Book Covers of Note, June 2022

“Today is wretched and plain. And it is not the bottom, as many people may feel it is. It will get worse; we will go lower. As the Court’s dissent insists, correctly, ‘Closing our eyes to the suffering today’s decision will impose will not make that suffering disappear.‘

And so, with all this laid out, ugly and incontrovertible, the task for those who are stunned by the baldness of the horror, paralyzed by the bleakness of the view, is to figure out how to move forward anyway.

Because while it is incumbent on us to digest the scope and breadth of the badness, it is equally our responsibility not to despair.

These two tasks are not at odds. They are irrevocably twined. As Dahlia Lithwick wondered just a few weeks ago, after the massacre in Uvalde, another clear and awful day: ‘What does it mean, the opposing imperative of honoring the feeling of being shattered, while gathering up whatever is left to work harder?’

It means doing the thing that people have always done on the arduous path to greater justice: Find the way to hope, not as feel-good anesthetic but as tactical necessity.“

Rebecca Traister, ‘The Necessity of Hope’, The Cut

Here are this month’s book covers…

After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher; design by Alex Merto (Soho Press / June 2022)

I’m not quite sure this image does justice to just how pink this pink is. (I love this cover)

Asylum by Edafe Okporo; design by Ryan Raphael (Simon & Schuster / June 2022)

A Calm & Normal Heart by Chelsea T. Hicks; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / June 2022)

Chéri and the End of Chéri by Colette; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W. W. Norton / May 2022)

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley; design by June Park (MCD / June 2022)

The Fight to Save the Town by Michelle Wilde Anderson; design by Henry Sene Yee (Avid Reader Press / June 2022)

Horse by Geraldine Brooks; design by Lynn Buckley (Viking / June 2022)

I have stopped keeping track of Lydian covers but if anyone else is still keeping score…

Jerks by Sara Lippmann; design by Ian Anderson (Mason Jar Press / March 2022)

This cover kept catching my eye on social media. Thanks to Sara for confirming the design credit.

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh; design by Stephanie Ross (Penguin Press / June 2022)

For my art history friends, I believe the painting is “Agnus Dei” by Spanish Baroque artist Francisco de Zurbarán.

IIRC the cover of Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation was designed by Darren Haggar. The painting is by French Neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David.