What To Read

Tertulia's First Dibs Editors Salon series is an exclusive look at a few of the most exciting books coming out each season. Join us on September 17 at 7:30pm on Zoom for what promises to be a great conversation about books with the editors who helped to shape and publish them.

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One of our fall picks is Lifeform by Jenny Slate, which is one of the most raucous and original depictions of motherhood ever told. We are honored to have the book's editor, Liese Mayer, join us at the salon on September 17 to talk about the book. She shared this personal note about the book as a special preview just for Tertulia readers.

Liese Mayer is an Executive Editor at Little, Brown and Company.

The writers I love most seem to have one quality in common: they are entirely, irreducibly themselves, and to read them is to get to be a passenger in their particular headspace. But Jenny Slate’s writing is something more than unique; it’s a whole bursting, surreal, gorgeous and unsettled universe unto itself. Lifeform offers deep solace.

Any mother — any literate mammal!- might find their innermost voice echoed in these pages, but the real thrill of Jenny’s writing in this new book is how she takes the often isolating experience of young motherhood and bursts it open with so much range, vitality, and creative opportunity. And then, even as you marvel at her wit and seemingly inexhaustible imagination, there is her unmistakable voice on every page — charming, consoling, mixed-up and wise all at once.

When it comes to publishing a protean force like Jenny, I feel less like her publisher than a carnival barker, shouting at everyone to come experience this strange collection of wonders for themselves.