From Powells.com
Hot new releases and under-the-radar gems for adults and kids.
Staff Pick
Leigh Newman’s debut story collection is a stunner. Her tales of rough-and-tumble Alaskan women fighting their way through the landscape — whether that be the Bush, the ALCAN Highway, or the shag carpets of Anchorage — are each an incredible alchemy of insight, humor, and attitude. Recommended By Keith M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the prizewinning, debut fiction author: an exhilarating virtuosic story collection about women navigating the wilds of male-dominated Alaskan society.
Set in Newman's home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is a collection of dazzling, courageous stories about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw, exhausting legacy of their marriages and families. In "Howl Palace" — winner of The Paris Review's Terry Southern Prize, a Best American Short Story, and Pushcart Prize selection — an aging widow struggles with a rogue hunting dog and the memories of her five ex-husbands while selling her house after bankruptcy. In the title story, "Nobody Gets Out Alive," newly married Katrina visits her hometown of Anchorage and blows up her own wedding reception by flirting with the host and running off with an enormous mastodon tusk.
Alongside stories set in today's Last Frontier — rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction — Newman delves into remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a wilder, freer, more adventurous America. The final story takes place in a railroad camp in 1915, where an outspoken heiress stages an elaborate theatrical in order to seduce the wife of her husband's employer, revealing how this masterful storyteller is "not only writing unforgettable, brilliantly complex characters, she's somehow inventing souls" (Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light).
Review
"The women in this absorbing debut collection are larger than life….These stories are rich with wit and wisdom, showing us that love, marriage, and family are always a bigger and more perilous adventures than backcountry trips." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"I have never been to Alaska, but it came alive for me from many wonderful angles in Leigh Newman's irresistible fiction debut. I didn't want Nobody Gets Out Alive to end — to have to leave behind its warmth and soul and glittering writing, its honesty and its laughter in the dark. The stories in these pages are, as one memorable character in this book observes of another's tall tales, 'funny and self-lacerating and so horrifically precise about our love and fury for each other.' You feel you're in the company of a writer who has embraced unpredictability and breathes deeply while seeing far." Jonathan Lee, author of The Great Mistake
Review
"Newman's prose is both distinctive and efficient...the author's crisp portrayal of the Alaskan landscape and rugged culture holds the collection — and its magnetic characters — together. Newman firmly establishes herself as a talent with these stunning stories." Publishers Weekly, (Starred Review)
Review
"Behold a storyteller completely at home in herself. Each story in Nobody Gets Out Alive flashes a new facet of Leigh Newman's singular style. This is a stellar collection with wit and wisdom galore." Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn, Gold, Fame, Citrus, and I love you but I've chosen darkness
About the Author
Leigh Newman is the author of Still Points North, a memoir about growing up in Alaska which was a finalist for the National Book Critic Circle's John Leonard Prize. Her stories have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeny's Quarterly Concern, One Story, and Electric Literature. In 2020, she was awarded The Paris Review's Terry Southern Prize, a Best American Short Story, a Pushcart Prize, and an American Society of Magazine Editors' Fiction Prize for her work in The Paris Review.
Keith Mosman on PowellsBooks.Blog
May is Short Story Month, so I’ll keep this brief: here is a list of the some of the collections that I’ve read in recent months (even though most of them weren’t officially dedicated to the form). Between these books, there are scores of different plots, themes, and voices. Some collections are laser-focused on a few characters or locations, others are grand cacophonies...
Read More»