Deena ElGenaidi
DEENA ELGENAIDI is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her work has also appeared in Electric Literature, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Heavy Feather Review, and other publications.
Alan Drew's Shadow Man
By Deena ElGenaidiSet in 1986 Southern California, Alan Drew’s Shadow Man follows the story of Detective Ben Wade, whose search for a serial killer brings to light his own troubled upbringing. Drew’s novel provides a new take on thrillers, with more of a focus on characters and place. In this way, Drew turns the classic detective novel into a work of literary fiction.
Morgan Jerkins’s This Will Be My Undoing
By Deena ElGenaidiIn her debut essay collection, This Will Be My Undoing, twenty-five-year old Morgan Jerkins explores a number of topics that are essential to today’s political climate. She describes the complexities of growing up and living as a black woman in America, delving into cultural and social criticism while remaining true to her own personal experiences.
Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage
By Deena ElGenaidiTayari Jones’s novel An American Marriage details the story of Roy and Celestial, a couple living in Georgia. The narrative is a familiar one: a man goes to prison for a crime he did not commit, while his wife continues to live her life in the outside world.
Rumaan Alam’s That Kind of Mother
By Deena ElGenaidiRumaan Alam opens his second novel by plunging us immediately into Rebecca Stone’s interiority, introducing us to this character just as she gives birth to her first child.
Leslie Jamison's The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath
By Deena ElGenaidi“The first time I ever felt it—the buzz—I was almost thirteen,” writes Leslie Jamison in the opening of her memoir, The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath. From there Jamison’s story unfolds, and we begin to see the ways in which addiction takes a hold of her life.
Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know
By Deena ElGenaidiIn a memoir about her transracial adoption, Nicole Chung tells the story of growing up as the only person of color in a white family and her search for some sense of understanding of her past.
Lexi Freiman’s Inappropriation
By Deena ElGenaidiLexi Freiman’s debut novel, Inappropriation, centers on Australian teenager Ziggy Klein just after she leaves her Jewish school to attend the all-girls private school Kandara. Taking us through the day-to-day life of Ziggy, Freiman masters the art of satire, poking fun at both high school culture and identity politics. In some sense, this can be described as a satirical coming-of-age novel, as a pre-pubescent Ziggy attempts to understand herself and her place in the ever-changing high school landscape.
Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation
By Deena ElGenaidiMoshfegh’s novel follows a conventionally beautiful 26-year-old woman—tall, thin, blonde—who has no real need to work, living on the Upper East Side in the year 2000, surviving off her dead parents’ inheritance. She has all the privilege and benefits afforded to a young, wealthy, white woman in New York, but all she wants to do is sleep.
R.O. Kwon’s The Incendiaries
By Deena ElGenaidiR.O. Kwon’s debut novel The Incendiaries feels like a book meant to be read in a manic frenzy, with the reader stringing together a series of memories and clues to get to the end.
Rebecca Solnit's Call Them By Their True Names
By Deena ElGenaidiRebecca Solnit’s essay collection Call Them By Their True Names deals with an America in crisis.
Amanda Goldblatt’ Hard Mouth
By Deena ElGenaidiAmanda Goldblatt’s forthcoming debut novel, Hard Mouth, follows Denny, short for Denise, a twenty-something woman and only child who has been watching her father battle cancer for ten years.
Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger
By Deena ElGenaidiIn today’s political climate, people, particularly women, are angry—and rightfully so. Burn It Down, the forthcoming anthology of essays edited by Lilly Dancyger, features 22 writers who explore what it means to be angry and the reasons for their anger as women today.
Nothing to See Here
By Deena ElGenaidiA little over a year ago, author Kevin Wilson came out with a collection of short, somewhat fantastical stories titled Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine, which I reviewed in a 2018 issue of the Rail. This year, Wilson returns with another fantastical tale, a novel titled Nothing to See Here, about two strange children who spontaneously combust when they’re upset.
Mona Eltahawy's The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls
By Deena ElGenaidiMona Eltahawy’s feminist manifesto, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (2019), is written, Eltahawy says, “with enough rage to fuel a rocket.” Eltahawy is an Egyptian feminist activist and journalist whose experiences and writings have been hugely important in our current time.
Chelsea Bieker's Godshot
By Deena ElGenaidiGodshot is a story about religious fanaticism, mother loss, a stolen childhood, and the search for salvation. Bieker deftly builds the world of Lacey May, who is desperate for some sense of purpose in her small town.
Porochista Khakpour's Sick
By Deena ElGenaidiThe Iranian American writer, who fled Iran with her parents as a toddler, describes the physical and mental struggles she’s undergone for years, lasting to this day.
Saeed Jones: How We Fight for Our Lives
By Deena ElGenaidiJones takes us through his childhood and adolescence, through feelings of shame and sadness, through incidents in which he learns he would never belong or find peace within certain groups and social circles. The story draws you in as he talks about his relationship with his evangelical grandmother and how her beliefs contrast with the Buddhist beliefs of his mother. Jones’s story becomes particularly heartbreaking in the ways he discusses his mother, her struggle to understand his sexuality, and the sacrifices she makes for him as a single mother.
Kevin Wilson’s Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine
By Deena ElGenaidiKevin Wilson’s short story collection Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine features ten odd, somewhat quirky short stories about grief, regret, longing, and the human condition. Through a series of sometimes strange and mysterious events involving his characters, Wilson shows us the often complicated nature of relationships between family, partners, and friends.
