Newly Published, From Graphic Novels to Brazilian Amulets

WORK-LIFE BALANCE, by Aisha Franz. Translated by Nicholas Houde. (Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95.) The three characters in this vibrant, feverish story endure similar problems: unfulfilling careers, lives that are spiraling out of control and a quirky, uninterested psychologist-for-hire who has left them to handle it all on their own.

ARMED WITH MADNESS: The Surreal Leonora Carrington, by Mary M. Talbot. Illustrated by Bryan Talbot. (SelfMadeHero, $24.99.) Indulgent in its detail and imagery, this biography depicts the Surrealist painter and writer’s oppressive upbringing, her simmering relationship with Max Ernst and her turbulent life in Europe during World War II.

BLACK & WHITE: The Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer, by Julian Voloj. Illustrated by Wagner Willian. (Abrams ComicArts, $24.99.) Rendered in shadowy black and white, this biography traces the youngest-ever U.S. chess champion’s journey from a solitary child growing up in Brooklyn’s tenements to his meteoric rise to grandmaster and descent into mental illness.

EPHEMERA: A Memoir, by Briana Loewinsohn. (Fantagraphics, $24.99.) This imaginative autobiography uses the healing and growth of plants to explore childhood pains and memories. “But I love this place,” the author writes amid muted, earthy illustrations of a dying garden, “and want to make it whole again.”

WE ARE A HAUNTING, by Tyriek White. (Astra House, $26.) This lyrical debut follows a Black family over three generations in Brooklyn as its descendants learn to communicate with the dead, turn toward their community and wrestle with larger legacies of violence, displacement and slavery.

SEARCHING FOR SAVANNA: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many, by Mona Gable. (Atria, $28.99.) Gable’s sobering true-crime account draws attention to the “hidden epidemic” of violence against Native American women by focusing on the case of 22-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, who disappeared in North Dakota while pregnant with her first child.

LESSONS FROM THE COVID WAR: An Investigative Report, by the Covid Crisis Group. (PublicAffairs, paperback, $18.99.) Thirty-four experts assess the United States’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic and offer guidance for future global emergencies.

MACUNAÍMA: The Hero With No Character, by Mário de Andrade, translated by Katrina Dodson. (New Directions, paperback, $17.95.) “Ants aplenty and nobody’s healthy, so go the ills of Brazil!” cry the characters in de Andrade’s newly translated 1928 novel about brothers chasing a talisman across Brazil.

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