lector.

Alta Journal Issue 22: "The Desert is Coming" is simultaneously a warning and celebration of the vast, arid landscapes of the western United States. It features vivid writing from Andrew Sean Greer (Less is Lost), Isabel Allende (House of Spirits), Peter Orner (Still No Word From You), Ken Layne (Desert Oracle), Susan Straight (Mecca), and many others. Alta Journal is a quarterly publication for anyone seeking an insider''s take on California and the West. From arts and culture, to technology and the environment, to food and fashion-what happens in this most-forward thinking region happens everywhere. Each large-format issue (the West demands a wide lens) demystifies the region with provocative essays, cultural commentary, deeply reported investigations, original fiction and poetry, sumptuous photos, topical cartoons, and more. Founded in 2017 by William R. Hearst III, Alta Journal provides an exciting-and much-needed-literary perspective on the West, sparking conversations that are as diverse and vibrant as the place itself. In this era of rapid change, the award-winning Alta Journal offers an immersive reading experience like no other.

In the 1800s, African-American and Mexican-American families fled violence and segregation to come West, to make home and family in the promised land. Their descendants keep traditions and loyalty alive in driveways, boxing rings, restaurants, churches, and on the sidewalks filled with stories and kinship and laughter, rememory and love.

The adventures of a mountain girl as she explores New Zealand, Australia, and Europe on a shoestring budget, working her way though the antipodes.

Part of her new novel: Between heaven and here.