Back-to-School Recommendations from Split Lip Magazine
Fall is here! And it has us in the mood to bake apples, read great books, and take in interesting art. If you’re looking for something to sink your teeth into this back-to-school season, here are some fall recommendations from the Split Lip Mag FAM!
EIC Maureen Langloss recommends The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Yael was the runner up in Split Lip Magazine’s 2017 Mixtape Flash Fiction contest and now, just a few short years later, she is on the Booker longlist! Holy smokes that is impressive! And so well-deserved because this is one of the best novels I’ve read in ages. I devoured The Safekeep in two days. Yael is an absolute master at building scenes, tension (oh my god the tension), and complex characters you love and then you hate or you hate and then you love. Also, the sex! This book is very hot. And full of all sorts of surprises. So DO NOT read anything about it before you start. Just dive in
Poetry Reader Teri Vela recommends The Boy in the Labyrinth by Oliver de la Paz. This is a hefty work of poetry from 2019 that dives so deep into the relationship between a father and a son with autism that it often resurfaces in different worlds: worlds that resemble this one, and that can be described with familiar language, but are entirely their own. I read it like a novel, like a burning page turner to find out what happens next in the spirals of the myriad labyrinths. Highly recommend this gorgeous book.
Art Director Denise Weber recommends animated shorts from A Studio Digital for a quick laugh/grimace. “Cat’s Cradle” by Sacha Beeley is a standout, with hardcore back-to-school vibes and a wacky Arthur-meets-Mean-Girls-meets-Inflatable-Tube-Man character style. Also, Laura Jayne Hodkin’s series “Welcome to Foggy Hell Town” (Ep. 1, 2, 3, 4) is perfect for September, bridging summer and spooky season. The absurdism and voicing (Laura Jayne Hodkin & Joe Youngman) are hilariously cringe and quote-worthy.
Flash Reader Razi Shadmehry recommends All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews. This novel does a fantastic job of putting words to the confusing years of being old enough to have an office job and weekend Tinder dates, but not yet old enough to understand the strange unrest always bubbling beneath your surface. I feel so endeared to the narrator, Sneha, and how she navigates getting to know her own queerness, her complex family history, and straddling the cultural line of being a first-generation American. I feel so endeared, also, to Sneha’s friends—I won't spoil anything, but this is mostly a story about the pure, true love of friendship.
Former Contributing Editor Chris Gonzalez recommends Flash Editor Amy Stuber’s Sad Grownups. I can't stop thinking about how playful and heartfelt this collection is. As a reader, I loved falling into each story. As a writer, I can't wait to go back to unpack and dissect them! Especially in the stories where a metafictional aspect is presented—narrators who are writers and characters of their own creation—which develops this other thread about how disorienting it is to create art, to process one's life through creating art. I encourage anyone who's ever felt adrift and isolated and desperate to break out of a cocoon of their own making to read Stuber's work, to relish in the absurdity, to linger in the language. Though the grownups at the center of these stories are sad, this book is anything but. Cheesy it may be to say, but there is a light here. (Note: Available October 8)
Fiction Reader Molly Andrea-Ryan recommends Terrace Stories, the second full-length work published by Temporary author Hilary Leichter. (Also a fantastic read!) Terrace Stories consists of interconnected short stories that play with concepts of time, love and intimacy. By the end of the first story, you’ll be absolutely amazed at what Leichter is able to accomplish on the page. There’s a lightness and humor in her work that makes sometimes bleak subject matter approachable and digestible without sacrificing depth. This book tips into the territory of speculative fiction but stays so grounded in human emotions and flaws that I think even the most ardent realist fan could enjoy Leichter’s world-building.
Assistant Fiction Editor Analía Villagra recommends Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound, translated by Annie Tucker. This Indonesian epic opens with its (in)famous prostitute-protagonist, Dewi Ayu, rising from the dead and proceeds to tell the incredible story of her and her daughters from the last days of Dutch colonization through to the Suharto dictatorship. It’s both wildly entertaining and grotesque. (content warning: a lot of rape and other violence)
Social Media Director Wendy Elizabeth Wallace recommends The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. What a delicious romp of a book. A strange attic in a London flat provides what seems at first to be something fabulous—a seemingly unending supply of new partners, who, each time they emerge, completely reset the main character’s life into the parallel universe in which the two of them would have gotten married. However, the question arises—when do you stop? How can anyone possibly decide, in the face of such paralyzing choice? The prose is sparkling, and this novel is a master class in characterization through small, precise brushstrokes. Granazio zips you through the full range of emotion and grips you tightly as the premise expands and deepens. Simultaneously funny, raw, and mind-bending, it’s hard to say whether you devour this book or it devours you.
Flash Reader Robin Van Impe recommends When the Whales Leave by Yuri Rytkheu. I first read this book in a translation workshop, and I can’t believe that if I hadn’t taken that class, I probably never would have heard of this book. The prose is stunning, and the combination of tenderness and cruelty within the narrative made this unforgettable. A tale of how we destroyed the earth thousands of years ago and have continued to do so. Originally published in 1983 but translated into English for the first time in 2020. Told as a sort of fable, this book shows the origin story of the Chukchi. It makes you stop and think about how we treat what/who we say we love most. Be warned: the ending is gut-wrenching.
Fiction Reader Michael Simonds recommends The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor. In The Late Americans, Split Lip contributor Brandon Taylor has returned to a small-town collegiate setting similar to where his debut, Real Life, took place. This time he uses an array of characters who live in town to dig deeper into questions of class and higher education, race and sexuality, identity politics and power, and the role of art in contemporary life. From a working class MFA student to a queer couple on the rocks, all of these characters are struggling to find meaning under the shadow of late-stage capitalism. What’s most interesting about the novel is the way that Taylor places everyday interactions between the characters under a microscope, small hand gestures, quick glances, off-hand comments all become jumping off points for examinations, both social and psychological, of identity. It's a work of social realism that can resonate with any student and, especially for those who have to work real jobs while attending university, reading this book might hit close to home with its explorations of social mobility, class consciousness, and guilt.