MAY 2026
IMMERSIONS
by Kyle McCarthy
Available from Tin House
Sign-up deadline for this title: April 15, 2025
A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 from LitHub
Black Swan meets Bluebeard in this novel of sisterly rivalry and obsessive love set in the New York City dance scene
Frances’s older sister Charley was a star of the modern dance world. But just as she was ascending, she fell in love with Johnny, an enigmatic trust fund artist, and married him. A few years into their turbulent marriage, Charley mysteriously leaves her dance company and joins an enclosed convent in Provence. Much to the shock of her family, she changes her name to Sister Anne and cuts off contact with the outside world.
Frances, a dancer herself, grew up in the shadow of her brilliant sister and is suddenly unmoored without her. From their first uneasy meeting, Frances has distrusted Johnny. Now, she is certain he had something to do with her sister’s abrupt abandonment of her art and family. When Frances discovers that Johnny has returned to New York, she reaches out to him, looking for answers and seeking confrontation. The two plunge into an ambiguous intimacy—diving ever deeper, as each tries to unlock the other's secrets. A slender and twisted tale of sexual coming-of-age and of the deep bonds of lust and loyalty, Immersions asks how we are made—and unmade—by desire.
JUNE 2026:
RASPUTIN SWIMS THE POTOMAC, by Ben Fountain (Flatiron Books)
Sign-up deadline: May 15, 2026
"A comic masterpiece. The current administration is finally getting the book it deserves."—Kirkus (Starred Review)
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk comes a biting satire of American politics and a searingly intelligent novel about the cruel absurdities of contemporary life, centering on a world champion professional wrestler with presidential ambitions
Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term.
After an outbreak at a campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of “weeping sickness” sweeps the nation, threatening the president’s hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing.
But as Rasputin’s appeal threatens to exceed the president’s, and the wrestler’s supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts.
Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac is both an escape and a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism.
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