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Articles by Bea Setton
Shelf Life: What's new at Jacksonville Public Library
Angela Bauer, Lifestyles editor June 10, 2023 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate What's new at Jacksonville Public Library: Adult Fiction "Berlin: A Novel" by Bea Setton: When Daphne arrives in Berlin, the last thing she expects is to run into more drama than she left behind. Of course, she knew she'd need to do the usual: make friends, acquire lovers, grapple with German and a whole new way of life.
Book World: Dreaming of a fresh start? Be careful what you wish for.
- - - Most of us have run away from ourselves at some point, maybe even spiraled in a foreign city. If you haven't, may you one day do so with the same self-delusional brio as the protagonist of "Berlin," Bea Setton's highly entertaining debut novel. In the course of this witty and unsettling romp, Setton locates the humor and pathos in personal crisis while nimbly sidestepping the perils of the coming-of-age travelogue.
The Loneliness, and Danger, of Being a Young Woman in a New City
Fiction In Bea Setton’s debut novel, “Berlin,” a 26-year-old protagonist moves into a German flat that is mysteriously attacked. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Credit...Lena Mucha for The New York Times May 15, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET BERLIN, by Bea Setton “Hunger was good discipline,” wrote Ernest Hemingway, who subsisted largely on alcohol when he lived in Paris.
And Then He Sang a Lullaby
Ani Kayode Somtochukwu. Grove/Roxane Gay, $27 (304p) ISBN 978-0-8021-6075-1 Nigerian writer Ani's auspicious debut chronicles the hope and pain of two queer students as they embark on a forbidden relationship at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. August has always struggled to live up to his “venerable” name, feeling “he was unworthy of anything but failure.” After August meets Segun at a cybercafé, he has frequent thoughts about the other man and revisits the café to see him again.
The Sorrows of Others
Ada Zhang. A Public Space, $18 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-73637-096-4 Zhang debuts with a remarkable collection that explores the intricacies of Chinese American families. In “Any Good Wife,” a woman makes an effort to assimilate in Tucson, Ariz., in the months after emigrating from China. She gets a perm, listens to rock music, and makes a Jell-O salad for her confused husband (“ ‘The food is trapped?’ he’d asked, wondering if this was a joke or a game. ‘How do I get to it?’ ”).
Bea Setton on Berlin and how the German city inspired her debut novel
One of the profound anxieties I have is that because I only have one life, I am temporally and geographically limited. I can’t live in Brighton and in Barcelona and in Brussels at the same time. I strain against my finitude and wish I could be everywhere. Reading calms this restlessness and allows me to transcend my limits. This is why I’ve always loved novels with a sense of place.
The truth about lies
My novel Berlin features a so-called unreliable narrator. Daphne misleads the reader, lies to others and to herself. Early readers have pegged her as a toxic compulsive liar. But I don’t think she is exceptionally unreliable. Instead, I believe fictional characters and real people tend to exaggerate the extent to which they are honest with others and themselves. I find life is punctuated by systematic lying. Now ‘lying’ is a strong word.
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