Hagfish

The rediscovered second novel from National Book Critics Circle Award-winning writer Joan Silber—a wry, exquisitely told story of self-invention in 1920s New York

Like all young people who move to Manhattan from elsewhere, Pauline sees her arrival in the city as an escape from the provincial entrapments of home. She seeks something more than her quiet life with her rough-mannered family in bucolic Newark, New Jersey: a frugal but free-wheeling existence among the artists, writers, and musicians flocking to the city in the 1920s, a life filled with books, impassioned conversation, and inconsequential sex.

Pauline falls in with an ostentatious group of friends who spend their nights in speakeasies and all-night cafes in Greenwich Village, exemplars of the bohemian life. There is Nita, an outspoken violinist who wants a rich husband; Rose, who lives in a hotel, waiting for her married lover to call; Peter, a painter with roving interests; and Walter, wealthy, older, and forever divorcing his wife. Yet even among these new friends, life in the city is grueling. Pauline can hardly afford food and clothing; the room she rents is cramped and mildewy. She becomes involved with a set of arrogant men: a self-proclaimed writer more interested in spending other people’s money than producing anything meaningful, and a handsome recluse unable to stomach her libertine lifestyle. Pauline’s effort to disentangle herself from these relationships and the elusive ideal of living young and free in the city forms a wry, finely-observed, and moving portrait of a woman’s self-making.

Originally published in 1987, In the City is a sharp, emotionally sophisticated portrait of a young woman trying to claim a life of her own in an indifferent world. With its nuance and quiet power, the novel reveals the clarity, wit, and emotional precision that have defined Joan Silber’s celebrated body of work ever since.

In Man Hating Psycho, Iphgenia Baal captures the humor, absurdism, and surreality of online encounters, demonstrating how the indifferent depravity that rules the internet has spilled over into our everyday, face-to-face interactions. In these stories, set in London in the late aughts, young people stage rooftop confessions, DIY group shows, and bowling-alley brawls, and fumble toward a muddled sense of racial and class identity and sexual politics in a world growing increasingly unfamiliar.

In “Pain in the Neck,” a woman’s misguided act of generosity toward an old friend leads to one of the worst nights of her life. A group of teenagers in “Pro Life” disintegrates over a shocking secret that proves their inability to see one another clearly. And in “Crazy Menu,” a dissolute stag party at a Ukrainian strip club unravels into a hilarious spectacle of excess. Provocative, irreverent, and startlingly original, this collection cements Baal as one of the most resolute and daring voices in contemporary literature.

A New York Times Best Book of 2025

A New York Times Editors' Choice

"To Smithereens is an extraordinarily good book, but then so is everything Rosalyn Drexler ever wrote." —The New York Times

A zany romance set amid the Manhattan experimental art scene and the female wrestling world of the 1970s, from an overlooked star of the Pop Art movement

When Rosa, a depressed and drifting twenty-something, meets Paul, a middling art critic, an off-kilter romance commences. Paul longs to be dominated by physically powerful women and convinces Rosa to fulfill one of his fantasies: that she become a wrestler. Soon, Rosa joins a women’s wrestling team and embarks on a tour of the South, befriends her horny teammates and their jealous boyfriends, and learns to hold her own among a crew of seedy coaches and greedy promoters. Through wrestling, Rosa learns to articulate what kind of life she wants, and to wriggle free of Paul’s attempts to possess her.

To Smithereens is a lighthearted satire of art world personalities, a glimpse into Manhattan of the 1970s—with its seedy theatres and beloved freaks—and a riotous foray into the craze of mid-century women’s wrestling. Inspired both by Drexler's experiences as one of few women in the Pop Art movement and her own career in the ring (immortalized in Andy Warhol's "Album of a Mat Queen"), and first published in 1972, To Smithereens is an antic, biting portrait of its time from a voice that speaks directly to ours.