All in Fiction
Last month when I reviewed The Black Flamingo, I described how much I enjoyed its novel-in-verse format. By sheer coincidence shortly after writing that review, I read Clap When You Land, another novel written in verse for the young adult audience that offers plenty to adult readers too. I read this book cover-to-cover one rainy Saturday and found it an engrossing and entertaining escape.
Writers & Lovers is one of the best fiction books I have read this year. If you haven’t discovered Lily King (the author, not my co-editor), then you have a real treat awaiting you. Her previous book Euphoria was stellar and Writers & Lovers follows suit.
In Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld uses historical facts to create a novel about Hillary Rodham and how her life might have turned out had she turned down Bill Clinton’s marriage proposal to pursue her own political ambition. What a fascinating premise! Not only is the idea for the novel great, but so is the execution.
Although The Black Flamingo looks in format like a book of poetry, I would describe it as a novel in verse. And although it is marketed as young adult fiction, I can unhesitatingly recommend it to any reader who loves a good coming-of-age story.
If you’ve been an L&L reader for a while, you know that I love a good historical drama, and Conjure Women is one of the best I have read in a long time. Like many contemporary writers, Atakora jumps around in the timeline to build suspense, but she does it with expert skill that keeps you turning pages much later into the night than you probably should.
If you are looking for an epic, historical family drama, look no further. Set in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the first half of the 20th century, Fall On Your Knees weaves together the stories of the Piper family over four generations, as well as the stories of their extended families and neighbors. MacDonald expertly reveals both dark secrets and terrible mistakes her characters make at the same time ensuring you feel the same love for them that she does.
Migrations is one of those rare novels that has stayed with me long after I finished reading it. McConaghy has written a totally original and compelling adventure tale filled with memorable characters driven by the universal human emotions of love, regret, ambition and compassion.
Fifteen Dogs is one of the most entertaining books, with one of the weirdest premises, that I have ever read. Set in and around downtown Toronto, the story begins with a conversation in a bar between the gods Hermes and Apollo, who share a drink and make a wager. They debate whether the cause of human unhappiness is consciousness, and so decide to bestow human consciousness on a group of dogs so see if their lives are made happier by it.
Another Brooklyn reminds me of a soap bubble. It is a beautifully sweet and sad book that took less than two days to read. It is a book about memory, and I find it hovering in my memory ever since I finished it.
In Deacon King Kong, James McBride once again proves his master storyteller status. McBride sets the novel in the housing projects of New York City in the late 1960s with an unforgettable main character named Sportcoat. Beloved by many, Sportcoat is an old, Black man who fights his demons by consuming vast quantities of bootleg liquor.
What an absolute gem of a book Maggie O’Farrell has written in Hamnet. The novel starts off slow and feels almost pastoral. But, it keeps growing in intensity until culminating in one of the most heart-wrenching and satisfying endings I can remember ever reading.
I should have listened to my friend Carolyn who, over six months ago, told me I should read The Water Dancer; that our book club should read it; that Coates’ writing was poetic. She was so right. Now I am recommending that all of you read this beautifully written and expertly crafted debut novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
What better time to tackle those huge tome-like books you have always meant to read than during an overlong quarantine? That was my thinking when I finally sank my teeth into Shantaram, which appears on many “all-time best books” lists and had been sitting on my shelf for years. After finishing that and recovering by reading several shorter books, I decided to take the plunge into The Pillars of The Earth, my first-ever Ken Follett book.
When I read (and reviewed) Americanahlast year, I knew I wanted to read more of Adichie’s work, and I was not disappointed by Half of a Yellow Sun. Once again Adichie creates a vivid world full of compelling and complicated characters, all of whom struggle to balance tradition and the hope for a more successful and just future.
In The Travelers, Regina Porter offers an epic tale of two families, one Black and one White, over several generations. With a cast of characters so elaborate that she includes a reference at the book’s beginning, the stories of the Vincents and the Christies overlap and intersect at strategic points. Although there are quite a few characters to keep track of, Porter does an amazing job of making each of them come alive.
This completely original and unforgettable book will captivate you from beginning to end. Edugyan opens the book with young Washington Black (Wash) who is enduring life as a young slave on a sugar cane plantation on Barbados in 1830. Under the dominion of the ruthlessly cruel plantation owner, Erasmus Wilde, Wash struggles to understand how so little value can be placed on the slaves’ lives.
When I read this book in March it felt painfully current. Sadly its relevance and timeliness have only grown over the past several months as we’ve seen police violence against Black Americans magnified a thousand-fold.
My first encounter with Pearl Cleage was as a playwright, when I took part in a pandemic play-reading group created and run by Northern Stage in Vermont. Her enchanting play, Blues for an Alabama Sky, set during the Harlem Renaissance, combined with hearing her speak about her work, made me immediately add several of her novels to my reading list. And I was not disappointed!
Set in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, The Wonder fascinates with the story of Lib Wright, a nurse who trained with Florence Nightingale. She has been hired for two weeks to observe 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who claims not to have eaten for four months. Her parents and the local priest and politicians believe that she is a living miracle. Her fame has spread so widely that believers make pilgrimages to meet her. Lib believes she will uncover with ease and efficiency the deceit in the little girl’s and her family’s claim. Instead, she finds herself pulled into Anna’s saint-like aura.
You don’t need me to tell you that this book is a masterpiece. The Pulitzer Prize committee did that a few weeks ago when they awarded Colson Whitehead his second Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Whitehead’s phenomenal writing style simultaneously draws you into the world of his story, while illuminating difficult truths about his characters and our society.
