Debut Novels: A Reading

Laddee Hubbard‘s The Talented Ribkins, in which Johnny Ribkins must draw on his family’s unusual collection of superpowers to save himself from the mobster whose money he’s stolen. Simeon Marsallis‘s As Lie Is to Grin is a trippy and transgressive tale that bends the recognizable world in startling ways to broaden our understanding of what it means to be young, gifted, and black in America today. Steeped in nostalgic wonder, Sophie Chen Keller‘s The Luster of Lost Things explores the depths of our capacity for kindness and our ability to heal.