Novelist Erin Crosby Eckstine joins us for a special episode celebrating debuts.
On this episode of Fully Booked, we’re celebrating debuts of all stripes—from fresh fictional forays to promising new picture books—by a bevy of authors and illustrators to watch.
First, Erin Crosby Eckstine joins us to discuss her debut novel, Junie (Ballantine, Feb. 4), a work of speculative historical fiction centering on the coming-of-age of an enslaved Black teen living on a Lowndes County, Alabama, plantation circa 1860.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Eckstine grew up between the South and Los Angeles, attended Barnard College and Stanford Univerity, and taught high school English in New York City for six years. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and cats.
Eckstine’s powerful debut—inspired, in part, by the life of her grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother—is the GMA Book Club pick for February 2025. “Featuring a spirited protagonist, this compelling mix of the historical and the supernatural will resonate,” Kirkus writes in a review of Junie that calls Eckstine “a talented writer to watch.”
Here's a bit more from our review: “For 16-year-old Junie, the cotton plantation of Bellereine in Lowndes County, Alabama, is the only home she’s known. In the summer of 1860, the enslaved teenager spends her days working as a house servant with her bossy cousin, Bess, and tending to the needs of Violet McQueen, the redheaded only daughter of the plantation’s white owners. Junie illicitly wanders the local woods at night, mourning her recently deceased older sister, Minnie.…The arrival of the wealthy Taylor siblings from Louisiana suggests the possibility of a match for Violet and exile for Junie as Violet’s maid. To avoid this catastrophe, Junie commits a desperate act that raises Minnie’s ghost from the grave and propels Junie down a dangerous path toward liberation. Drawing on her own family’s history, as outlined in a note at the end of the book, Eckstine offers a compelling portrait of the psychological, emotional, and social degradations of slavery.…Featuring a spirited protagonist, this compelling mix of the historical and the supernatural will resonate.”
Eckstine tells me how she celebrated publication day and the GMA Book Club announcement on Feb. 4. We talk about the inspiration for the novel and consider a quote by Angela Davis (“If you don’t begin to struggle for freedom, you’ll never understand how vast it is”). We cover Junie’s dramatis personae, how humor tempers tragedy, and the potential for unbridled atrocity to numb readers. Eckstine says teaching high school helped her write a 16-year-old protagonist with verisimilitude, and she shares some of the books she loved at that age. We discuss speculative fiction, ghosts, and much more.
Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, John McMurtrie, and Laurie Muchnick offer the hottest debuts in fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature.
EDITORS’ PICKS:
Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout (First Second)
Faith Takes the Train by Kesi Augustine, illus. by Mokshini (Harper/HarperCollins)
America, Let Me In: A Choose Your Immigration Story by Felipe Torres Medina (Abrams Image)
33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen (Grove)
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
Becoming Mariella by Janet Constantino
Where the Shadows Dance by Dana Killion
Miri and the Honeybee by N.J. Lujan
Energy Wars: The Awakening by Jodi Dee
Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.
