Gina Apostol (CRF 2009), author of the novel Insurrecto, is 2018’s cover author for Publishers Weekly’s Best Books. Alexander Chee (CRF 2011) is also among the top 10, with his “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays.”
Insurrecto is a pyrotechnical marvel with a plot rooted in the Philippine-American War, which spools out over decades and across the globe as the book asks questions about class, conquest, and who gets to tell history.
“This collection could have been titled, simply, How I Became a Writer, but that would have utterly failed to convey Chee’s marvelously oblique style. Over 16 essays, he reflects on varied experiences—working as a Tarot card reader, studying with Annie Dillard, meeting William F. Buckley at a catering job—that together illuminate the development of his craft.”