James Hannaham is the author of the novels God Says No, a Stonewall Book Award finalist, and Delicious Foods, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist as well as a New York Times Notable Book. He lives in Brooklyn, where he teaches at the Pratt Institute.
'Hannaham's buoyant sophomore novel introduces us to the
unforgettable Carlotta Mercedes, an Afro-Latinx trans woman
released from a men's prison after serving two decades... Over the
course of one zany Fourth of July weekend, Carlotta descends into
Brooklyn's roiling underbelly on a quest to stand in her truth.
Angry, saucy, and joyful, Carlotta is a true survivor-one whose
story shines a disinfecting light on the injustices of our world.'
- Esquire
'[Carlotta] the bold, brash, and bitingly hilarious protagonist,
seeks to come to terms with the Fort Greene, Brooklyn that she left
behind. Hannaham's novel has drawn comparisons to Ulysses with its
style, specificity, and snapshot framing.' - Laura Zornosa,
Time
'We were big fans of James Hannaham's previous novel Delicious
Foods ... The long wait for his follow-up is finally over and it's
a doozy: a raucous social comedy that takes on our carceral system,
the poor treatment of trans people, and capitalist failings in one
unmissable package.' -Chicago Review of Books
'Timely, gripping, and compellingly written... this book had me
from the first page... Hannaham introduces us to the distinct
narrative voice of Carlotta, who's willing to cut through all the
noise to tell her truth in her own distinctly hilarious way... This
is a book that deserves to be read by anyone who's interested in
how public policy affects the everyday lives of marginalized
communities in America.' - David Vogel, Buzzfeed
'Like the transformed city she navigates to great comic effect,
Carlotta is irrepressible. She endures. James Hannaham won multiple
accolades for his previous outing, Delicious Foods; with Carlotta,
it's a good bet more are on the way.' - Cat Auer, AV Club
'Lovingly linguistic and equal parts Zora Neale Hurston, Chester
Himes, and the now mythical Stagg R. Leigh, this refreshingly cool
look at the new New York through old eyes is the Blackest book I've
read in years. Carlotta is more than one to remember, she's a
treasure.' - Paul Beatty, Booker Prize-winning author of The
Sellout
'Maybe the comic novel is the best way to explore some of the least
funny aspects of our society. Maybe the justice system is so
immoral, the forces of capitalism so relentless, the treatment of
some of our citizens so indefensible, that we have no choice but to
turn heartbreak into hilarity, to laugh. Carlotta is a beautiful,
unsettling book. The title is a trick; James Hannaham gives a shit,
and so should everyone else.' - Rumaan Alam, New York Times
bestselling author of Leave the World Behind
'Borne along by a riotous current of verbal ingenuity, James
Hannaham's new novel is-like its endlessly vibrant protagonist-a
marvel of invention. There wasn't a page that didn't surprise me.
By its end, this book had conjured a depth of identification with
its heroine that I was not prepared for. Utterly brilliant.' - Ayad
Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Homeland Elegies
'Carlotta is a vision to behold as she attempts reentry into a
now-unfamiliar world. In Hannaham's hands, this theme shimmers with
humor, pathos, and that kind of queer energy that readers love.' -
Jim Piechota, Edge Media
'Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta expertly
balances the seriousness of the criminal legal system with the
irreverence, absurdity, humor, and healing connections of
Carlotta's world.' - Sarah Neilson, them.com
'James Hannaham's Carlotta is an astonishing act of empathy and
identification, which will shake readers out of their torpor and
remind them that fiction at its highest is a form of
metempsychosis. Carlotta steps off the page and into your room, and
stands there, implacable, educating you on her terms.' - Lucy
Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
'Engrossing... A brash, ambitious novel carried by an unforgettable
narrator... in its day-in-the-life framing, hyperlocality, and
rhetorical invention, [Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to
Carlotta] is also an homage to Ulysses... Carlotta deserves a lot
of things society rarely provides to women like her-among them, a
role in great fiction. Hannaham gives Carlotta her due.' - Kirkus
(starred review)
'Hannaham has created a gloriously original character with an
unmistakable voice and an unforgettable story... Carlotta's journey
from Ithaca, carrying her talisman, antagonizing a one-eyed man,
and plunging into a drug-induced fever dream while seeking a lost
son, echoes another linguistically brilliant novel, James Joyce's
Ulysses.' - Booklist (starred review)
'This is the fastest, funniest, and most furious novel I've read in
ages. In James Hannaham's blistering prose, his heroine's return
from the American gulag to gentrified Brooklyn becomes an odyssey
through the absurd, cruel, and sometimes miraculous condition of
being poor, Black, and trans in a system and a city determined to
erase the Carlottas of this world. The book is a tour de force of a
spirit undefeated by this journey.' - Adam Haslett, author of the
national bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Imagine Me Gone
'As if by means of some mashup of Hubert Selby, Darius James, and
Bruce Wagner, James Hannaham's tripwire provocations and dazzling
verbal fireworks give way to a fathomless tenderness and remorse.
His Carlotta is spectacularly Brooklyn and devastatingly human all
the way down to the bone.' - Jonathan Lethem, New York Times
bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn
'Hannaham's latest novel is at once irreverently funny and
devastatingly sad, a quixotic tale about the queerness of missed
time; how, for the most marginalized, the shackles of the past and
uncertain promises of the future make dwelling in the present seem
impossible.' - Michelle Hart, Electric Lit
Praise for Hannaham's Delicious Foods:
'A completely unforgettable, original, and singular novel by a
brave, exciting new writer.' - Tayari Jones, author of Silver
Sparrow and An American Marriage
'A writer of major importance...'- New York Times Book Review
'...an epic and devastating hero's journey... [It] is the result of
a master storyteller at the top of his game.' -Buzzfeed Books
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