Dr. Jackson Bliss Signs Contract for a New Novel

Dr. Jackson Bliss, assistant professor in the Department of English, recently signed a book contract for a new novel publication with 7.13 Books, an indie publisher based out of Brooklyn, NY. The Amnesia of June Bugs is slated to be published in early 2022.

Dr. Bliss was kind enough to share a summary of the forthcoming book!

The Amnesia of June Bugs is about four characters from New York, Paris, and Chicago (a Chinese American political graffiti artist, a mixed-race teacher, a Moroccan-French translator, and a desi traveler looking to erase her past) whose paths cross on the New York City metro during a blackout. Both an ambitious, language driven mosaic of storytelling and also a meditation on time, desire, and intersection, The Amnesia of June Bugs is novel that goes backwards in time, exploring the atomization of the immigrant dream, the haunting of broken families, the artistic struggle against capitalism in public spaces, the negotiation of multicultural identity, and the redemption of counterfactual love in a fragmented society.

Dr. Bliss also said, "Fun fact: this novel was originally part of my MFA thesis at Notre Dame and it took me close to ten years to write it, so when your thesis adviser tells you that your MFA thesis isn’t going to be your book, it turns out this is literally true."

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Bliss!