Cover Reveal: ‘Yr Dead’ by Sam Sax

We’re thrilled to reveal the cover for Sam Sax‘s forthcoming debut novel Yr Dead, slated for August 6. 

Here’s a bit about the book, courtesy of McSweeney’s:

In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezras ever loved, every place they ve felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant. Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains and joys that made them into the person that’s decided on this final act of protest. Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. Visceral, propulsive, and at turns fluorescently beautiful and fluorescently tragic, Yr Dead is the blistering debut novel from award-winning poet Sam Sax, one of our most dynamic and imaginative writers.

And here’s a note from its editor, Rita Bullwinkel:

One of the things I love about this book is the way that it contracts and expands time, which Andrea captures so potently with this cover. I especially love the psychedelic oil spill images. They gesture towards a slippage of time, and a slippage of the self, which is so central to how this book moves through narrative space.

Plus insights from cover artist Andrea Settimo:

The author and McSweeney’s initially proposed a concept: to represent someone who’s in the midst of a cosmic crossing. I worked a lot on the stylization of shapes and on the juxtaposition of colors, taking inspiration from ’70s graphic design, to convey the energy released by the protagonist’s—Ezra’s—mind and suggest their journey through space and time.

And finally, a few words from Sax themselves:

I’m grateful for Andrea’s imagination, patience, and vision on this cover as well as the whole design team at McSweeneys. Working on this book for seven years I imagined so many different faces it might wear and am delighted to share this cover we landed on.