among other journals. She is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She is the organizer of “100 Notable Small Press Books,” a curated list of the year’s recommended books from independent publishers.
[The Page 69 Test: The Local News]
At Lit Hub Gershow tagged "a half dozen books worth the trip back into the classrooms and corridors of high school." One title on the list:
Sara Nović, True BizRead about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.
I came to True Biz because it has everything I love in a high school novel: a cloistered school environment, in this case the residential River Valley Schoolfor the Deaf; aching students straining to grow up, with fitful rebellions and first loves; and a nearby adult, the personally and professionally beleaguered headmistress, whose story is braided through the students’ and the school’s. I stayed for the intimately drawn world of Deaf culture. Nović takes us inside the unique strains and joys of deaf characters, one coming to ASL for the first time as a teen, another contending with a hearing sibling. The plot is a page-turner, to be sure. But one of the unexpected beauties of this novel is how Nović renders oral speaking, signing, and sign language itself, including chapter headings. Nović makes a home for Deafness on the page that is as powerful as the story itself.
True Biz is among Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's ten novels about the drama of working for the family business and Alexandra Robbins's seven books with positive portrayals of educators.
--Marshal Zeringue
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