A Highbrow Spring in Lit Land


Most years it seems like the publishing industry waits until the prestigious "fall season" to release titles by heavyweight writers, making summertime a good time for catching up on your reading list or flipping sophistication the bird and reading mass market trash. But a quick perusal of this year's spring lineup reveals that the suits at Knopf and HarperCollins are letting the big boys and girls out of the gates early this year. Here are the titles I'm most looking forward to:


May 1
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
HarperCollins, $26.95

The guy who brought us Wonder Boys and the Pulitzer-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay returns with a revisionist historical novel based on the idea that Alaska became a sanctuary for a Yiddish-speaking Jewish homeland after World War II.

May 8
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Knopf, $22.95

Murakami follows the alternatingly ingenious and maddening Kafka on the Shore with this short novel that chronicles one night in a major Japanese city. Characters include a teenage girl who likes to read at Denny's and someone who spies on a sleeping girl.

May 15
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
Scribner, $26

After publishing the brilliant epic Underworld in 1997, DeLillo scaled down to short, claustrophobic novels like Cosmopolis and The Body Artist. Clocking in at 256 pages, his latest joins the ever-growing 9/11 genre, following the plight of a man who survives the attacks on the WTC.

June 1
The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates
Ecco, $26.95

Who knows what to expect from the frighteningly prolific Oates, whose work ranges from the brilliant You Must Remember this to the repulsive and exploitative The Tattooed Girl? Early notices are good, thought the plot summaries are so dense that all I can tell you is that it has something to do with Holocaust survivors and a serial killer, and that it's set in upstate New York.


June 5
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Nan A. Talese, $22

Set on the English coast in 1962, McEwan's short novel examines the tensions - sexual and otherwise - that arise between a newleywed couple on their honeymoon.