non-fictionĪ new biography on the many mistresses of Queen Victoria’s heir, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, among them Alice Keppel, the great-grandmother of Duchess Camilla of Cornwall. A “delightful and brainy debut… posits an intriguing future that is both inviting and horrific.”Įdward VII: The Prince of Wales and the Women He Loved Catharine Arnold St.

In the 22nd century, Joel Byram is a New Yorker trying to save his marriage to workaholic wife Sylvia, who has a super-secretive gig with International Transport, a powerful company that controls all the teleportation centers around the globe. Zhang’s stories “are coarse and funny, sweet and sour, told in language that’s rough-hewn yet pulsating with energy.” Add assimilation to the bucket of typical teenage woes, and good luck with that. Her girls, like so many, are caught in between: different cultures, warring parents. Sour Heart is about the immigrant experience, but Zhang isn’t out to bash the Good Old U.S.

The lesson here is that it’s a long way from Flushing, Queens, to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I couldn’t help wondering as I read these electric stories of awkward adolescent Chinese-American girls if any of them would grow up to hang out with Hannah, Marnie, Shosh and Jessa. They’ve made a savvy choice with their opening literary salvo: Sour Heart, a collection of seven short stories from Brooklyn poet Jenny Zhang, who, we can safely say, is “a voice” of a generation, and an original one who commands attention. This brilliant display of Millennial bravado/insecurity emerged from the polarizing lips of Lena Dunham, who has moved on from her seminal HBO series to a new project: launching a publishing imprint called Lenny, with her Girls creative partner, Jenni Konner. Girls fans no doubt remember these bon mots famously uttered by twentysomething Brooklynite Hannah Horvath: “I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang Lenny/Random House 301 pp. What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY’s picks for book lovers include Sour Heart, a story collection from Lena Dunham's new book imprint.

Sour heart by jenny zhang