Last Friday, all five of us at The Friedrich Agency donned our glitziest and glammest (but not too glam, y’know? Got to keep it chic) outfits that were collecting dust at the back of our wardrobes to trot over to the Center for Fiction to celebrate not one, BUT TWO of our authors! The lovely Jackie Polzin and Violet Kupersmith were shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize for Brood and Build Your House Around My Body respectively. Woooo!
It was a wonderful night filled with cheer and lots of hugs. The air felt electric as we came together, for what seems like the first time since Covid started, to celebrate great fiction and reunite with publishing friends and authors we hadn’t seen in ages! Not to mention, it was our first time meeting Jackie IN PERSON. How wild is that?
Molly had to leave early to catch the train, so she’s unfortunately not in our group picture, but look at us! Glowing! Enthralled to be in each other’s company!
So, here they are! Two wonderful debut novels, as different as they can be, but both equally beautiful, provocative, and impressively layered. We’ve received amazing reviews and coverage for both titles, so I want to quickly run through them.
In addition to the Center for Fiction First Prize shortlist, Build Your House Around My Body has been named as one of the best books of the year by these following places: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Good Housekeeping, and Kirkus Reviews.
“Beautiful, brilliant, powerful, and shivery-back-of-the-neck terrifying”
“Fiction as daring and accomplished as Violet Kupersmith’s first novel reignites my love of the form and its kaleidoscopic possibilities.”
Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this ingenious novel spins half a century of Vietnamese history and folklore into "a thrilling read, acrobatic and filled with verve" (The New York Times).
Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge.
As for Brood, it was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a March 2021 Indie Next Pick, and a Country Living April 2021 Front Porch Book Club Pick! EDIT (March 2022) - And more awards for Jackie and Brood: Finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Finalist for 2022 Minnesota Book Awards; Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction!
An exquisite new literary voice—wryly funny, nakedly honest, beautifully observational, in the vein of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout—depicts one woman's attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.
A stunning and brilliantly insightful meditation on life and longing that will stand beside such modern classics as H is for Hawk and Gilead, Brood rewards its readers with the richness of reflection and unrelenting hope.
“Polzin writes beautifully about chickens; she is lovingly clear-eyed about their “idiocy” and their dearness. She writes beautifully about everything: the sound of melting snow at the end of a Minnesota winter; a forgotten container of orange sherbet frosted over; private emotion. Her eye for physical detail is surprising, gimlet… It’s a pleasure to see what Polzin sees.”
“A book about caretaking, about trauma and loss, about keeping others and one’s self alive, with sentences so confident and exact they continually took my breath away, Brood is that rare book that lives inside of you long after it’s over, that reminds you of the vast amounts of life that language is capable of conjuring.”
So go on! Pick these two titles up on your next book run, I promise they’ll amaze.
xx Marin