tin house summer 2021 catalog

TIN HOUSESUMMER 2021

CATALOG

Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey through Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Unsettled Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

More Miracle than Bird . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease . . . . . . . . . . 4

A Girl is a Body of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Superdoom: Selected Poems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Contact and Distribution Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0

Contents

1

Considered a masterpiece of nature writing, and the book that launched the international

wild swimming movement, Roger Deakin’s Waterlog is a fascinating and inspiring journey into the aquatic world that surrounds us.

In an attempt to discover his island nation from a new perspective, Roger Deakin embarks from his home in Suffolk to swim Britain—the seas, riv-ers, lakes, ponds, pools, streams, lochs, moats, and quarries. Through the watery capillary network that braids itself throughout the country, Deakin immerses himself in the natural habitats of fish, amphibians, mammals, and birds. And as he navigates towns, pri-vate property, and sometimes dangerous waters and inclement weather, Deakin finds himself in precari-ous situations: he’s detained by bailiffs in Winchester, intercepted by the coast guard at the mouth of a river, and mistaken for a dead body on a beach. The result of this surprising journey is a deep dive into modern Britain: its people and culture, its laws and customs, its communities, and especially its wild places.

With enchanting descriptions of natural land-scapes, a deep well of humanity, boundless humor, and unbridled joy, Deakin beckons us to wilder waters and inspires us to connect to the larger world in a most unexpected way. Thrilling, vivid, and lyrical, Waterlog is a fully immersive adventure—a remarkable personal quest, a bold assertion of the native swimmer’s right to roam, and an unforget-table celebration of the magic of water.

US $26.95 · Hardcover · CAN $35.95 · NONFICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-85-8 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 370 pagesON SALE MAY 11, 2021

NATIONAL MARKETI NG C AMPAIG N

∙ National print campaign, including features and reviews.

∙ Prepublication activation campaign for consumers, including targeted outreach to open swimming and nature sites

∙ National print and digital advertising campaign, includ-ing Facebook and Instagram, along with literary, sports, and health sites

∙ Comprehensive social media campaign, including prepublication outreach to bookstagrammers

∙ Finished book mailing to industry big-mouths and influencers in the swimming community

“Roger Deakin is a latter-day Thoreau.”

— —ROBERT MACFARLANE , author of Underland

WaterlogA Swimmer’s Journey

through Britainb y R O G E R D E A K I N

i n t ro d u c t i o n b y B O N N I E T S U I

ROGER STUART DEAKIN was an English writer, documentary-maker, and cel-ebrated environmentalist. He was a co-founder and trustee of Common Ground, the arts, culture, and environmental organization. Waterlog,

the only book he published in his lifetime, became a UK bestseller, and founded the wild swimming movement. He lived in Suffolk, England, and died there in 2006, at age sixty-three.

N O N F I CT I O N

CLAIRE FULLER was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She has written three novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; and Bitter Orange. She lives in

Hampshire with her husband and two children.clairefuller.co.uk

Unsettled Grounda n o v e l b y C L A I R E F U L L E R


∙ Select author appearances

∙ Major prepublication campaign: Winter Institute featured author, trade advertising, and massive Goodreads give-aways to industry big-mouths and social media influencers

∙ National media campaign, including TV, radio, and online interviews

∙ National print campaign, including reviews, features, and original essays

∙ Positioning for Best of the Month selection, including Indie Next and Library Reads

∙ Aggressive book club outreach and promotions

∙ Comprehensive social media and bookstagrammer influencer campaign

US $26.95 · Hardcover · CAN $35.95 · NONFICTION ISBN 978-1-951142-48-3 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 336 pagesON SALE MAY 18, 2021

At fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural iso-

lation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protec-tion against the modernizing world around them. Inside its walls, they make music, and in its garden, they grow everything they need to survive. To an outsider, it looks like poverty; to them, it is home.

But when Dot dies unexpectedly, the world they’ve so carefully created begins to fall apart. The cottage they love, and the security it offered, is taken back by their landlord, exposing the twins to harsh truths and even harsher realities. Seeing a new future, Julius becomes torn between the loyalty he feels towards his sister and his desire for independence, while Jeanie struggles to find work and a home for them both. And just when it seems there might be a way forward, a series of startling secrets from their mother’s past come to the surface, forcing the twins to question who they are, and everything they know of their family’s history.

In this stunning novel, award-winning author Claire Fuller masterfully builds a tale of sacrifice and hope, of homelessness and hardship, of love and survival, in which two marginalized and remark-able people uncover long-held family secrets and, in their own way, repair, recover, and begin again.

From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, and Bitter Orange

comes a brilliant novel about an unusual family held together by a string of lies, a small town with too many questions, and a sudden

death that threatens to undo them all.

2F I CT I O N

3 F I CT I O N

“Marvelous. Alice Miller is a beautiful writer. I absolutely love this book."

— —PAULA McLAIN

The New York Times B ook Review Summer Reading Selection


∙ National media campaign, including “New in Paper-back” roundups

∙ Ongoing national author appearances

∙ National print and digital advertising campaign, target-ing readers of historical fiction

∙ Extensive book club promotions and advertising

US $16.95 · Paperback · CAN $22.95 · FICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-51-3 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 368 pagesON SALE MAY 25, 2021

On the eve of World War I, twenty-one-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees—on her own for the first

time—is introduced to the acclaimed poet W. B. Yeats at a soirée in London. Although Yeats is famously eccentric and many years her senior, Georgie is drawn to him, and when he extends a cryptic invita-tion to a secret society, her life is forever changed.

A shadow falls over London as zeppelins stalk overhead and bombs bloom against the skyline. Amidst the chaos, Georgie finds purpose tending to injured soldiers in a makeshift hospital, befriending the wounded and heartbroken Lieutenant Pike, who might need more from her than she is able to give. At night, she escapes with Yeats into a darker world, becoming immersed in the Order, a clandestine so-ciety where ritual, magic, and the conjuring of spirits is practiced and pursued. As forces—both of this world and the next—pull Yeats and Georgie closer together and then apart, Georgie uncovers a secret that threatens to undo it all.

In bright, commanding prose, debut author Alice Miller illuminates the fascinating and un-forgettable courtship of Georgie Hyde-Lees and W. B. Yeats. A sweeping tale of faith and love, lost and found and fought for, More Miracle than

Bird ingeniously captures the moments—both large and small—on which the fates of whole lives and countries hinge.

More Miracle than Bird

a n o v e l b y A L I C E M I L L E R

ALICE MILLER is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the International Institute of Modern Letters. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Cedar Crest College. Born in New Zealand, she currently resides in Berlin.

alicemillerauthor.com

CO M I N G I N PA P E R B AC K

The Kissing BugA True Story of a Family, an

Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease

a m e m o i r b y DA I SY H E R N ÁN D E Z


∙ Comprehensive prepublication campaign, including bookseller events, trade advertising, and extensive galley giveaways

∙ Goodreads giveaways

∙ National media interviews

∙ National author tour

∙ Print and digital advertising campaign

∙ Library marketing

∙ Extensive social media campaign

US $27.95 · Hardcover · CAN $36.95 · NONFICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-52-0 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 336 pagesON SALE JUNE 1, 2021

“A deft mix of family archeology, parasite detective story, and American reckoning."

— —DANIELLE OFRI

4N O N F I CT I O N

Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernández believed that

her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases, and even into her thirties, she only knew that her aunt had died of a rare illness called Chagas. But as Hernández dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas—or the kissing bug disease—is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus. Today, more than three hundred thousand Americans have Chagas.

After her aunt’s death, Hernández begins searching for answers about who our nation chooses to take care of and who we ignore. Crisscrossing the country, she interviews pa-tients, epidemiologists, and even veterinarians with the Department of Defense. She learns that outside of Latin America, the United States is the only country with the native insects—the “kissing bugs”—that carry the Chagas parasite. She spends a night in southwest Texas hunting the dreaded bug with university researchers. She also gets to know patients, like a mother whose premature baby was born infected with the parasite, his heart already damaged. And she meets one cardiologist battling the disease in Los Angeles County with local volunteers.

A riveting and nuanced investigation into ra-cial politics and for-profit healthcare in the United States, The Kissing Bug reveals the intimate history of a marginalized disease and connects us to the lives at the center of it all.

DAISY HERNÁNDEZ is a former reporter for The New York Times. She edited Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism and has written for National Geographic, NPR’s All Things Considered, and The Atlantic.

She is the author of the memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed, and is a professor at Miami University in Ohio.daisyhernandez.com

CO M I N G I N PA P E R B AC K

A Girl is a Body of Water

a n o v e l b y J E N N I F E R N A N S U B U G A M A KU M B I

US $17.95 · Paperback · CAN $23.95 · FICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-55-1 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 560 pagesON SALE JUNE 15, 2021

In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is

my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta—her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts—but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow. Complicating these feelings of abandonment, as Kirabo comes of age she feels the emergence of a mysterious second self, a headstrong and confusing force inside her at odds with her sweet and obedient nature.

Seeking answers, Kirabo begins spending after-noons with Nsuuta, the local witch, trading stories and learning not only about this force inside her, but about the woman who birthed her, who she learns is alive but not ready to meet. Nsuuta also explains that Kirabo has a streak of the “first woman”—an independent, original state that has been all but lost to women.

Kirabo’s journey to reconcile her rebellious origins, alongside her desire to reconnect with her mother and to honor her family’s expectations, is rich in the folklore of Uganda and an arresting ex-ploration of what it means to be a modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s unforgettable novel is a sweeping testament to the true and last-ing connections between history, tradition, family, friends, and the promise of a different future.


∙ National media campaign, including “New in paper-back” roundups

∙ Ongoing national author appearances

∙ Extensive book club promotion

∙ National print and digital advertising campaign, target

∙ ing readers of historical fiction

∙ Extensive book club promotions and advertising

A Best Book of the Year at TIME, The Washington Post , and O, The Oprah Magazine

“Irresistible . . . with remarkable wit, heart, and charm.”

JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize and her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project Prize in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. Her story

“Let’s Tell This Story Properly” was the winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Born in Mengo, Uganda, she lives in Manchester, UK, with her husband and son.jennifermakumbi.net

— —THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

6

" Courtney Cook’s astonishing collection is beyond categorization. A blend of vibrant

visual imagery and lyrical prose, Cook thoughtfully and refreshingly redefines

the mental illness memoir.”




∙ National print campaign, including reviews, features, and original essays

∙ Goodreads giveaways

∙ Comprehensive social media campaign, including bookstagrammer influencers

∙ Promotional outreach and

∙ Partnerships with health, counseling, and educational organizations

COURTNEY COOK is a writer, illustrator, teacher, and lover of naps. Courtney received an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside. She

grew up in Winnetka, Illinois, and now resides in Chicago with her cat, Bertie.courtneycook.me

What does it feel like to fall in love too hard and too fast, to hate yourself in equal

and opposite measure? To live in such fear of rejection that you drive friends and lovers away? Welcome to my world. I’m Courtney, and I have borderline personality disorder (BPD), along with five million other people in the United States. Though I’ve shown every classic symp-tom of the disorder since childhood, I wasn’t properly diagnosed until nearly a decade later, because the prevailing theory is that most people simply “grow out of it.” Not me.

In my illustrated memoir The Way She Feels, I want to share what it’s been like to live and love with this disorder. Not just the hospitalizations, treatments, and residential therapy, but the mo-ments I found comfort in cereal, the color pink, or mini corn dogs; the days I couldn’t style my hair because I thought the blow-dryer was going to hurt me; the peace I found when someone I love held me. This is a book about vulnerability, honesty, and acceptance; how to live in your own skin; and how to speak openly—not only with doctors or co-patients; with friends, family, and partners; but also with ourselves.

US $18.95 · Trade Paper Original · CAN $24.95 · NONFICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-59-9 · 6 ½" x 8 ½" · 250 pagesON SALE JUNE 29, 2021

The Way She FeelsMy Life on the Borderline in

Pictures and Piecesa m e m o i r b y CO U RT N E Y CO O K

N O N F I CT I O N

— —PIPER WEISS, AUTHOR OF YOU ALL GROW UP AND LEAVE ME

7

MORGAN PARKER s a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the poetry collections There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé and Magical Negro , which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle

Award, and the young adult novel Who Put This Song On? Parker’s debut book of nonfiction is forthcoming from One World. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.” She resides in Los Angeles.morgan-parker.com




∙ National print campaign, including features and original essays

∙ Inclusion in Tin House Linebreakers promotion

∙ Digital ad campaign targeting top literary and poetry sites

∙ Comprehensive social media campaign

P O E T R Y

Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me

Up at Nightp o e m s b y M O R G A N PA R K E R

US $16.95 · Paperback · CAN $22.95 · POETRY ISBN 978-1-951142-56-8 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 120 pages ON SALE JULY 13, 2021

The debut collection from award-winning poet Morgan Parker (There Are More Beautiful

Things Than Beyonc é; Magical Negro) demonstrates why she’s become one of the most beloved writ-ers working today. Her command of language is on full display. Parker bobs and weaves between humor and pathos, grief and anxiety, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jay-Z, the New York School and re-ality television. She collapses any foolish distinc-tions between the personal and the political, the “high” and the “low.” Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me

Up at Night not only introduced an essential new voice to the world, it contains everything readers have come to love about Morgan Parker’s work.

Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night— —the book that launched the career

of one of our most important young American poets— —is back in print.

“Hilarious and hard-hitting . . . it ripples with energy, insight, and

searing music.”

— —TRACY K. SMITH

8

MATTHEW SPECKTOR is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound; a nonfiction book, The Sting ; and the forthcoming memoir The Golden Hour (Ecco/HarperCollins). His writing

has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review , The Believer , Tin House , Vogue, GQ, Black Clock, and Open City . He has been a MacDowell fellow, and is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books . He resides in Los Angeles.matthewspecktor.com



∙ National media campaign, including reviews, features, and original essays

∙ Comprehensive online and social media outreach

US $17.95 · Trade Paper Original · CAN $23.95 · NONFICTIONISBN 978-1-951142-62-9 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 350 pagesON SALE JULY 27, 2021

Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Matthew Specktor explores family legacy,

the lives of artists, and a city that embodies both dreams and disillusionment.

In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crum-bling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one

in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor’s first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, pro-fessionally flailing, and reeling from his mother’s cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or “cracking up,” he em-barked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of “success” and “failure” that haunt the artist’s life and the American imagination.

Part memoir, part cultural history, part portrait of place, Always Crashing in the Same Car explores Hollywood through a certain kind of collapse. It’s a vibrant and intimate inspection of failure told through the lives of iconic, if under-sung, artists—Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, and Hal Ashby, among others—and the author’s own family history. Through this constellation of Hollywood figures, he unearths a fascinating alternate history of the city that raised him and explores the ways in which curtailed ambition, insufficiency, and loss shape all our lives.

At once deeply personal and broadly erudite, it is a story of an art form (the movies), a city (Los Angeles), and one person’s attempt to create mean-ing out of both. Above all, Specktor creates a moving search for optimism alongside the inevitability of failure and reveals the still-resonant power of art to help us navigate the beautiful ruins that await us all.

N O N F I CT I O N

Always Crashing in the Same Car

On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

a m e m o i r b y M AT T H E W S P E C KTO R

9

MELISSA BRODER is the author of the novel The Pisces, the essay collection So Sad Today, and four poetry collections, including Last Sext. Her next novel, Milk Fed, will be published by Scribner in February

2021. Broder has written for The New York Times, Elle.com, VICE, Vogue Italia, and New York Magazine’s The Cut. She is the winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry. Broder received her BA from Tufts University and her MFA from City College of New York. She lives in Los Angeles.melissabroder.com



∙ Inclusion in Tin House Linebreakers promotion

∙ Digital ad campaign targeting top literary and poetry sites

∙ Massive social media campaign

∙ Select author appearances to bullet point list

∙ Including extensive promotional on all of author’s high-traffic social platforms

P O E T R Y

SuperdoomSelected Poems

p o e m s b y M E L I S S A B R O D E R

From the acclaimed author of Milk Fed, The Pisces, and So Sad Today,

Superdoom showcases Broder as one of the most original and audacious

poets working today.

US $18.95 · Paper Trade Original · CAN $24.95 · POETRY ISBN 978-1-951142-65-0 · 5 ½" x 8 ½" · 200 pages ON SALE AUGUST 10, 2021

Superdoom: Selected Poems brings together the best of Broder’s three cult out-of-print

poetry collections—When You Say One Thing but

Mean Your Mother, Meat Heart, and Scarecrone—as well as her fourth collection, Last Sext.

Embracing the sacred and the profane, often simultaneously, Broder gazes into the abyss and at the human body, but with humor and heartbreak, lust and terror. Broder’s language is entirely her own, marked by brutal strange-ness and raw intimacy. At turns essayistic and surreal, bouncing between the grotesque and the transcendent, Superdoom is a must-have for longtime fans and the perfect introduction to one of our most brilliant and original poets.

Tin House2617 NW Thurman StreetPortland, OR 97210(503) 473 [email protected]

Publisher: Craig Popelarsemail: [email protected] & Marketing: Nanci McCloskeyemail: [email protected]: Becky Kraemeremail: [email protected]

Distributed in the United States by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.500 Fifth AveNew York, NY 10110Tel (212) 354 5500Order Dept. Tel (800) 233 4830Order Dept. Fax (800) 458 6515Customer Service (800) 233 4830Special Sales (800) 286 4044www.wwnorton.com

Canada:Penguin Random House Canada 320 Front Street West, Suite 1400Toronto, Ontario M5V 3B6Tel (888) 523 9292Fax (888) 562 9924email: [email protected]

United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, Africa: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.15 Carlisle StreetLondon W1D 3BS United KingdomTel (44) 20 7323 1579Fax (44) 20 7436 4553email: [email protected]

Australia and New Zealand:John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. 42 McDougall Street Milton, Queensland 4064Tel (61) 7 3859 9755Fax (61) 7 3859 9715email: [email protected]

Japan:Rockbook – Gilles FauveauExprime 5F 10-10 IchibanchoChiyoda-ku102-0082 Tokyo JapanTel (81) 90 9700 2481Tel (81) 90 3962 4650email: [email protected]: [email protected]

Taiwan and Korea:B. K. Norton Ltd. 5F, 60 Roosevelt RoadSec. 4, Taipei 100Taiwan Tel (886) 2 6632 0088 Fax (886) 2 2368 8929email: [email protected]

Hong Kong and Macau:Transglobal Publishers Service Ltd.27/F Unit E Shield Industrial Centre 84/92 Chai Wan Kok StreetTsuen Wan, N.T.Hong KongTel (852) 2413 5322Fax (852) 2413 7049email: [email protected]

People’s Republic of China:Everest International Publishing ServicesWei Zhao, Director2-1-503 UHN Intl2 Xi Ba He Dong LiBeijing 100028Tel (86) 10 5130 1051Fax (86) 10 5130 1052Mobile (86) 13 6830 18054email: [email protected]

Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei:Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd.1 New Industrial RoadTimes CentreSingapore 536196Tel (65) 6319 9939Fax (65) 6459 4930 email: [email protected]

Mexico, South and Central America, the Caribbean: US PubRep, Inc.5000 Jasmine DriveRockville, MD 20853USATel (301) 838 9276Fax (301) 838 9278email: [email protected]

∏ıın House Portland, Oregon · www.tinhouse.com

tin house summer 2021 catalog

Documents