Book Public

In Girl Warrior, Joy Harjo shares stories about her own coming of age to bring to light pivotal moments of becoming—among them, forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, honoring those who came before and making space for those who will come after us.

Paula Saunders discusses her novel Starting from Here. It's a coming-of-age story about 15-year-old René. She leaves a home that is tense and difficult in order to pursue a career in ballet. But the challenges of this displacement are as fraught—and even dangerous.

In Jason Diamond's novel, Kaplan's Plot, Elijah’s mother is dying, and she is sharing some family secrets he never knew before— including that the family owns a cemetery and his grandfather was a gangster in Chicago. In this family, the relationships across generations have always been fraught, but now they must find a way to a reckoning and walk together toward acceptance of exactly who they are. Jason Diamond is the guest on this episode of Book Public.

Sasha Bonét’s intergenerational memoir, The Waterbearers, offers us the idea that the journey of Black American motherhood is like a complex, powerful river. As you read, you travel through generations—from a Louisiana cotton plantation to modern-day New York. She explores triumphs and trials—and shares the stories of legacies of maternal love borne of triumphs and tribulation.

Peter Mendelsund has two new books out. His latest novel is Weepers—about card-carrying members of a union of people who cry for a living. His memoir is Exhibitionist: 1 journal, 1 Depression and 100 Paintings. He had never painted—but the obsession with it may have saved his life.