Lots of folks are excited about the fact that novels by Thomas Pynchon and Richard Powers are forthcoming in 2009. Rightfully so. But what’s got me stoked is the news that Ward Just will publish a new novel in July, titled Exiles in the Garden. From the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt catalog:
…the resonant story of Alec Malone, a senator’s son who rejects the family business of politics for a career as a newspaper photographer. Alec and his Swiss wife, Lucia, settle in Georgetown next door to a couple whose emigre gatherings in their garden remind Lucia of all the things Americans are not. She leaves Alec as his career founders on his refusal of an assignment to cover the Vietnam War.
Chapters Indigo has a little more information. Just is pretty much the only writer I trust to write a decent work of literary fiction set in Washington, D.C. This is great news.
markathitakis.com 
Looks like I’d better get Echo House read by July – I’ve already got two unread Just novels on my shelf (The Weather in Berlin is the other) and I don’t want to fall even further behind.
Great news indeed. Literary fiction set in DC may be what some people look for in a Just novel, but I always am interested in his portraits of long-term marriages and relationships. Oh what a writer.