Hardback Fiction from our 2017 Summer Newsletter

Humans have abandoned the toxic Earth for the stars, and in doing so have recreated themselves in some other, grotesque image. One woman, Christine, remembers Joan’s story through gorgeous tattoos. The Book of Joan is a tale of revolution, mystic power, love, and hate, and of how the Earth died. It will shake you and scorch you, and force you to reckon with just what humanity has created. - Jax

There is something delightful in growing to love a curmudgeon. Gail Honeyman has us see the world through Eleanor Oliphant’s eyes. Quirky, prudish, and filled with dry wit, the world seems a bit askew and awfully rigid as Eleanor moves through it. But a chance encounter in which she is forced into helping a stranger starts Eleanor on a journey of discovering the beauty in relationship. Honeyman slowly unveils the tragedy behind how Eleanor became Eleanor. This book had me intermittently laughing, cheering, and tearing. - S.M.C.

Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize–winning debut was a mesmerizing force with a dizzying style and a powerful cross-cultural impact. The God of Small Things resonated internationally, immediately, and permanently. Now, after 20 years of writing nonfiction, Roy has written a second novel! Early readers speak of this book with excitement and praise. Set in Delhi, it features Roy’s effortless interlaced narratives, richly imagined characters, and a storyline of intense, kaleidoscopic beauty. - a.c.

It is one thing to say that Baume’s character-narrator is a stranger in her depressed life; another that I fell into her life with her. Frankie’s move to her dead grandmother’s cottage does not heal her wounds but instead revitalizes her artistic sensibilities. The photographs Frankie takes of dead animals found on the property provide a strange connection to remembered works of art. These frame her persistence in this unexpectedly uplifting story of reclamation and hope. - Karen

Murder, revenge and unforgivable transgressions scar the pages of Tóibín’s latest novel. In his brutal retelling of the classical Greek tragedy, Clytemnestra vows revenge after Agamemnon’s sacrificial slaughter of their eldest daughter. I appreciated the first-person narrative accounts of the women in this book, although they were rife with hostility. Not recommended for the faint of heart! - Ashley

In one story, a man dies of lovesickness; in another, a man learns of the death of his grade-school crush from an alarming late-night call. This is vintage Murakami: mysterious abandonments that lead to journeys of self-discovery, nostalgic narrators waxing poetic about romantic days of yore. Nods to the Beatles, Hemingway, and Kafka add flavor to this elegant selection of stories. A must-have for all Murakami fans. - Jason

The author of this penetrating debut novel about the early days of the war with Iraq is an Army veteran who served there. What you see through the characters’ eyes won’t soon be forgotten: the mundanity and violence of war; the adversity faced by female soldiers within a decidedly male culture. Van Reet’s gift for narrative, his ability to evoke the nuances of place and culture, and his cast of characters create a haunting and tragic story of the dysfunction of contemporary war. - Chorel

There is so much to love about this quirky debut novel. Wang’s narrator must come to terms with her stalling chemistry research, her dear devoted boyfriend, and her complicated relationship with her Chinese immigrant parents, and she attempts to do so with hilarity and heart. Wang writes with such personality, adding unexpected resonance through scientific principles and Chinese culture, and ultimately creating a multifaceted love story and one endearing heroine. - Melinda

Poet Halan Aylan’s debut novel (which has earned starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly) takes place in Palestine in 1967 and follows the Yacoub family during and after the Six-Day War. Salt Houses is a beautifully written story of family and belonging, displacement and immigration, and is particularly relevant given our current state of the world. - Karena

When people tell me they don’t like short fiction, I recommend the title story of this collection: a clear-eyed, perfect-length punch in the gut, emblematic of Ferris’s dark wit and panoramic insightfulness. Few writers can, within one sentence, inspire a belly laugh while highlighting the misery of life’s everyday drudgeries—and still give a wink toward the awkward, beautiful mysteries of life. - Julia