Can you recommend American female novelists who've had their debut novels published within the last 3 years or so?

September 26, 2009 9:29 AM

Can you recommend American female novelists who've had their debut novels published within the last 3 years or so?
posted by Kattullus to society & culture (30 comments total)

Miriam Gershow, Local News. (Disclosure: Friend of mine. But it's a great novel and has been reviewed widely and well, including in the NYT Book Review.)
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 9:34 AM on September 26

Ellen Shanman is one.
posted by sueinnyc at 9:36 AM on September 26

(Like ClaudiaCenter, I should disclose that I know Ellen, though not very well at all.)
posted by sueinnyc at 9:37 AM on September 26

Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is mostly very good (a little bit not good, but mostly very good).
posted by oinopaponton at 10:00 AM on September 26

Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is mostly very good (a little bit not good, but mostly very good).

I fuckin' loved that book.
posted by grobstein at 10:21 AM on September 26

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn was pretty outstanding.
posted by macadamiaranch at 10:34 AM on September 26 [1 favorite]

3rding Special Topics in Calamity Physics, wow.
posted by oh really at 10:39 AM on September 26

Jamie Attenberg, The Kept Man and subsequent books.
posted by Riverine at 10:50 AM on September 26

CURTIS SITTENFELD

-Prep

-The Man of my Dreams (bad title, great book)

-American Wife.

All AMAZING books about women who are "on the outside" and have these amazing observations about the people around them. Prep is kind of Catcher in the Rye for the 90's teenage girl. It blew me away. American Wife is the author's imaginary autobiography of Laura Bush. Wild. I cannot recommend her enough. She changed my life. I LOVE HER!
posted by saturn~jupiter at 11:39 AM on September 26 [3 favorites]

The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony is amazing.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 11:42 AM on September 26

Janelle Brown, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. Fun as hell book, creeps towards the line between trash and literature but only enough to make it nice and chewy.

Seconding Sittenfeld (although technically her Prep is older than 3 years). I wanted to like "Special Topics..." but it never really grabbed me.
posted by lunasol at 12:22 PM on September 26

Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian came out in 2005, which makes it "or so" I suppose.
posted by Addlepated at 12:35 PM on September 26

Outside of your range, but Audrey Niffeneger's The Time-Traveller's Wife was 2003 and is very good.
posted by davextreme at 1:31 PM on September 26

Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know
Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances (well, technically she's Canadian-American)
posted by transporter accident amy at 1:31 PM on September 26

I enjoyed The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff,
posted by amarynth at 1:46 PM on September 26

Laura Lippman is awesome, but "What the Dead Know" was far from her debut novel. She's been writing since the 1990s.
posted by GaelFC at 2:03 PM on September 26

Sarah Bynum's Madeleine is Sleeping (2004) is really extraordinary; an experimental novel which works even for people like me who don't care so much about experiments in the novel.
posted by escabeche at 2:22 PM on September 26

A few YA suggestions:

• Lauren McLaughlin, author of Cycler and (Re)Cycler. Books about a girl who turns into a boy as a weird form of PMS.
• Emily Wing Smith, author of The Way He Lived. Excellent debut novel.
• Daphne Grabe, author of Alive and Well in Prague, New York. A tearjerker featuring a teen girl who is watching her father succumb to Parkinson's disease.
• Elizabeth C. Bunce won the 2009 William C. Morris Young Adult Debut award for A Curse as Dark as Gold, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. One of the best YA novels I have read.
• Also worth mentioning are Suzanne Supplee, author of Artichoke's Heart, and Kimberly Pauley, who wrote the awesome and hilarious Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe).
posted by brina at 2:37 PM on September 26

Kathryn Howe is incredible. Just the type a mefi might like!
posted by jefficator at 4:37 PM on September 26

it's a bit older, but "the history of love" by nicole krauss is amazing. i think it's about 5 years old.
posted by thinkingwoman at 4:41 PM on September 26

Deb Unferth! And, seconding Rivka Galchen. Both Unferth's Vacation and Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances were amazing.
posted by mustcatchmooseandsquirrel at 5:38 PM on September 26

2nding Monsters of Templeton. Currently engrossed.
posted by itsonreserve at 5:51 PM on September 26

The online community for 2009's debut young adult authors. The majority are female.
posted by changeling at 5:55 PM on September 26

I liked Debra Dean's debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad (2006).
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:56 PM on September 26

I'm an American female novelist, and my debut novel came out this year. :)
posted by headspace at 7:17 PM on September 26

Katy Cooper --wrote "Prince of Hearts" in 2000.
posted by I'm Brian and so's my wife! at 7:21 PM on September 26

Since headspace is so modest, here.
posted by pjern at 8:04 PM on September 26

Thank you all. I've requested The Convalescent and Madeleine is Sleeping from my local library but quite a few others are very intriguing.
posted by Kattullus at 2:49 PM on September 27

Kelly Simmons. Read "Standing Still". Disclosure: a friend of mine but a phenomenally good book. Enjoyed it muchly as a guy. I imagine you'll enjoy it more if you're a woman.

http://www.bykellysimmons.com/
posted by lpsguy at 7:35 AM on September 28

I really enjoyed Three Girls and Their Brother by Theresa Rebeck (first-time novelist but accomplished playwright/screenwriter).
posted by booksandlibretti at 7:01 PM on September 28