Books published by Tortoise Books

With pathos and insight, each of the sixteen accomplished authors—among them Lynn Freed, Karen Bender, May-lee Chai, Gina Frangello, Cris Mazza, and Amina Gautier—featured in Love in the Time of Time’s Up skillfully explores the complexities of desire, intention, and what it means to be a woman in the era of Me Too and Time’s Up.From the fraught, sexually charged groves of academia and elevators of corporate America, to the imagined diary entries of Brett Kavanaugh and the tragicomic travails of a woman swiping right on Tinder in order to dispense advice to men whose profiles she finds lacking, these stories offer a blend of humor and horror, victory and heartache, righteous anger and rueful recrimination. It’s a collection that’s sure to leave a mark on readers’ minds—and earn a place in their hearts.

Born in the bohemian seventies, Hannah Sward was abandoned by her mother, and lived with her poet father on an island with no stores or cars. Kidnapped and molested by a stranger at age six, she grew up to be a stripper and a prostitute with a taste for crystal meth—which seemed to be a sure-fire way to lose weight —with stops along the way for silent gurus, sugar daddies, and drinking in the CVS bathroom before therapy sessions. Painstakingly honest, often humorous, Strip is a heartfelt memoir revealing a woman’s journey from innocence to a dark existence, and beyond it to a world of empowerment.

Pitching trades; planning on pitching to space-related podcasts (including "Space and Things") and publicationsTwo of the blurbists--one of whom is an admin of the "Space Hipsters" Facebook group--said this was the best book of the series.Much shorter and faster read than the most recent book in the series.Stephen Walker (author of Beyond) helped with research and is reading it for blurb consideration.Past titles have a small but enthusiastic following--the author sometimes receives Facebook messages from random strangers gushing about the books.Well-researched (the author tracked down transcripts of interviews with the relatively-obscure main character, and read a wealth of sources to reconstruct a Soviet lunar mission) while still being literary and lively

Talented author with great connections in the literary fiction community; book is set to be blurbed by Pulitzer finalist Rebecca MakkaiPitching trades and planning on reaching out for local Chicago coverage; possible Midwest Booksellers email blastFocuses on an under-targeted demographic--rural/small-town AmericaDebut work

Should we humanize the world's most inhumane leaders?Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung. Vladimir Lenin. These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face—parental authority, education, romance, loss—and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar.Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work—epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic—looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths. We watch Lenin’s older brother executed at the hands of the Tsar’s police—an event that helped radicalize this overachieving high-schooler. We observe Stalin grappling with the death of his young, beautiful wife. We see Hitler’s mother mourning the loss of three young children—and determined that her first son to survive infancy would find his place in the world.The purpose isn’t to excuse or simply explain these horrible men, but rather to treat them with the empathy they themselves too often lacked. We may prefer to hold such lives at arm’s length so as to demonize them at will, but this book reminds us that these monstrous rulers were also human beings—and perhaps more relatable than we’d like.

Like most teenagers, Kirby Russo doesn''t want much: a calm home life, a couple close friends, a sense of direction and purpose. And a chance to relax with a cocktail now and then. And maybe some privacy whenever fantasy and hormones get the better of him. But his world''s upended when he comes home from computer camp to find his stepfather gone and his mom sleeping with their neighbor. In short order, he has to plan an epic road trip to save his family. Never mind the fact that he''s at that age where you take yourself seriously, but no one else does. Never mind the fact that he doesn''t have a car--it''s really more like borrowing when it''s a friend''s parent''s car and they won''t know it''s gone. And never mind the fact that he doesn''t know as much about life as he thinks he does.

Saudade reportedly has no direct English translation; it's a Portuguese word describing the nostalgic longing for something that may never return, or may not exist. This feeling can be strangely comforting; author Manuel de Mello calls it "A pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy." It permeates the music of Brazil, another nation steeped in slavery and sadness and the hope for a better life. Yet this heartsick yearning's actually very familiar to those of us born and raised in North America; we often call it "the blues."This saudade-themed anthology explores this fascinating emotional territory in exciting poems and stories from a range of new and up-and-coming authors--pieces that linger after the last page is turned.

Stunning and visceral in its emotional impact, The Dark Will End The Dark collects 14 stories by veteran author Darrin Doyle. Deftly mixing realism and fabulism, bleakness and hope, sparkling dialogue and unforgettable characters, these literary Midwestern Gothic tales remain in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned.

Meiselman has had enough. After a life spent playing by the rules, this lonely thirty-six-year-old man¿"number two" at a suburban Chicago public library, in charge of events and programs, and in no control whatsoever over his fantasies about his domineering boss¿is looking to come out on top, at last. What seems like an ordinary week in 2004 will prove to be a golden opportunity (at least in his mind) to reverse a lifetime of petty humiliations. And no one¿not his newly observant wife, not the Holocaust survivor neighbor who regularly disturbs his sleep with her late-night gardening, and certainly not the former-classmate-turned-renowned-author who's returning to the library for a triumphant literary homecoming¿will stand in his way."Meiselman is a triumph of comic escalation." ¿ Sam Lipsyte, author of Hark and The Ask

Featuring dark character studies of childhood, middle age, and (lack of) grace under pressure, these stories are among the best work of Tanzer's career, and voracious fans of his writing will surely be pleased and satisfied to have these small masterpieces collected together into one easy-to-read volume. So take a stool at Thirsty's, order another Yuengling, and be prepared to be transported into the black heart of the American small-town soul, as one of our nation's best contemporary authors takes us on a remarkable journey to a place full of love and lust and gin and sin. Previously published as The New York Stories, this classic collection has been revised and edited, and includes a new introduction by Tortoise Books publisher Gerald Brennan.

A former undocumented immigrant and current American citizen documents his experiences chasing the American Dream through the gig economy years as a rideshare driver in Chicago. By turns heartwarming and hilarious, this book is a valuable reminder of the values we all share.The school edition contains discussion questions at the end of every chapter to facilitate classroom discussion.A dollar from every book sold will be donated to RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center For Education and Legal Services, or to the Ascend Educational Fund.

A former undocumented immigrant and current American citizen documents his experiences chasing the American Dream through the gig economy years as a rideshare driver in Chicago. By turns heartwarming and hilarious, this book is a valuable reminder of the values we all share.A dollar from every book sold will be donated to RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center For Education and Legal Services, or to the Ascend Educational Fund.

A unique hybrid memoir, Regan Burke's In That Number chronicles one woman's struggle to find grace and peace amidst the chaos of politics and alcoholism. It's an important public book from a longtime Democratic Party activist, one whose beliefs led her from protesting the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial to working inside the White House-a woman with fascinating firsthand reminisces about everything and everyone from Woodstock to Vladimir Putin, from The Exorcist to Bill Clinton, from Roger Ebert to Donald Rumsfeld. It's also an intimate and revealing private memoir from a woman who spent a harrowing childhood being raised by shockingly dysfunctional parents-a roguish naval-aviator-turned-lawyer-turned-con-man father and a racist socialite mother-and bouncing from house to house to luxury hotel, trying to stay one step ahead of the creditors. (And not always succeeding.) It's an entertaining and ultimately heartwarming journey from private schools to the psych ward, from hippie communal living to the corridors of power to the pews of church, and through the rooms of twelve-step recovery to the serenity of long-term sobriety.

In Another Sun is a lovely and eloquent look at one woman¿s journey towards, and away from, the American Dream. We follow its protagonist, the child of Mexican immigrants, through love and loss, career ascent and personal crisis. It¿s a specific and detailed story focused on one slice of the American experience; it¿s also a great general look at ambition and grace and identity, at the goals that shape our lives¿only to leave us longing for something else.

Amidst the teeming tenements of 1970s Bombay (Mumbai), a hungry teenage boy struggles through life in a poverty-stricken family ruled by a domineering alcoholic father, when suddenly he faces another challenge: the affections of an upper middle-class girl. In this exploration of poverty and pleasure, patriarchy and tragedy, Fishhead’s titular narrator must search for ways to bridge the gap between two seemingly irreconcilable worlds: the life he longs to live, and the one chosen for him by Destiny.

The local bar¿the true, no-frills, nameless dive bar¿offers its patrons a refuge, a place to express their doubts, dreams, regrets, and failures. Here they can escape or celebrate life; tell tall tales and jokes, or rage against the inherent unfairness of the human condition. Chances are you've spent time in a place like this yourself¿but whether minutes or hours or years, you'll want to spend more in here. Lyrical and hypnotic, Ninety-Nine Bottles is a distillation of Joseph G. Peterson's considerable talents, and a powerful and emotional meditation on the repetitions and variations of life¿regular people searching for meaning in these sad and beautiful places. Why not stop in for a few?

Radio. It's almost as easy as marriage and motherhood.The excitement of a career on the air! Listeners asking for advice on dressing their girlfriends in leather bustiers; managers who believe every professional woman longs for a bouquet on Secretaries' Day; Saturday nights giving away free T-shirts and beer in country music bars; reporting on a day in the life of a dominatrix¿all while juggling two kids, rescue dogs, and one cross-country move after another. Live the dream with Turi Ryder, a music jock and talk host on major-market stations from Chicago to Los Angeles, with stops in Minneapolis, Portland, and San Francisco along the way. This darkly comical, bitingly accurate, and lovingly fictionalized memoir will ring true for anyone who has longed for both a creative life and a family to come home to.

American Sfumato consists of nine mesmerizing stories, each designed to function independently and form a unit with the rest. The action is set in several present-time locales (Chicago, the Balkans, New Orleans, Germany, Brazil), and the narrative revolves around a protagonist who's caught up in attempts to reassemble the fragments that constitute his life. By day, he's a neurobiologist who researches learning and memory, which then informs his acts of night-time self-examination.The Serbo-Croatian version was published in Montenegro and Serbia in 2015, and a Slovenian translation was released in 2016. In 2016, American Sfumato was nominated for the Meša Selimovi¿ Prize, the most prestigious award for a novel published in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, or Serbia, and in 2017, it was shortlisted as a Montenegrin entry for the European Union Prize for Literature.

A mysterious man appears suspended in the air above a major American city. A foul-mouthed posse of machete-wielding scoundrels wreak havoc on a small-town mayor. A cocaine-addled boxer starts a torrid affair with the wife of the Invisible Man-who just might be watching (and enjoying) all the freakiness.Darrin Doyle's latest collection of short stories is an electrifying look at men behaving badly-or just being weird. Hilarious, madly inventive, and compellingly readable, this unforgettable collection will leave the reader disturbed, dazzled, delirious-and begging for more.

The natural successor to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg collection, Caves of the Rust Belt: Ohio Stories travels to the Heart of It All, where drowned sailors reminisce over a hot meal, and the rules of the yard sale are law. In his stunning debut, Joe Kapitan captures the modern Midwest in devastating detail, often blurring the lines between reality and the surreal. The depth of each story leaves readers wanting more as they dig into the pages of this remarkable collection. Memories of another America encase families like a Cold War bunker, forcing characters to confront the pasts that haunt their future. A man tries to renovate the exterior of an old mansion, but even in the state where All Things Are Possible, it is impossible to remove the cracks in the foundation and exorcise the ghosts in the basement. A school shares a message of resilience and community, while masking terrifying truths that appear all-too-possible in our current age. Kapitan has created a fantastical representation of the post-recession Midwest, presenting an image of a world where sinkholes don't just swallow the neighborhood, but also unearth hidden hope lying beneath the surface.

After over a decade in prison, a young sculptor, Yuri Dilienko, returns to his old neighborhood in Cicero, Illinois. He finds the town stripped of so many places he used to know, while the town''s familiar streets, bricks and steeples trigger memories of his traumatic youth. To convalesce, he sculpts from collected scrap metal, but his arrival in town soon rouses a young girl, Lita Avila, to curiosity. Could this reclusive and oddly quiet man, whose art is sensitive yet intense, truly be guilty of setting fire to his parents'' bungalow and burning them alive? At once an homage to the urban grit of Nelson Algren and the family sagas of Leo Tolstoy, The Fugue is a true epic that spans three generations and over fifty years, a major new achievement in the history of Chicago literature. It considers the effects of war and the silent, haunting traumas inherited by children of displaced refugees. Gint Aras''s lucid yet lyrical prose braids and weaves a tale where memory and imagination merge, time races and drags, and identity collapses and shifts without warning.

Like an arrowhead, the title story in this collection pierces through our tough skin and through to what's delicate within. It's the first piece in a triptych that elegantly holds together this stunning collection about love and loss and longing-our feeble human institutions and fragile relationships broken down and rusting; our tender hearts shot through with tragedy and dysfunction but still struggling to stay alive, to find wholeness and healing and rebirth in nature, or just to keep beating as long as possible in the face of overwhelming sorrow.

An unadulterated look inside the lives of those hardest hit by the Great Recession, Steve Passey shows with great clarity that when all else fails, it's our relationships that keep us afloat, even if we're drifting to nowhere. Narrators shaped by the generation decaying around them proclaim an era where the Business of Bad News is the norm, and the only escape is trying to find solace in the familiarity of everyday life. Relatable in their unique contentment with the bottom of the barrel, these characters form the most intimate bonds through conversations held in the marginal spaces of the American Dream.

Aging widower Russ Lanaker knows he doesn't know his neighbors-but when he finds out one of them was a witness to, and career expert on, the strange UFO phenomenon known as the Phoenix Lights, he realizes that's a situation he'd like to change. What follows is an odyssey out of his air-conditioned comfort zone, through the sun-baked Arizona suburbs, and onto the franchise-lined (and not-so-great) American road. In an existential style reminiscent of Don DeLillo, but with the humor and heart of a Coen Brothers film, Alex Higley takes us along as Russ strikes out in search of knowledge about an alien encounter, and perhaps something far more bizarre-genuine human connection.