Books by Josh Weil
The Great Glass Sea
by Josh Weil
The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years...an engrossing story of brotherly division.”John Freeman, Boston Globe
The much-anticipated debut novel from National Book Award 5 under 35” author Josh Weil, whom Colum McCann lauded as one of the most gifted writers of his generation,” The Great Glass Sea is an epic tale of brotherly love, swathed in all the magic of Russian folklore and set against the backdrop of an all-too-real alternate present. This is an ambitious novel of love, loss, and light, and a spellbinding vision of an alternative Russia as stirring as it is profound.
Moving and sensitive
evokes the mythic feel of a contemporary classic. There's pathos and tension
breathtaking brilliance. Weil's greatest gift to the reader: a deep understanding of family, personal loss and the abiding love between siblings.”Los Angeles Times
Copies
No copies available.
The Great Glass Sea
by Josh Weil
From celebrated storyteller Josh Weil comes a sui generis epic swathed in all the magic of Russian folklore and set against the dystopian backdrop of an all too real alternate present.
Twins Yarik and Dima have been inseparable since childhood. Living on their uncle’s farm after the death of their father, the boys once spent their days helping farmers in fields, their nights spellbound by their uncle’s tales. Years later, they labor together at the Oranzheria, a sea of glass erected over acres of cropland and lit by space mirrors that ensnare the denizens of Petroplavilsk in perpetual daylight. Now the twins have only work in commonstalwart Yarik married with children, oppressed by the burden of responsibility; dreamer Dima living alone with his mother, wistfully planning the brothers’ return to their uncle’s land.
But an encounter with the Oranzerhia’s billionaire owner changes their lives forever and soon both men find themselves poster boys for opposing ideologies that threaten to destroy not only the lives of those they love but the love that has bonded them since birth.
A breathtakingly ambitious novel of love, loss, and light, set amid a bold vision of an alternative present-day Russia.
Copies
No copies available.
The New Valley: Novellas
by Josh Weil
The linked novellas that comprise Josh Weil’s masterful debut bring us into America’s remote, unforgiving backcountry, and delicately unveil the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.
Set in the hardscrabble hill country between West Virginia and Virginia, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices—from a soft-spoken beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad’s suicide; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls for a married woman intent on using him in a scheme that wounds them both—each novella is a vivid examination of Weil’s uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men struggle against grief, solitude, and fixation, their desperation leads them all to commit acts that bring both ruin and salvation.
Reminiscent of Bobbie Ann Mason, Annie Proulx, and Kent Haruf in its deeply American tone, The New Valley is a tender exploration of resilience, isolation, and the consuming ache for human connection. Weil’s empathetic, meticulous prose makes this is a debut of inescapable power.
Copies
No copies available.
The New Valley: Novellas
by Josh Weil
The three linked novellas that comprise Josh Weil’s masterful debut bring us into America’s remote and often unforgiving backcountry, and delicately open up the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.
Set in the hardscrabble hill country between the Virginias, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices from a soft-spoken middle-aged beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad’s death; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls in love with a married woman intent on using him in a scheme that will wound them botheach novella is a vivid, stand-alone examination of Weil’s uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men battle against grief and solitude, their heartache leads them all to commit acts that will bring both ruin and salvation.
Written with a deeply American tone, focused attention to story, and veneration for character, The New Valley is a tender exploration of survival, isolation, and the deep, consuming ache for human connection.
Copies
-
$14.00
The Age of Perpetual Light
by Josh Weil
Gold Winner for Fiction in the 2018 California Book Awards
“A storyteller of the first order.”―Joshua Ferris
“Josh Weil is a spectacular talent.”―Lauren Groff
Following his debut Dayton Literary Peace Prize-winning novel, The Great Glass Sea, Sue Kaufman Prize winner and National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” author Josh Weil brings together stories selected from a decade of work in one stellar new collection that explores themes of progress, the pursuit of knowledge, and humankind’s eternal attempt to decrease the darkness in the world.
Beginning at the dawn of the past century, in the early days of electrification, and moving into an imagined future in which the world is lit day and night, each tale in The Age of Perpetual Light follows deeply-felt characters through different eras in American history; from a Jewish dry goods peddler who falls in love with an Amish woman while showing her the wonders of an Edison Lamp, to a 1940 farmers’ uprising against the unfair practices of a power company, a Serbian immigrant teenage boy in 1990’s Vermont desperate to catch a glimpse of an experimental satellite, to a back-to-the-land couple forced to grapple with their daughter’s autism during winter’s longest night. As he did with the rough-living figures in his soulful and “devastatingly memorable” (Binnie Kirshenbaum) The New Valley, in The Age of Perpetual Light Weil explores through his unforgettable characters our most complex and fraught desires.
Brilliantly hewn and piercingly observant, these are tales that speak to the all-too-human desire for advancement and the struggle of wounded hearts to find a salve, no matter what the cost. This is a breathtaking book from one of our brightest literary lights.
Copies
No copies available.
The Age of Perpetual Light
by Josh Weil
“A storyteller of the first order.”―Joshua Ferris
“Josh Weil is a spectacular talent.”―Lauren Groff
Following his debut Dayton Literary Peace Prize-winning novel, The Great Glass Sea, Sue Kaufman Prize winner and National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” author Josh Weil brings together stories selected from a decade of work in one stellar new collection that explores themes of progress, the pursuit of knowledge, and humankind’s eternal attempt to decrease the darkness in the world.
Beginning at the dawn of the past century, in the early days of electrification, and moving into an imagined future in which the world is lit day and night, each tale in The Age of Perpetual Light follows deeply-felt characters through different eras in American history; from a Jewish dry goods peddler who falls in love with an Amish woman while showing her the wonders of an Edison Lamp, to a 1940 farmers’ uprising against the unfair practices of a power company, a Serbian immigrant teenage boy in 1990’s Vermont desperate to catch a glimpse of an experimental satellite, to a back-to-the-land couple forced to grapple with their daughter’s autism during winter’s longest night. As he did with the rough-living figures in his soulful and “devastatingly memorable” (Binnie Kirshenbaum) The New Valley, in The Age of Perpetual Light Weil explores through his unforgettable characters our most complex and fraught desires.
Brilliantly hewn and piercingly observant, these are tales that speak to the all-too-human desire for advancement and the struggle of wounded hearts to find a salve, no matter what the cost. This is a breathtaking book from one of our brightest literary lights.
Copies
-
$16.00
Tin House Magazine: Summer Reading 2016: Vol. 17, No. 4 (Tin House Magazine, 68)
by John Ashbery, Josh Weil, Dorthe Nors
Whether on a picnic blanket or a porch swing, the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Tin House will help you while away the hours.
Tin House is your literary companion for the dog days of Summer. Whether on a picnic blanket or a porch swing, the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Tin House will help you while away the hours.
Featuring new work from Miller Oberman, Michael Dickman, and Malerie Willens.
Copies
No copies available.
What Came West: A Novel
by Josh Weil
Author of the New York Times Notable The Great Glass Sea (“The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years.” –John Freeman, Boston Globe) returns with a gripping adventure story that probes the expansive, shifting wilds of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush.
Since childhood, Silas Hall has never been at ease with people. Only alone in nature, can he find peace. He is relentlessly bullied by classmates and even proximity to his own family fills him with dread. Still, despite his increasing isolation from others, he manages to forge a connection with Delia, a non-verbal housekeeper, and is surprised by the strength of the bond he feels with the child they come to share. But as his son, Elisha, grows up, even that closeness becomes more than Silas can bear. So, he leaves his family to travel west, journeying ever farther in search of a life in which he might belong.
Under the cover of the wilderness, Silas burrows deeper into seclusion. By late 1840, he is one of few white people to have crossed the Sierra Nevada, where he coexists with the native Nisenan villagers at a mutually wary distance. But this fragile peace is disrupted when the promises of the Gold Rush bring a sudden flood of other whites west, leading Silas to commit an act of violence that will drive the last chapter of his life and incur upon the world he loves the full wrath of the world he fled.
In interweaving parts, one a third-person account of Silas’s flight from the manhunt that pursues him and the other an epistolary narrative from Silas to his abandoned son, What Came West confronts different forms of American inheritance: the yearning for freedom and the grandeur of the wild, the corrupting nature of greed, the unforgiving ideals of Manifest Destiny, and the environmental destruction and genocide wrought upon native peoples living on the land that would become known as “Gold Country.”
What Came West is the story of a soul split after a defining moment and the ways in which one man tries to save himself and the world he loves as it vanishes beneath his feet.
Copies
-
$32.00