The Beauty of Debuts

I love reading debut books. They often show authors at their most raw, exploring their fundamental obsessions, and tapping into deeply held beliefs. For most writers, the road to publishing takes years: the writing of the thing, the dreaded agent hunt, the sale to an editor, then the wait until publication. An unknown writer must convince so many people that their work is worth it. These books are encapsulations of their resilience, will, and passion.

For authors, debuts might represent the culmination of a lifelong dream. But for aspiring writers, they offer a tremendous opportunity: an example of someone that broke through. In writing my own debut novel, Freedom Is a Feast, I relied heavily on reading others’ first books. Every one of these novels and collections are a chance for study. How is this person tackling character, plot, setting? What makes this book special? What does this book do to keep readers turning the page? Every aspiring writer should have debut books as the most fundamental part of their book diet, because debuts are the ones that show us that it’s possible, as an unknown entity, to be published. 

For all other readers, debut authors offer something that established ones can’t: the thrill of discovery. Because doesn’t it feel so good to be able to say I knew them when?

In this list, I’m offering four debut classics that launched their authors into literary superstardom (and are worth a revisit) and four recent debut books that feel to me like an announcement of greatness to come—all gems for the casual reader and the aspiring author alike.

The Classics

Jesmyn Ward

Where the Line Bleeds

2008

Let’s be honest, Salvage the Bones was really Ward’s breakthrough. But Where the Line Bleeds is where she lays all the groundwork for what is to come. It’s the perfect example of an author digging deep into her obsessions: sibling relationships, class and race, and a profound exploration of setting, in this case the fictional town of Bois Sauvage in Mississippi, which will continue as a central piece of Ward’s two National Book Award–winning novels, the aforementioned Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing. It’s a beautiful debut, quieter and calmer than her later books, but with so much to teach every aspiring writer about crafting a world and finding your voice. 

Isabel Allende

The House of Spirits

Trans. Magda Bogin

1982

Talk about an ambitious debut. Allende embarked on the monumental task of retelling a fictionalized version of her family story, encapsulating the recent history of Chile at the time, and did it in a voice that paid homage to the greats that preceded her in the Latin American boom of the 1960s and ’70s but made it all her own, and unapologetically so. This is perhaps the book that taught me the most when I was in the thick of writing Freedom Is a Feast. I was worried that I was taking on too much: Chávez, revolution, family. The House of Spirits led the way for me in how to marry the political and the personal, and it showed me that a debut novel could be big, and epic, and loud. 

Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye

1970

I wondered if I should even write about Toni Morrison, arguably the brightest star in American letters, but here’s the thing: the beauty of revisiting the debut work of an absolute master is that you can recognize their astounding talent—in the way Morrison was able to capture Pecola’s details, and hold her life with such tenderness and care, for example, or the courage it took to embody Pecola’s father, managing to instill humanity in someone capable of such horror—but you can also recognize their humble beginnings. Toni Morrison needed time to cook to reach the heights of Beloved and Jazz, but would have never gotten there without exploring first the life of Pecola and her family. It’s proof that debuts can also be small, precious things.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Friday Black

2018

The youngest of these four writers, but very much on his way to joining them in the literary firmament, Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, Friday Black, hit every reader it reached like a sledgehammer. Post Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and so many others; post the election of Donald Trump, and during an all-time high in American consumerism, Adjei-Brenyah was able to hold up a mirror to the soul of America. But his mirror is as wavy and strange as those in carnival funhouses. It spit out twelve stories full of zombies, shopping sprees, kangaroo courts, time travel, and atomic bombs but never failed to show us what’s at stake if the country doesn’t get its act together. It is a perfect example of a writer unwilling to look away at what’s happening, and a masterclass in taking it on.

The Upstarts

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare

2023

In her debut short-story collection, Kakimoto manages to accomplish something even seasoned pros often fail at. Every story is its own gem of a thing, an experience complete on its own, but the thread connecting them is so strong, so palpable, they feel like they could only exist next to each other and in that exact order. She inhabits every one of her female protagonists down to the marrow. I can’t remember a book that so fully describes the body and its senses like Every Drop does. At the same time, it tells a story about Kakimoto’s Hawaii, and how its history of colonialism has molded these women and the way they move through the world. She is currently finishing up her debut novel, Bloodsick, that continues to explore the themes so elegantly laid out in Every Drop. I can’t wait.

Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Monstrilio

2023

If you’re looking for a debut that will demonstrate how adventurous, creative, wild ideas pay off, look no further than Monstrilio. A story of a grieving mother that cuts off a piece of lung from her dead child, magically brings it to life, and raises it as her son; it is an outstanding book that explores the lengths parents will go to protect their children, how far love can take us, and the importance of standing up for who you are, unapologetically. For any aspiring writer looking for courage to step into their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, let this debut be your guide.

Kat Tang

Five-Star Stranger

2024

There’s an app where strangers rent themselves out to act as important people in your life. Need a last-minute bridesmaid for your wedding? Need to show your ex you’ve moved on with a handsome new lover? Need a successful husband to accompany you to your high school reunion? This is the clever, funny, terrifyingly prescient concept behind Tang’s debut novel. But what makes this such an outstanding book is not only its creative critique on contemporary America but that everything, even ourselves, are commodities to be rented out to eke out a living. Tang manages to pull the rug from under you and inject such depths of humanity in her protagonist, the unnamed “stranger,” that you’ll wonder how you were laughing out loud two pages ago and feel so deeply sad now. It is the best trick a writer can pull, to guide you deftly through a full spectrum of emotion.

Szilvia Molnar

The Nursery

2023

Sometimes you read a book and you just wonder how a writer had the guts—the stamina—to get it down on the page. They seem to be written in blood, or in this case, in breast milk. It feels right that The Nursery is Molnar’s debut, the feelings behind it are so raw and primal. The book is about a mother struggling with postpartum depression and her relationship with her baby, who is both obviously and obsessively loved and the source of all of the protagonist’s pain and frustrations. It is an unflinching exploration of humans’ inner thoughts; how dark they can become under pressure. Molnar has been open with her struggles as a new mother, and her debut offers a path to follow to any aspiring writer battling with putting their own life on the page.