The Maris Review, vol 68

Maris Kreizman

19 Aug 2025 — 5 min read

New releases, 8/19

What I read this week

The Catch by Yrsa Daly-Ward

I love a when an author gives the reader directions for how to read the book they're currently holding. The Catch is a novel about Clara Marina Callas, an author (a very successful one!) who is plagued by (adoring) readers who ask questions about whether the subject matter of her hot pink novel is true, whether there will be a sequel, whether she can help to solve their real life problems. Standard stuff.

But I get why the audience would have questions. Clara is the daughter of a woman named Serene who gave birth to twin girls in 1995. Serene abandoned them soon after. Clara and Dempsey grow up together as orphans until they are adopted into different homes at ages 8 and 9 respectively. On their 30th birthday, while in the middle of some heavy book promotion, Clara sees a woman who she is sure is Serene, except she hasn't aged at all. She's 30 as well. Is this woman really their mother?

Clara's novel Evidence is also about a woman named Serene who abandons her twin daughters and who may or may not show up in their lives 30 years later as her 30 year-old self. See how this gets confusing? But, and I'm sorry to drop a big spoiler here, it doesn't matter what's true. Clara asks the audience to understand that the book isn't meant to be taken literally, and Yrsa Daly-Ward seemingly does the same. Has Serene magically appeared due to some strange timeline shift? According to Clara that's the wrong question to ask.

The Catch is disorienting in the best way, with sections of Evidence interspersed with chapters switching points of view between twins Clara and Dempsey, both of whom experience PTSD from different ends of the spectrum. Clara is brash and aggressive and outspoken, and she over consumes everything from booze and food to clothes and sex. Dempsey, meanwhile, is meek and frightened of just about everything; she's a homebody and she follows a strict diet and she's caught up in the trappings of new age-y self help.

Neither Clara nor Dempsey can see themselves as they are in reality (whatever that is), which I imagine anyone who's looked too long in a mirror feels like at one point or another. At one of Clara's book events Dempsey looks around and feels entirely alienated: "I watch the other women around me, how effortlessly they walk around on their legs, talk to each other. Without any apparent fear." How the fuck do Clara and Dempsey manage to walk around in their bodies? That's the novel's primary concern and Daly-Ward grapples with it wonderfully and imaginatively.

*** The Catch is the first release from Well-Read Black Girl Books/Norton. Glory Edim has always been at the top of my list of People Who Should Have Their Own Imprints (I met Glory so, so long ago when book people still gathered primarily on Tumblr). It's been lovely to watch her keep on winning.

Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky

Mattie Lubchansky has a drawing style that's instantly identifiable, and when you see her art you know you're gonna get a work of satire that balances sharp wit and withering criticism with a gentler, more earnest side (sometimes!).

Simplicity is her best graphic novel yet, partly because it's her most audacious. It absolutely rules that this book is being sold in B&Ns throughout the country despite its plentiful depictions of both sex and violence, with lots of fun nudity thrown in there.

The novel is set in 2081, when New York City is a polluted police state hellscape out of which few citizens are able to venture. Anthropologist Lucius Pasternak is one of the lucky ones – when he takes a job with the Museum of the Former State of New York, he gets to travel to the greenery of Hudson Valley to the town of Simplicity in order to study the members of a separatist commune founded in the 1970s. The way the Spiritual Association of Peers (SAP) live together feels alien to Lucius, but readers might recognize it as a textbook hippie utopian living experiment, complete with lingo ("What it is, friend!"), subsistence farming, and nightly orgies (hence all the penises).

Simplicity is just your typical fish-out-of-water learns to fit in with the group kind of narrative until community members start dying bloody deaths and Lucius, along with the very sensual acolyte Amity, must try to stop the murderous monster... I'll stop there, but I want you to know that the ending is righteous and downright inspirational and kind of exactly what I needed right this very moment. Thank you, Mattie.

***Mattie drew our old beloved dog Bizzy as a wedding gift years ago, so why don't I leave you with that glorious image?

Let's Take a Look at Some Wins

I know things are tough out there. Every single day brings with it seemingly 10 fresh new horrors. So I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate some good news in the world of book bans, from the striking down of a real nasty bill in Florida, to community-led actions that worked!

"None of these Books Are Obscene: Judge Strikes Down Much of Florida’s Book Ban Bill" by Kelly Jensen in Book Riot

"How a Group of Michigan Parents Defeated Anti-Trans MAGA Activists" by Sarah Stankorb in the New Republic

"Controversial Sumner County policy banning transgender books fails for third time" by Angela Latham in The Tennessean