Alternate Histories

Daring works that challenge conventional genre and narrative forms to explore overlooked or misperceived moments in history.  From the epic tale of America’s struggle for civil rights as it played out in San Francisco near the end of the 1960s to Mary Todd Lincoln contending with the largest mass execution in United States history, these books are ambitious, award-winning, and necessary. This collection contains: I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita: An epic journey through one of America’s most transformative decades via the stories of the activists, laborers, and students who shaped it.  Savage Conversations by LeAnne Howe: The 1862 mass execution of thirty-eight Dakota nightly haunts Mary Todd Lincoln, institutionalized and alone with her ghosts. Social Poetics by Mark Nowak: A people’s history of the poetry workshop from a poet and labor activist heralded by Adrienne Rich for “regenerating the rich tradition of working-class literature.” When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated by Sophie Hughes: A genre-bending feminist account of the lives and crimes of four women who committed the double transgression of murder, violating not only criminal law but also the invisible laws of gender.