ARTS & CULTURE
Summer reading list 13 new books by Michigan-based authors by Aaron Robertson
It’s summertime, and that means we finally have to cash in on the old line we kept telling ourselves: “There’s so much I want to read, but I’ll wait until the summer.” You probably already have a lot on your plate, but why not load it up just a bit more? If you’re interested in regional literature, or works written by people from the region, here are some suggestions of books by authors from Detroit to the Upper Peninsula.
Detroit Hustle: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Home by Amy Haimerl Running Press Book Publishers, May 2016
After being priced out of their Brooklyn neighborhood, journalist Amy Haimerl and her husband use their savings to buy an abandoned house in Detroit for $35,000. When they arrive, the 1914 Georgian Revival has no plumbing, heat, or electricity. With charming anecdotes, Haimerl writes about the joys and difficulties of making a home in a city whose future is hard to determine. If you’re into urban
memoirs, give this one a look.
Desert Boys by Christopher McCormick Picador, May 2016
Author Christopher McCormick, who lives in Ann Arbor, sets his debut novel in the land of his childhood: California’s Antelope Valley. The book is a series of stories that center on a character named Daley Kushner, his life in San Francisco, and the interesting people that surround him: an alfalfa farmer, a black politician and former confederate mascot, Daley’s Armenian mother, and his childhood friend Robert Karinger. It’s a good, ol’ fashioned bildungsroman that also explores what it’s like for a small town to grow into a sprawling city.
Sharp Blue Search of Flame by Zilka Joseph Wayne State University Press, April 2016
Sharp Blue Search of Flame is a poetry collection that reflects the author’s experience living among Eastern and Western cultures, as well as her Jewish Indian roots. She uses free verse and other forms to explore real and imaginary landscapes in India and the United States. It’s a dark collection that broaches difficult subjects (e.g. infanticide, bride burnings, etc.), but that’s no reason to turn away from them. Joseph teaches creative writing in Ann Arbor and is an independent editor and manuscript coach.
Know the Mother by Desiree Cooper WSU Press, March 2016
Desiree Cooper keeps catching fire. She’s a former attorney, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, a Detroit community activist,
40 | Metro Times 2016 Made in Michigan | metrotimes.com
and a former Metro Times editor. After being named a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, she’s come out with Know the Mother, a short story collection that celebrates and examines the archetype of the mother through the lenses of race and gender. It’s a book inhabited by women – black and white – who try to understand their roles as daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and wives. You know, humans.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ AllTime Greatest Hits by Mark Binelli Metropolitan Books, May 2016
Rolling Stone journalist and native Detroiter Mark Binelli received much-deserved attention for his 2013 book Detroit City is the Place to Be. With his second novel, Binelli turns his attention to the mythically eccentric R&B
musician Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (“I Put a Spell on You” was his only hit). Hawkins was the kind of guy who came onstage in a coffin, carried a staff with a human skull on top, and made wild claims of joining the Army at 14 and fathering 75 illegitimate children. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ AllTime Greatest Hits is an anomaly. How to define it? A fantastical unauthorized anti-biography? Read it for yourself and come up with a suitable category.
Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations by Ron Fournier Harmony, April 2016
In Love That Boy, Ron Fournier, a respected political journalist for The National Journal, recounts his journey to love and accept