The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead

The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead
Author: Chanelle Benz
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2017-01-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062490761

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT FICTION* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING* Named a Best Book of 2017 by The San Francisco Chronicle Named one of Electric Literature’s 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2017 A stunningly original debut collection about lives across history marked by violence and longing. A brother and sister turn outlaw in a wild and brutal landscape. The daughter of a diplomat disappears and resurfaces across the world as a deadly woman of many names. A young Philadelphia boy struggles with the contradictions of privilege, violence, and the sway of an incarcerated father. A monk in sixteenth century England suffers the dissolution of his monastery and the loss of all that he held sacred. The characters in The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead, Benz's wildly imaginative debut, are as varied as any in recent literature, but they share a thirst for adventure which sends them rushing full-tilt toward the moral crossroads, becoming victims and perpetrators along the way. Riveting, visceral, and heartbreaking, Benz’s stories of identity, abandonment, and fierce love come together in a daring, arresting vision.

The Gone Dead

The Gone Dead
Author: Chanelle Benz
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062490710

A TONIGHT SHOW SUMMER READS FINALIST An electrifying first novel from "a riveting new voice in American fiction" (George Saunders): A young woman returns to her childhood home in the American South and uncovers secrets about her father's life and death Billie James' inheritance isn't much: a little money and a shack in the Mississippi Delta. The house once belonged to her father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when Billie was four years old. Though Billie was there when the accident happened, she has no memory of that day—and she hasn't been back to the South since. Thirty years later, Billie returns but her father's home is unnervingly secluded: her only neighbors are the McGees, the family whose history has been entangled with hers since the days of slavery. As Billie encounters the locals, she hears a strange rumor: that she herself went missing on the day her father died. As the mystery intensifies, she finds out that this forgotten piece of her past could put her in danger. Inventive, gritty, and openhearted, The Gone Dead is an astonishing debut novel about race, justice, and memory that lays bare the long-concealed wounds of a family and a country.

Blood in My Eye

Blood in My Eye
Author: George Jackson
Publisher: Black Classic Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 1990
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780933121232

Originally published: New York: Random House, 1972.

The Dry Heart

The Dry Heart
Author: Natalia Ginzburg
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0811228797

Finally back in print, a frighteningly lucid feminist horror story about marriage The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator's murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg's writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don't more wives kill their husbands?

From the Corner of His Eye

From the Corner of His Eye
Author: Dean Koontz
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 754
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553593250

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A thrilling and emotionally powerful novel from the author of the Jane Hawk series “A literary miracle . . . a tapestry of intrigue and suspense.”—The Boston Globe His birth was marked by wonder and tragedy. He sees beauty and terror beyond our deepest dreams. His story will change the way you see the world. Bartholomew Lampion is born on a day of tragedy and terror that will mark his family forever. All agree that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen. On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns that he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew. He embarks on a relentless search to find this enemy, a search that will consume his life. And a girl is born from a brutal rape, her destiny mysteriously linked to Barty and the man who stalks him. At the age of three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer. As he copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother counsels him that all things happen for a reason and that every person’s life has an effect on every other person’s, in often unknowable ways. At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight. How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds and entwines with others results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure.

We All Looked Up

We All Looked Up
Author: Tommy Wallach
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2015-03-24
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1481418777

The lives of four high school seniors intersect weeks before a meteor is set to pass through Earth's orbit, with a 66.6% chance of striking and destroying all life on the planet.

West of the Known

West of the Known
Author: Chanelle Benz
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062935917

“A riveting new voice in American fiction.” —George Saunders “Stops your breath…. ‘West of the Known’ parks a language before a reader’s eyes that shocks and hypnotizes.” —San Francisco Chronicle An electrifying story of two siblings turned outlaw in the Wild West, by the inimitable talent Chanelle Benz—plus an exclusive preview of her forthcoming debut novel, The Gone Dead Fifteen-year-old Lavenia is freshly reunited with her long-absent brother Jackson, joining the ranks of his roving band of outlaws on their unbridled spree through the West. Facing down the brutality of life on the plains, but intoxicated by her first taste of real freedom, Lavenia sets off on an adventure that sends her rushing full-tilt toward a moral crossroads. With crackling prose and a blazing intensity, “West of the Known” is a breathtaking tale that reveals the dark consequences of our youthful decisions. Plus, this publication includes an advance preview of Chanelle Benz’s highly anticipated debut novel, The Gone Dead. When Billie James returns to the Mississippi Delta for the first time since her father’s tragic death during her childhood, she hears a strange rumor: that she herself went missing on the day her father died. Gritty and openhearted, The Gone Dead lays bare the long-concealed wounds of a family and a country.

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Publisher: SAMPI Books
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2024-01-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 656133115X

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator tries to prove his sanity after murdering an elderly man because of his "vulture eye". His growing guilt leads him to hear the old man's heart beating under the floorboards, which drives him to confess the crime to the police.

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory
Author: Edwidge Danticat
Publisher: Soho Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2015-02-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616955023

The 20th anniversary edition of Edwidge Danticat's groundbreaking debut, now an established classic--revised and with a new introduction by the author, and including extensive bonus materials At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti—to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence. In her stunning literary debut, Danticat evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti—and the enduring strength of Haiti’s women—with vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people’s suffering and courage.