#rufi thorpe

The last two weeks have been totally amazing for readings of books that I’m obsessed with. New to me in this round is debut author Stephanie Danler, who I saw in conversation with Prune chef Gabrielle Hamilton (who called this the next great food book after Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, if that says anything to you). The other three I’ve been fans of for a few years, and seeing them again at their readings was as delightful as always.

Rufi Thorpe’s DEAR FANG, WITH LOVE is the story of Vera and her essentially estranged father, Lucas, who takes her to his family homeland of Vilnius, Lithuania, after she suffers a breakdown at her high school boarding school. A wise, skillful second novel that ponders the meaning of family and the stark reality of mental illness.

Stephanie Danler’s SWEETBITTER is a novel that feels like a memoir, in that it parallels Danler’s own experiences in many ways. Tess moves to New York and finds work in a Union Square restaurant, revealing the dirty, gritty life of the service industry in the city as well as the relationships that develop between those who live their lives in this lane.

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s JUNE, her fourth novel, splits the timeline between depressed twenty-something Cassie Danvers and the teenage years of her grandmother June. The stories become entwined after Cassie inherits a fortune from a golden age movie star, and his family comes to visit her in her recently-deceased grandmother’s house to find out exactly what she knows and how she got involved, which she would like to know, too.

Emma Straub’s MODERN LOVERS follows two families in Brooklyn neighborhood Ditmas. The parents have all known each other since college, and are now discovering what adulthood and growing up means as they parent their teenage children and remember their own passions.

Please check out all of these books, out in the world within the last month. Support these amazing women and their amazing books!