Three new book releases explore distinct paths through modern disillusionment and memory, featuring Courtney Maum’s satirical ad-man novel Alan Opts Out, Jayne Anne Phillips’ memoir Small Town Girls, and Calla Henkel’s dark modern family story Four Terrible Parents.
A wave of fiction and memoir exploring life changes, rustic renovations, and the heavy weight of family histories. Readers have several notable titles crossing the desk, ranging from satirical takes on the corporate ladder to lyrical looks back at Appalachian youth and twisty psychological drama in a Southern gothic hotel.
Corporate Satire and Epiphanies in Alan Opts Out
American writer Courtney Maum draws on her past marketing experience—which included driving around Paris in a branded car to convince French consumers to buy Mexican beer—for her novel, Alan Opts Out. Published by John Murray at £20, the 342-page satire follows a successful advertising executive who decides to walk away from the rat race.
The turning point arrives during a pitch for a major US dairy account. Instead of selling the campaign, the screen-friendly farmer hired for the presentation delivers an unfiltered diatribe against the evils of capitalism. Stunned by the loss of the career-changing account, Alan experiences a rapid epiphany.
Within weeks, Alan has abandoned modern conveniences to live in a children’s playhouse, walking barefoot and talking to a live lobster. Meanwhile, his wife Vivian pursues membership in the uber-posh Queen Annes—an exclusive community of millionaire tradwives—creating a collision course of erratic behavior that sets them on course for domestic Armageddon.
Appalachian Memory and Aging in Small Town Girls
Shifting from satire to reflection, Pulitzer Prize winner Jayne Anne Phillips returns with Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir, published by Fleet at £20 across 197 pages. Born in Buckhannon, West Virginia, in 1952, Phillips structures her memoir around her home state as much as her own youth.
The book tackles heavy historical and environmental themes, examining the mountaintop mining of the 1980s that devastated both the local economy and environment. Phillips also touches on the region’s infamous feuding families, the Hatfields and McCoys, while paying tribute to fellow West Virginian short story writer Breece D’J Pancake.
Phillips writes in lyrical prose about memories that slide through time like the slow, saturated frames of a home movie
, when summers felt like a long, spooled dream
.
“The painful thing about adolescence is that everything seems absolute, and the painful thing about adulthood is that nothing does.”
Jayne Anne Phillips, via The Irish Times
Renovations, Band History, and a Missing Child in Four Terrible Parents
Among the releases is Calla Henkel’s Four Terrible Parents, published by John Murray at £18.99 across 366 pages. The novel explores what happens when indie-sleaze band SEZME—fronted by Valentine and Raul since their college days—reaches a crossroads as the members enter their early forties.
Raul prepares to marry partner Banner, while Valentine looks to start a family with her on-and-off-again partner Linh, despite lingering attachments to the band. When Valentine inherits a crumbling Southern gothic hotel from her late father, the group seizes the opportunity to leave Berlin and New York behind to renovate the property and raise a child together.
As Valentine and Raul have been touring in their indie-sleaze band SEZME since their college days, their transition into domestic renovation is far from smooth. The foursome welcome a daughter named August, but tensions mount. On the night of the hotel’s grand opening, celebration turns into a crisis as August goes missing.
Themes of Generational Weight Across Fiction
While the three books span entirely different genres—corporate satire, Appalachian memoir, and gothic psychological drama—they share a common exploration of characters attempting to break away from established tracks. Whether fleeing corporate capitalism, confronting the environmental scars of mountain mining, or trading an indie-rock lifestyle in Berlin for a crumbling family hotel in South Carolina, each title examines autonomy, family structures, and the invisible inheritances passed down through generations.
