Megan Fishmann

Strap on a pair of hi-top sneakers, take an Adderall with your orange juice and prepare yourself for a wild ride with Jonny Valentine, the pop sensation and tween hero of Teddy Wayne’s hilarious and heartbreaking second novel.

Wayne, whose debut was the Whiting Writers’ Award winner Kapitoil, has turned his attention to the high cost of stardom at a young age, following Jonny and his hard-partying manager-mother (a momager, if you will) during a pivotal tour across America. Jonny—who has genuine talent but is also a byproduct of marketing genius if there ever was one—doesn’t remember much about life before it included paparazzi, personal chefs, a bodyguard/best friend and all the designer threads he could possibly want. But this 11-year-old megastar has the simple desires of any preteen: to play his favorite video game, have his back scratched by his mother—and secretly search online for information about his absentee father.

Writing in the voice of a child star is challenging, but Wayne does so superbly. Jonny is a hybrid of naivete and cynicism, unsure of his place in Los Angeles (his new home base) or St. Louis (his original home). Whether he’s dealing with feelings for girls, searching for a father figure in the 20-something lead singer of his opening band or challenging rumors that the label is “this close” to dropping him, at the end of the day he just wants to be loved: by his crew, by his millions of fans and, most of all, by his mother.

An original, poignant and captivating coming-of-age story, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine not only examines our fascination with celebrities but also scrutinizes the boundaries of a tight-knit mother-son relationship. Does Jane Valentine really want what’s best for her son, or does she want him (and his money) all for herself? In an age dominated by Honey Boo-Boos and Disney pop princesses, this is a breathtakingly fresh novel about the dark side of show business.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE
Read an interview with Teddy Wayne for The Love Song of Jonny Valentine.

From the best-selling author of How to Make an American Quilt comes another tour de force, Eight Girls Taking Pictures. This exquisitely written novel-as-linked-stories is an impressive ode to feminism as Whitney Otto follows the lives and careers of eight daring female photographers—most based on real-life figures—staking their ground as artists throughout the 20th century.

Spanning several decades and various romantic settings such as Paris, Berlin, San Francisco and Mexico, Otto’s novel highlights the challenges these women face as they attempt to balance career with family life. Whether they are encountering anti-Semitism, sexism or homophobia, the women risked everything to snap the perfect shot.

Like a master portraitist, Otto focuses on the details, describing studio settings as if she were staging a photograph herself. Although fans will notice that some of these women have appeared in Otto’s pages before, Eight Girls Taking Pictures is a chronicle of the difficulties female artists face in claiming all their possible titles: mother, lover, wife, but, most importantly, artist.

James Meek’s stunningly crafted fifth novel, The Heart Broke In, follows the exploits of Ritchie Shepherd, an aging, married pop star who is defined by the parameters of his marriage, the success of his teen talent reality show and his penchant for underage girls.

His sister, Bec Shepherd, on the other hand, fills her time not with vices but with the search for a malaria vaccine, even if it means putting her own life at risk. Bec has dared turn down the marriage proposal of megalomaniac tabloid editor Val Oatman, and Oatman’s bitter revenge—directed at Bec, using her brother—threatens not only to break apart the family, but also to ruin their livelihoods.

From the dried-out plains of Tanzania to the foggy estates dotting the London countryside, The Heart Broke In follows these all too realistic characters as they search for medical miracles, a family’s forgiveness and exoneration in the public eye. What makes Meek’s brilliant novel so compulsive and utterly enjoyable is his ability to push each of his characters to their moral limit.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon hits close to home—literally—with his first novel in five years. In Telegraph Avenue, he brings readers to his very own California East Bay Neighborhood, “Brokeland” (it’s located where Berkeley and Oakland meet up), in the year 2004.

Longtime friends and record-store owning partners Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe could not be more different on paper in terms of race, mannerisms and attitude. Archy is awaiting the birth of his first child; Nat is discovering more each day about his moody, romantic teenage son, Julius. As the two men navigate the roller-coaster ride of fatherhood and marriage (their wives are partners who run their own midwifery business), they are dealt a life-changing blow when ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode announces plans to construct his latest Dogpile mega-music store one mere block away from their shop. Archy and Nat attempt to rally the neighborhood to save their beloved music store, but endless curveballs prevent them from keeping their dream alive.

Like the legendary music of famed jazz musician Sun-Ra, Chabon’s eloquent prose rises and falls in a sing-song tone that lures readers through the novel’s pages in a nonstop riff. Telegraph Avenue is a study of the limits of friendship and the multifaceted layers of race—and a closely observed portrait of a thriving neighborhood that clings to a sense of old-school order.

Best-selling memoirist Deborah Copaken Kogan (Shutterbabe) returns with her second novel, The Red Book, a lively story following several former Harvard roommates at their 20th reunion. Every five years, the infamous “red book” compiles classmates’ personally written recaps of tragedies, divorces, job successes, children and deaths in a bound red volume delivered to each alumni member. Its revealing entries begin each chapter, allowing readers to peer into the private lives of these former Harvard contemporaries.

Readers are introduced to headstrong Clover, a former Lehman banker who recently lost her job in the collapse of the company and is desperately trying to conceive with her husband. There’s flighty wild-child Addison—a former lesbian artist—whose tumultuous relationship with her trust-fund husband is hanging by a thread. Jane is a Korean war orphan who has recently lost not only her mother but also her first husband. And finally there’s Mia, a former star of Harvard’s stage who has now committed to being a full-time mother while married to a famous Hollywood director.

Fans of Mary McCarthy’s The Group will be drawn to these women (and the men who come in and out of their lives) as they struggle with their identities in their respective professional and personal fields. Here, the past affects the present, whether that means an arrest for unpaid parking tickets, furtively copulating with old flings, rediscovering your vocation or hiding financial collapse to keep up appearances. But if the characters in The Red Book learn anything, it’s that their secrets will bury them faster than they think.