All Features

RomanceWestern Romance

Two cowboys, with a twist

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

There’s nothing quite like a cowboy—all strength and competence, dedication and honor wrapped up a long, lean package and topped with a Stetson. These two new stories feature cowboy heroes who check every box, then throw in something a little extra.

Lori Wilde’s How the Cowboy Was Won returns to her well-loved town of Cupid, Texas, where Ranger Lockhart, a cowboy of good fortune, is very obviously in need of a wife. At least, this much is obvious to his lifelong best friend, the delightful and spirited Ember Alzate, who takes pride in her reputation as a local matchmaker. When Ranger comes home to chase a job opportunity, Ember’s resolved to do whatever it takes to make sure he stays in Cupid for good. If that means finding him the perfect wife, then Ember’s up to the task. Little does she know that Ranger has already decided exactly who he wants by his side, and he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his stubborn best friend that she’s the only woman who belongs in his arms.

If you think this premise sounds Austen-esque, you’re right—it’s a Western homage to Jane Austen’s Emma. Wilde turns that mannered Regency romance into a story bursting with energy and vitality that loses none of the charm of the original. Ember and Ranger are bolder, sexier and worldlier than Emma and Mr. Knightly, with Ember especially having experienced more love, loss and failure than Austen’s sheltered heroine, which adds to the richness of the story. Ember and Ranger are flawed, awkward and thoroughly engaging characters on a hilarious journey to their happily ever after. How the Cowboy Was Won is as light and effervescent as a glass of champagne, sweet and sparkling with humor and warmth.

By contrast, Hero’s Return by B.J. Daniels is a tumbler of scotch—layered, smoky and complex. Tucker Cahill fled his Montana home 19 years ago with no explanation to his friends and family. After hearing the news that an unidentified woman’s body has been found, Tucker decides to finally return to the town and face his past. The secret of Tucker's connection to the crime scene is a twisted web that only gets more tangled as the story progresses. He teams up with Kate Rothschild, a well-bred beauty who fought against her family’s expectations to come to the same small town and get closure on her own personal tragedy.

Despite the darkness of the premise, Tucker is every bit the hero that the title promises—principled and honorable, with a determination to find answers that’s balanced by empathy and compassion. The bullheaded Kate, who takes no prisoners in her fierce drive to get to the truth, brings out his protective side. Their deepening connection and slow slide into love play out beautifully against the twisted backdrop of an investigation that reveals new, deadly angles at every turn. Hero’s Return is a page-turner that will have you fighting the urge to flip ahead and see how it all ends. And while the conclusion is very satisfying, it also carries hints that will leave you waiting eagerly for Daniels’ upcoming return to the Cahill Ranch for this family’s next adventure.

There’s nothing quite like a cowboy—all strength and competence, dedication and honor—wrapped up a long, lean package and topped with a Stetson. These two new stories feature cowboy heroes who check every box, then throw in something a little extra.

NonfictionBiography

The roots of Christianity

Feature by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

The recent death of Reverend Billy Graham and the many diverse responses to it illustrated how inextricably Christianity has woven itself into the fabric of American history. How did this ancient religion grow from a loose group of individuals following an itinerant preacher into a massive movement with millions of followers? Three provocative new books examine the evolution of the Christian religion from its roots through the Middle Ages.

In The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, Bart D. Ehrman (How Jesus Became God, Misquoting Jesus), a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, draws deeply on ancient documents and other research to tell the tale of how Christianity grew from a handful of followers to more than 30 million followers over four centuries. After Jesus’ death, this rag-tag group of illiterate peasants embraced a message of love and service, equality and community that challenged the dominant ideology of imperial Rome. Contrary to Roman teachings, under which there existed a clear hierarchy between classes of people, in Christianity no such hierarchies existed and everyone—master and slave, husband and wife, healthy and sick—was equal before God. As Ehrman points out, a core group of this early community preached this new message zealously, pointing out both to Jews and non-Jews the benefits of acknowledging the divinity of one God and properly worshipping this God. The development of early Christianity was never easy since various imperial groups persecuted Christians; yet in spite of such persecution, Christianity grew through word of mouth among family and friends. Eventually, Christianity was tolerated and then legalized by the Roman Empire. As Ehrman concludes in this stimulating book, Christianity took over the empire and radically altered the lives of those living in it by opening the doors of public policies to the poor, the sick and the outcasts as deserving members of society.

THE APOSTLE
One leader of the early church, Paul of Tarsus, did even more to spread this new gospel of one God. In his monumental, meticulously detailed and elegant study, Paul: A Biography, N.T. Wright, Chair of New Testament and early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews, presents a fascinating portrait of a man who went from persecuting Christians to being their biggest advocate. Since Paul tells most of his story in his letters, Wright carefully and closely reads these letters to illustrate that Paul combined the winsome with the rigorous to share his message. Wright points out that Paul’s deeply Jewish education provides the foundation for his vision of Christianity: to love one’s neighbor and to love the one God with all one’s heart, soul and might. Above all, Paul emphasizes the “family life of believers,” what he begins to call the church—a new kind of community in which “each worked for all and all for each.”

A NEW MESSAGE
By the Middle Ages, Paul’s message of a new community was lost in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the church, which focused inward to take care of itself. In the striking and compulsively readable Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart’s Path to the God Within by Joel F. Harrington, a professor of history at Vanderbilt University, the life of Eckhart (1260-1328), a Dominican friar who taught a message of the holiness of the individual that was inward and outward, is explored. Eckhart delivered a new teaching: by letting go of worldly things—even the image of God Himself—we prepare ourselves for an experience of the divine. Harrington examines Eckhart’s own process toward this teaching in the book’s four sections: “Letting Go of the World,” “Letting Go of God,” “Letting Go of the Self” and “Holding On to Religion.” For Eckhart, the experience of the divine means not withdrawal from the world, but a renewed energy to love and serve others. The divine spark within each of us, Eckhart teaches, links us to others and to creation. Harrington’s striking portrait of Eckhart illustrates the ways Eckhart’s teachings remain fresh even for today’s Christians.

The recent death of Reverend Billy Graham and the many diverse responses to it illustrated how inextricably Christianity has woven itself into the fabric of American history. How did this ancient religion grow from a loose group of individuals following an itinerant preacher into a massive movement with millions of followers? Three provocative new books examine the evolution of the Christian religion from its roots through the Middle Ages.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Splashing into summer

Feature by Julie Hale

Nothing’s better than a spending a long, lazy day at the seashore! Get the young ones ready for summer with these three buoyant tales of fun in the sun.

AN UNEXPECTED CONNECTION
Lori Mortensen’s If Wendell Had a Walrus (ages 4 to 8) is the heartwarming story of one boy’s quest to find an out-of-the-ordinary companion. Wendell dreams of having a walrus as a sidekick. They’d tell jokes (“What do walruses like to chew? Blubber gum.”), climb trees and build forts. Hoping to find this longed-for friend, Wendell heads to the seashore, where he throws a bottle containing a message—addressed to a walrus—into the water. At the beach, he crosses paths with a boy who’s on a similar quest, and the two become buddies. Wendell soon finds that there’s no longer a need to wish for a walrus thanks to his newfound human pal. Illustrated by Matt Phelan, whose vivid pencil and watercolor illustrations lend a special charm to the story, this richly imaginative tale is filled with the warmth of sun, sand and true companionship.

TEAMWORK BY THE SEA
Megan Maynor’s delightful book The Sandcastle That Lola Built (ages 3 to 5) demonstrates the importance of creativity and community. During a perfect beach day, Lola is erecting a fancy sand tower, complete with sea glass, when a foot squashes her construction. The foot belongs to a boy with a Frisbee, whom Lola enlists to help repair the damage. They’re soon joined by a youngster with a toy bulldozer who digs a moat around the castle. As their work progresses, a girl collecting shells joins the squad. When a wave wipes out the castle, Lola is heartbroken until her mates persuade her to build again. Inspired by the classic nursery rhyme “This Is the House That Jack Built,” Maynor’s book is a fresh and fun take on the traditional tale. Kate Berube’s mixed-media illustrations bring texture and color to this high-spirited tale of teamwork.

FOURTH OF JULY FUN
Pie Is for Sharing (ages 2 to 6), by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard is a lovely tale that takes place during a summer celebration. Starting with homemade pies being passed around by a group of youngsters picnicking on a lakefront beach, the story moves on to other items that can be shared, including a book, a ball, the branches of a tree and a sun-warmed towel. Ledyard’s text is lyrical and poetic: “Other things for sharing: a jump rope, your place in the middle, a rhyme, time . . . ” Jason Chin’s watercolor and gouache illustrations are beautifully realistic and add extra appeal to the story. Ledyard’s tale ends with a Fourth of July fireworks show—an impressive display that the group enjoys together. The upshot of this sweet story: Happiness means making sure everyone gets a piece of the pie.

Nothing’s better than a spending a long, lazy day at the seashore! Get the young ones ready for summer with these three buoyant tales of fun in the sun.

NonfictionMemoir

Reaching for new heights

Feature by Julie Hale

Spring is finally here, which means it’s matriculation time! Filled with humor and advice, these three books will help grads face the future with confidence—or at least give them a good laugh as they step into the wide world.

Whether they’re stressed about starting college or anxious about impressing a new boss, grads who are fretting about the future will find a kindred spirit in Beth Evans, whose new book, I Really Didn’t Think This Through: Tales from My So-Called Adult Life, is chock-full of the clever comic doodles and enlightened observations that have earned her a substantial Instagram following. In this humorous, heartfelt volume, Evans shares stories about her personal challenges, from coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder to assuming “grown-up” responsibilities like balancing a bank account. Readers on the cusp of adulthood will discover that they’re not unique in feeling flummoxed by the future. “Basically, what I’m trying to say is that you’re okay,” Evans writes. “And sometimes just being okay is a great place to be.” This nifty little book provides the perfect blend of comedy and camaraderie.

FAIL BETTER
In Failure Is an Option: An Attempted Memoir—a title that’s sure to grab your grad’s attention—H. Jon Benjamin, a comedian and the voice of the titular characters in the animated shows “Bob’s Burgers” and “Archer,” looks back at the mistakes that made him the man he is today. That’s right—in this quirky retrospective, Benjamin takes stock of past failures that seemed terrible in the moment but ultimately resulted in growth and progress.

Benjamin is up-front and funny as he recounts his unsuccessful launch of a kids’ late-night TV talk show (tentative title: “Midnight Pajama Jam”) and documents his parental shortcomings (bad idea: babysitting an infant in a video arcade). Yet failure “doesn’t mean the end of something,” Benjamin writes. “Often, it’s a springboard toward something better.” He delivers these and other words to live by with concision, wit and a stand-up’s sense of timing.

CONGRATS, WITH CAVEATS
It’s a dream team: Roz Chast, aka everybody’s favorite illustrator, and Carl Hiaasen, author of innumerable bestselling books, pair up for a one-of-a-kind commencement address in Assume the Worst: The Graduation Speech You’ll Never Hear. Hiaasen graduated from college in 1974, in an era besmirched by Watergate and the Vietnam War, and he doesn’t think the world has improved much since. To freshly minted grads, the chief piece of wisdom he imparts is “assume the worst.” Black humor abounds in this wry treatise, as Hiaasen refutes the “lame platitudes” usually included in commencement speeches (i.e. “try to find goodness in everyone you meet”). Chast’s genius cartoons provide extra laughs along the way. This is a book today’s grads will return to when commencement is nothing more than a dim memory.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Spring is finally here, which means it’s matriculation time! Filled with humor and advice, these three books will help grads face the future with confidence—or at least give them a good laugh as they step into the wide world.

NonfictionParentingMemoirCookbooks

A Sunday kind of love

Feature by Alice Cary

If you’re lucky, your mom will always be your moon and stars, even after she’s gone. During the month of Mother’s Day, celebrate memorable moms and their adoring (and occasionally aggravating) children with these five books.

Margaret Bragg is an extraordinary octogenarian cook from Alabama who’s worn out 18 stoves and has no use for things like mixers, blenders or measuring cups. She whoops at the term “farm-to-table,” saying she had it in her day—it was called “a flatbed truck.” Even though Margaret proclaims that “a person can’t cook from a book,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning son and author of All Over but the Shoutin’, Rick Bragg, decided it was high time to collect her cooking stories and recipes in The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table. “I guess you would call it a food memoir,” Bragg writes, “but it is really just a cookbook, told the way we tell everything, with a certain amount of meandering.”

And what marvelous meandering it is. Each chapter contains a family photo, recipes and the often uproarious tales behind them, starting with the legendary tale of Bragg’s great-grandfather Jimmy Jim, who deserted his family after a bloody battle that may have involved a murder, but was summoned back years later to teach Bragg’s grandmother how to cook.

These stories shimmer and shine, casting a Southern spell with Bragg’s gorgeous prose, while the myriad of recipes—including Cracklin’ Cornbread, Spareribs Stewed in Butter Beans and a dessert called Butter Rolls—are guaranteed to leave readers drooling. Each recipe includes directions like, “Turn your stove eye to medium. My mother cooks damn near everything over medium.”

The Best Cook in the World is Julia Child by way of the Hatfields and McCoys. Margaret Bragg can cook up a storm, while Rick Bragg writes with a powerful, page-turning punch. The result is unimaginably delectable.

A LIFE LIVED WITH FLOWERS
Academy Award-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden writes an extended love letter to her mother in The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers. Harden’s mother, Beverly, has always been her best friend and cheerleader; she prodded her reluctant daughter to try out for a local production of a Neil Simon play, which turned out to be her entree into show business.

Texas-born-and-bred Beverly married her college sweetheart at age 19 and soon had five children. As the family of a Naval officer who was frequently away at sea, Beverly and the children traveled the world, living in California, Maryland and Greece. “If Dad was our captain, she was our navigator,” Harden writes.

When their travels brought the family to Japan, Beverly fell in love with ikebana, the ancient art of flower arranging, which became her lifelong passion. Harden uses its imagery and philosophy to tell her mother’s story, interspersing chapters with photographs of ikebana arrangements specially created for her book. It’s a soulful tribute that’s framed with sadness and loss: Harden’s mother has been increasingly debilitated by Alzheimer’s since 2007.

“The details of a home are usually what fill up a mother’s life,” Harden notes, “but how often have her children stopped to consider that her sacrifices are actually gifts?” With The Seasons of My Mother, Harden lovingly shares her mother’s gifts with the world.

BREATHE, THEN GRIEVE
One day, while contemplating the horror of someday losing her mom, illustrator Hallie Bateman realized that a day-by-day book of instructions would be helpful at such an unimaginable time. Naturally, she turned to her writer mom, Suzy Hopkins, for help. Their collaboration has resulted in an exceptional self-help guide, What to Do When I’m Gone: A Mother’s Wisdom to Her Daughter.

From What to Do When I’m Gone, written by Suzy Hopkins and illustrated by Hallie Bateman. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury.

Bateman and Hopkins share a loving, humorous outlook, and their graphic memoir is filled with plenty of heartfelt wisdom and edgy humor reminiscent of Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? There are recipes to feed the soul (Day 1: Make fajitas.), burial instructions, tips for overcoming grief and advice for things like marriage, divorce, childbearing and aging. For example: “Things not to include in my obituary: Nobody but my immediate family needs to know that I made mosaic tile flower pots, played piano badly, bought season tickets but only saw two plays a year, or cooked with the same six ingredients for the past twenty-five years.”

What can you do to help someone who’s recently lost a mom? Give them a copy of What to Do When I’m Gone.

MAKE ’EM LAUGH
It takes real talent to be consistently funny while sharing both your worst fears and greatest dreams. Kimberly Harrington is a mother of two who does just that with her debut collection, Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words.

This always lively, sometimes sidesplitting series of short essays tackles everything from the exhausting days of early infancy to the dread of having one’s children grow up (“I worry about what I will do with that silence when you both are grown. What will I do with that? Is it payback for me shushing you and waving my hands at you when I was on a work call in that NO-NO-NO-OH-MY-GOD-GO-AWAY way that I did?”). Some essays are pure satire (“What Do You Think of My Son’s Senior Picture That Was Shot by Annie Leibovitz?”) while others are deadly serious (“Please Don’t Get Murdered at School Today”). Many are wonderful mixtures of both, such as the not-to-be missed “The Super Bowl of Interruptions.”

Whether she’s aiming for your funny bone or your heart, Harrington’s takes on motherhood are spot-on.

MOTHERING MADNESS
Life doesn’t always go as planned, as author Jennifer Fulwiler can tell you. “I used to be a career atheist who never wanted a family, yet I ended up having six babies in eight years,” she writes in One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both. This, coming from an introvert who “needed to minimize having people all up in [her] face.”

To add to the chaos of writing and parenting six young kids, Fulwiler hosts “The Jennifer Fulwiler Show” on SiriusXM radio. Before the children arrived, this Wonder Woman’s life had already taken a few surprising turns—she converted to Catholicism and left her job as a computer programmer, a journey chronicled in Something Other Than God.

Fulwiler is a likable, down-home Texan who never preaches or proselytizes. Thoughtful and funny, she whips off lines like, “Our home life had been utterly derailed when Netflix suddenly removed Penny’s favorite show, ‘Shaun the Sheep,’ from its lineup. The role Shaun played in our house was similar to the role a snake charmer might play in a cobra-infested village.” The morsels of wit and wisdom Fulwiler delivers are as delightful as fresh-baked cookies.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If you’re lucky, your mom will always be your moon and stars, even after she’s gone. During the month of Mother’s Day, celebrate memorable moms and their adoring (and occasionally aggravating) children with these five books.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

A dash, a dollop, a sprinkling of magic

Feature by Matthew Jackson

At its best, fantasy fiction is transportive, taking us away from the world we know. Sometimes that journey sends us to alien and mythic realms, but sometimes—as in this trio of powerful new novels—magic can be found in a strange and wondrous reflection of a world we already recognize.

In his stunning debut, The City of Lost Fortunes, Bryan Camp crafts a spellbinding vision of one of America’s most magical cities. In a post-Katrina New Orleans, magician and grifter Jude Dubuisson is adrift, hiding from his exciting former life and keeping quiet about his gift for locating lost items. All that changes when a sudden invitation catapults him back into a world of gods, vampires, angels and tremendous power.

What begins as an enticing introduction to a mythic version of the Crescent City and its characters quickly deepens as Camp weaves through strange haunts and schemes. Indeed, magic is woven into every page with such mesmeric precision that the reader has no idea what to expect next and can’t risk turning away for a moment. Camp takes us through his world with the self-assuredness of a seasoned novelist, leaving no word wasted and no moment of exposition without a little spell twisted into it.

The novel journeys deeper still, beyond its own imagined mysteries and into the unanswered questions of the American experience. The cultural melting pot of New Orleans becomes enchanted, as ritual chalk circles lead to doors, doors lead to hidden rooms, and hidden rooms lead to other realms. As Jude rediscovers a world he left behind, we discover a magical and uncharted landscape that perhaps has always existed before our very eyes.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Camp for The City of Lost Fortunes.

CITY ON THE WATER
In Blackfish City, the first adult novel from Sam J. Miller (The Art of Starving) imagines a rough, cobbled-together future, then brings forth a little magic from its potential darkness.

In a world ravaged by climate change, corruption and other disasters, humanity has reorganized itself into a series of new settlements. In the floating city Qaanaaq—a mesh of intertwined cultures, vastly different income levels and technology merged with raw survival instinct—a group of seemingly disparate characters are united by a single jarring event: the arrival of a mysterious woman, called an “orcamancer,” who emerges from the sea on a killer whale, with a polar bear in tow. Who is she? What does she want? Will she be the city’s doom, its salvation or some frightening hybrid of the two?

As this mystery unfolds, Miller introduces a rich kid suffering from a strange disease, a battered journeyman fighter, a city administrator, a crime lord with bigger ambitions, a gender-nonbinary messenger and other compelling personalities linked by the aura of the orcamancer. Providing one more voice to the narrative, a mysterious guidebook seems to function as the voice of the city itself. As these varying points of view take their turns telling the story, an addictive tale of redemption and hope emerges from a grimy future.

INTO THE WOODS
What Should Be Wild, the magical debut novel from Julia Fine, begins with all the makings of a dark fairy tale. There once was a girl named Maisie who grew up in an old manor house on the edge of a strange forest. Maisie was born with the power to kill living things and resurrect dead things with a single touch, and so she was locked away by her anthropologist father, who considered her too dangerous and puzzling to be allowed to explore the outside world. When her father goes missing, Maisie’s mixture of curiosity and concern sends her on a journey to the heart of the forest. There, she discovers a dark curse that has plagued the women of her family for centuries.

What follows is a captivating tale that explores the fears, desires and mysteries of growing up through the clouded lens of a dark fantasy. Fine begins with elements we all recognize—a girl with strange powers, a dark old house, a mysterious forest that could be waiting just beyond our doorstep—and delightfully warps them until a new tale emerges. Maisie is a complex heroine worthy of the story’s luxurious prose. In telling her story, Fine reveals her own gift for walking the tightrope between the universal truths of human experience and the hidden magic within those truths.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

At its best, fantasy fiction is transportive, taking us away from the world we know. Sometimes that journey sends us to alien and mythic realms, but sometimes—as in this trio of powerful new novels—magic can be found in a strange and wondrous reflection of a world we already recognize.

Fiction

The best books of springtime suspense highlight the darkest side of love

Feature by Annie Metcalf

Three female-led literary thrillers explore the ways in which love (both romantic and familial) can nurture or destroy, and how devastating the consequences can be when it does the latter. With excellently placed twists, clever metafictional elements and chilling conclusions, these three books are the standouts of this season’s thriller shelves.

In Roz Nay’s debut, Our Little Secret, a young woman stuck in a police interview room takes a detective on a meandering journey down memory lane, revealing the history of her first love, how they parted and what happened next.

Angela Petitjean and her high school sweetheart, Hamish “HP” Parker, still live in their Vermont hometown. Over the years, HP married a woman named Saskia and had a child, and now Saskia is missing. Detective Novak just wants Angela to answer some questions. Angela just wants Novak to realize that the story she’s telling will give him all the answers he needs.

Angela’s delicious narration spins a tale of heady high school love, an idyllic year of study at Oxford University and the stale monotony born of unfulfilled potential. Our Little Secret takes the unreliable narrator trope and ramps it up: Angela is a fantastic liar, but she might not realize that her lies can be just as revealing as the truth. With a slow-burning plot and solid characters, this novel introduces a promising new author with a range of strengths.

MOTHER, MAY I?
Another debut novel, Aimee Molloy’s The Perfect Mother, melds traditional suspense fare—a missing child—with a nuanced portrayal of women during the early days of motherhood. Brought together by their similar due dates, the women of a Brooklyn “mommy group” known as the May Mothers forge tentative friendships and share support. When they decide to have a night out, Winnie isn’t sure. But Francie, Colette and Nell are worried Winnie is feeling the stress of single motherhood, and they insist she join them. What starts out as a fun evening turns into a nightmare when Winnie’s infant son, Midas, goes missing. As the police investigation stalls out and the media coverage reaches a frenzy, Winnie’s three friends are determined to help. But with each dead end, the women are forced to wonder if something darker than kidnapping could have happened that night.

With multiple narrators and a clever construction that plays on readers’ assumptions, The Perfect Mother is an impressive and satisfying domestic thriller. Particularly interesting is its depiction of female insecurities, as well as its open interrogation of the expectations placed on mothers. This gripping and fresh novel will provoke as much thought as it does excitement.

THE POOL INCIDENT
In The Elizas, the first adult novel from Sara Shepard (author of the bestselling Pretty Little Liars YA series), a young woman grapples with memory gaps and paranoia after she is found at the bottom of a hotel pool. Eliza Fontaine is certain someone pushed her in, but her family isn’t convinced; Eliza has survived several suicide attempts involving water. Plus, she was drunk that night, and a storm knocked out the pool security cameras.

Although Eliza wants to find out the truth, she is also occupied with the upcoming publication of her first novel, The Dots, about a girl’s relationship with her troubled aunt. Demands from her editor and agent contend with Eliza’s increasing anxiety over lost memories and the certainty that someone is following her. Why is her family unwilling to discuss the pool incident? Why do they seem like they’re hiding something? And why do people keep insisting that they’ve seen Eliza around town in places she knows (does she know?) she never went?

Narrated by Eliza and interspersed with chapters from The Dots, The Elizas is more of a satisfying puzzle than a shocking thriller, as readers will piece together the truth well before the final pages. But it’s enjoyable to parse the well-paced clues, and readers will root for the likable, yet sometimes worrying Eliza. Equal parts fun and disturbing, The Elizas delivers a heavy dose of psychodrama and a punchy, contemporary voice.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Three female-led literary thrillers explore the ways in which love (both romantic and familial) can nurture or destroy, and how devastating the consequences can be when it does the latter. With excellently placed twists, clever metafictional elements and chilling conclusions, these three books are the standouts of this season’s thriller shelves.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Intergalactic thrills

Feature by Laura Hubbard

One day soon, we may develop technology that integrates with biological systems, that becomes so much a part of you that it isn’t clear where you end and the science begins. This potential paradigm shift lies near the center of two new science fiction thrillers. Both books start with integrated tech as a given, pulling readers through adventures as existentially stressful as they are fascinating.

In Emma Newman’s Before Mars, a standalone novel set in her Planetfall universe, geologist and artist Anna Kubrick finds a disturbing note in her room when she arrives at a Martian base. The note is in her handwriting, and warns her not to trust the base’s psychologist. More anomalies become apparent as she examines the world around her: she is missing canvases and sketchbooks, her messages home to her family aren’t answered in a way that makes sense and the base’s doctor feels too familiar to be a man she has just met. At risk of developing psychosis from prolonged exposure to immersive memory technology, and probably suffering from postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter, Anna struggles to settle in. Are her suspicions about the psychologist, the base’s AI and the motives of the corporation that sent her to Mars justified, or are they just an outgrowth of her own supposed paranoia?

Newman gives us a look at the near future that is both grim and thoughtful. AI implants within characters’ minds blur the line between what is real and what is imagined, to the point that entire psychoses are associated with not being able to tell brain-generated holograms from reality. Corporations have taken control of not just world governments, but entire planets. But even with all these changes, people, at their core, don’t change. They still suffer from depression and have bad relationships. They are paranoid and jealous. This contrast—the fantastical artificial intelligence and brain-bending technology against the mundane flaws of humanity—is what makes Before Mars brilliant. Newman’s latest novel is well worth the read for anyone who loves a twisty thriller, or who is interested in how our future as a species could unfold.

While Newman’s novel is a psychological playground of paranoia and suspicion, Emily Devenport’s Medusa Uploaded, the first in her Medusa Cycle, is half revenge thriller, half spy novel. Oichi Angelis is a servant—called a worm—on a generation ship hurtling through space. Shortly before her parents die in the destruction of their ship, they give her an implant ostensibly meant to give her access to the great music of human history. But as Oichi learns shortly before their deaths, the implant is more than it seems. It gives her not just access to music, but also to the ship’s communications systems and to a Medusa unit, a biotech fusion suit with its own AI, that can be only be paired people who have the implant. When the ship’s Executives suspect Oichi of being an insurgent, she fakes her death and joins her Medusa in a quest for revenge and the truth about what happened to her parents’ ship.

Medusa Uploaded is pure adrenaline, hurtling from intrigue to murder to impersonation. All the while, it challenges readers to think not just about the place of technology alongside—and even within—the human race, but also about what that means for human evolution. And despite its deliciously dark undertones (the first chapter, for example, asks readers to consider what sort of killer our main character is—serial? Mass murderer?), it is a book that is unshakably hopeful, for all its mayhem and scheming. Oichi and Medusa's partnership has the potential to fix the injustices of their world, which makes them a team worth rooting for. Albeit one with a very high body count.

One day soon, we may develop technology that integrates with biological systems, that becomes so much a part of you that it isn’t clear where you end and the science begins. This potential paradigm shift lies near the center of two new science fiction thrillers. Both books start with integrated tech as a given, pulling readers through adventures as existentially stressful as they are fascinating.

Romance

Crime in corsets

Feature by Amanda Diehl

For readers who love a little intrigue with their historical romances, A Devil of a Duke by Madeline Hunter and Lady Rogue by Theresa Romain are two great contenders for your keeper shelf.

TO CATCH A THIEF
Amanda Waverly has found an unlikely home with Lady Farnsworth. She’s taken up the unlikely position as the noblewoman’s secretary, joining a team of women as they work to publish a lady’s journal, Parnassus. But unbeknownst to the elevated society in which she’s found herself, Amanda left behind a rather scandalous upbringing as the prodigy of two thieves. When her past comes calling, Amanda is worried that her new life is in great jeopardy.

Gabriel St. James is handsome and possibly too nosy for his own good—the man loves a challenge. When he foils a mysterious and rather gorgeous thief’s con, he’s unable to rest until he discovers her true identity. His quest puts Amanda in a precarious position. If Gabriel finds out who she really is, the life she’s built will come crumbling down.

The complex Amanda, who’s been living two very different lives, is the star of the show. She slips back into the role of a thief as though it were a second skin. While she’s incredibly smart and capable, being lured back into her criminal past proves to be bittersweet. The friendships Amanda has formed with the other women working on Parnassus are heartwarming, and readers will come to crave any and all scenes where they’re together.

Gabriel is no pushover and practically oozes with charm. He is clearly used to getting what he wants, and what he wants is to know who exactly his new lover is. But up against Amanda, he may be in over his head. Their romance is sexy, with a fun cat-and-mouse vibe. Readers who can’t resist a heroine who is always one step ahead of the hero will want to read A Devil of a Duke immediately.

TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT
Lady Isabel Morrow is in quite a pickle when she discovers that her late husband’s precious artwork collection, much of which has already been sold, was full of forgeries. To complicate matters, Isabel is also responsible for her husband’s young cousin, Lucy. Should these forgeries be discovered, the potential scandal would ruin Lucy’s chances at making a suitable marriage. Isabel’s only recourse is to seek out her former lover and Bow Street Runner, Callum Jenks.

After the death of Isabel’s husband, Callum helped investigate its circumstances. His close contact with the young widow turned into something more, but their fling was short-lived and ended on good terms. Callum never expected to be thrust into Isabel’s life once more. As the son of a grocer, Callum knows he’s playing with fire by being around the well-known woman.

Callum agrees to help Isabel out, as a “friend” of course—he’d hate to see Isabel be scandalized by criminal activities of which she had no prior knowledge. Their best course of action is to replace the fakes with the originals, a monumental task that brings with it a very real sense of danger.

Lady Rogue isn’t your typical heist story. Rather than a cunning thief stealing precious works of art, Isabel is simply trying to restore her husband’s collection and get to the bottom of the forgeries’ origin. Callum obviously still carries a deep affection for Isabel, and the lengths to which he’d go to help her are very sweet. Isabel sees the art as the last tie to her past, and she’s looking for a fresh start. To discover this deception, when she’s so close to shedding all these things that have caused her such grief and an intense emotional burden, is incredibly sad for her. (Let Isabel be happy already!)

While A Devil of a Duke does a better job with the specific aspects of its crime, given the heroine is actually a thief, Lady Rogue has a more engrossing mystery with art forgeries and the strange death of Lady Isabel’s husband. If you love a good, caring beta hero making awkward flirtations around the heroine, Callum is the clear winner. Prefer winsome, silver-tongued rakes? Gabriel is your man! Though you certainly can’t go wrong with reading both books.

For readers who love a little intrigue with their historical romances, A Devil of a Duke by Madeline Hunter and Lady Rogue by Theresa Romain are two great contenders for your keeper shelf.

YA FictionYA

When (dating) life imitates literature

Feature by Anita Lock

Love stories inspired by classic lit take center stage in these two new comedic coming-of-age teen romances. 

THE WIDE WORLD OF WEB DATING
Sixteen-year-old Emma Nash wallows in self-pity when Leon Naylor dumps her for another girl. Attempting to move on with her life, Emma shifts her private blog titled “MissH” (where she channels Miss Havisham from Great Expectations) from a place for her self-deprecating chatter to a site where she documents her chain of awkward social-media dating experiences. Complications arise when Emma begins to stalk Leon, her ex-boyfriend who ghosted her, online at the same time. As her online and real-life situations get out of hand, Emma seeks the advice of her two trusted friends, Steph and Faith, since she can’t rely on her habitually on-the-prowl mother. Amid a string of convoluted (and often hilarious) circumstances, it remains to be seen whether or not Emma can win back Leon’s affection.

Hormones and emotions run amok in this laugh-out-loud debut. Dating Disasters of Emma Nash is told in blog entries and is laced with Briticisms, teen angst and all things sarcastic, ironic and lewd. Author Chloe Seager includes a small but cosmopolitan and relatable cast to surround her white protagonist, Emma. The plot focuses on sexuality, but self-esteem and healthy relationship-building play equally important roles. A sidesplitting YA read with crossover appeal, this novel is a blast from the past for any older readers who remember obsessing to the max.

BETTER IN BOOKS
Romantic bookworm and sophomore Merrilee “Merri” Campbell is convinced that “boys are so much better in books” until she switches from an all-girls school to Hero High, an elite co-ed prep school. Although Hero High is a bit out of her caliber, Merri acclimates well to her new surroundings and makes friends fast. What she doesn’t expect is an accidental kiss from bad-boy junior Monroe Stratford that quickly throws them into a tumultuous Romeo and Juliet-style romance, but it fizzles just as quickly as it begins. The last thing Merri wants to read after breaking up with Monroe is another romantic tale. Ironically, Merri’s English teacher, Ms. Gregorie, assigns her Pride and Prejudice. While reading, Merri discovers parallels to her own life between the covers, and like Jane Austen’s Elizabeth, finds herself falling head over heels for the least likely person.

Author Tiffany Schmidt’s Bookish Boyfriends has many of the same romantic inklings and relatable characters as readers can find in Dating Disasters of Emma Nash, minus Emma’s teen angst and lewdness, and with the addition of a great cast of multicultural characters.

Love stories inspired by classic lit take center stage in these two new comedic coming-of-age teen romances. 

Fiction

Best story collections for a laid-back summer

Feature by Julie Hale

Perfect for dipping into, these four collections offer the experience of great fiction without the commitment that a novel requires. If you’re in need of an excellent read for the lazy weeks that lie ahead, check out the selections below.

PORTRAITS OF HUMAN NATURE
Dark humorist A.M. Homes taps into the contemporary American mindset and our obsession with perfection in Days of Awe. An irreverent writer, Homes can create a completely realized character in just a few strokes, and her dialogue—chiseled to film-script perfection—is enlivened by rapid-fire exchanges and funny one-liners.

The collection’s excellent title story takes place at a genocide conference, where, among stiff scholars and serious academics, two old acquaintances—a novelist and a war reporter—strike up a romance that almost upends their lives. In “Brother on Sunday,” Tom, a plastic surgeon, injects himself with a Botox-like substance—an action that’s horrifying in its offhandedness. While vacationing with a group of affluent friends, an old feud erupts between him and his brother, disturbing the calm of their getaway. In “Hello Everybody,” Walter visits his wealthy friend Cheryl in her pristine, technologically advanced home. Her family’s fixation on physical flawlessness borders on the satirical—and feels all too familiar.

In these perceptive stories, Homes hits a nerve, offering reflections of who we are and projections of who we might become.

IN A WILD PLACE
Lauren Groff (Arcadia, Fates and Furies) plumbs the mysteries of her home state in the captivating collection Florida. Through arresting imagery and a sustained mood that’s ominous and unsettling, Groff, who lives in Gainesville, delivers a sense of the peninsula’s humid exoticism. Of an old cabin at a hunting camp, she writes, “the screens at night pulsed with the tender bellies of lizards,” and Florida itself is described as a place of “frenzied flora and fauna.” The region’s wild environment infects and affects her characters.

“Ghosts and Empties” features a figure who appears in a number of stories—an anonymous wife and mother who’s worried about the world’s decline and finds relief in walking through her neighborhood at night, where she observes the lives of others through lit windows. In “Dogs Go Wolf,” two young sisters are abandoned on an island and are able to adapt to their rough surroundings—it’s when they’re rescued that hardship begins.

In gorgeous prose, Groff offers startling insight into the human heart. Florida is as mesmerizing as its namesake state.

CALIFORNIA TALES
Set in Los Angeles and its affluent environs, Fight No More, Lydia Millet’s masterful collection of intertwined stories, features characters with conflicting wills and interests who can’t be made to compromise. The undercurrent of friction that results lends a quiet force to stories that explore the challenges of communication and the meaning of home.

Nina, a recurring figure, is a young real estate agent transformed by the prospect of new love. Many of the stories in the book feature her clients—people in various states of transition—and in a phenomenal feat of plot-spinning, Millet links the lives of this disparate group of characters. In “To Think/I Killed a Cat,” 16-year-old Jeremy, caught in the crossfire of his parents’ divorce, does his best to repulse potential purchasers of the family home. In “The Fall of Berlin,” his frail grandmother, Aleska, is forced to sell her beloved house and move into her son’s guest cottage, yet she refuses to surrender to the inevitabilities of old age. “I only want to keep going,” Aleska says. Like the other characters in these richly realized stories, she’s unwilling to give up the fight.

STORIES OF THE MODERN SOUTH
Mississippi author Nick White made a memorable literary debut with How to Survive a Summer, his 2017 novel about a gay-to-straight conversion camp. In his new book, Sweet and Low, an accomplished, atmospheric collection of stories that take place in his native state, White continues to explore the experience of being queer in a conservative culture.

“Gatlinburg” chronicles the unraveling of a romantic relationship involving Reed, a New Yorker, and Eric, a Mississippian. The two have fallen “into something like love” but can’t seem to fully connect, in part because of the North-South disjunction. (When Reed’s mother introduces Eric at a party, she says, “He’s from Mississippi—isn’t that adorable? Just wait till you hear him speak.”) In “The Lovers,” Rosemary knows her husband, Arnie, was having affairs but assumed they were with women. She learns otherwise after Arnie’s tragic death, when she unexpectedly connects with Hank, his last lover. A wonderful sequence of stories centering on would-be writer Forney Culpepper has the makings of a first-rate novel.

An author on the rise, White displays impressive range in this rewarding collection.

Perfect for dipping into, these four collections offer the experience of great fiction without the commitment that a novel requires. If you’re in need of an excellent read for the lazy weeks that lie ahead, check out the selections below.

NonfictionFiction

I know what you read last summer

Feature by the editors of BookPage

Thrills, laughs, romance, drama—you know what you want out of a beach read. But just because you know what you want doesn’t mean you’ve found it yet. Based on what you read last year, we’re recommending eight new beachy books to fill your long summer days.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive. You relish bad-girl thrillers fueled by toxic friendships, bad choices and exclusive parties.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton. In this deliciously dark novel, single white female Louise is 29, flat broke and feels like she has utterly failed at achieving her New York City dream of becoming a famous writer. Enter 23-year-old socialite and bohemian glamour girl Lavinia, bursting with youthful joie de vivre, boundary issues and seemingly unlimited funds. Their intense friendship blossoms into a glitzy NYC bender that includes designer drugs and copious selfies in increasingly over-the-top settings, including ultra-expensive hotel bars, secret literary parties, costume balls and seedy, bottle-service-only sex clubs. Louise is old enough to know that everything that goes up must come down, and her descent is glorious fun.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“I want to remember this forever. Until the day I die.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
The Big Apple. Catch Hamilton, stay up all night on a Manhattan rooftop, and ride the Staten Island Ferry for free at dawn.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand or any novel set by the ocean that revolves around women on the verge of something life-changing.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
The High Season, the debut adult novel from YA author Judy Blundell, who has a gift for depicting issues of love and class in jaw-dropping, gorgeous prose. Museum director Ruthie Beamish rents out her magnificent beach house every summer. But when socialite Adeline Clay moves in for the season, Ruthie’s life begins to deteriorate—from her job to her self-respect to her fraught relationship with her estranged husband. Ruthie knows it’s not Adeline’s fault, but she increasingly views the other woman as a symbol of everything she’s missing. Additional storylines follow Ruthie’s social-climbing employee, Doe, and her teenage daughter, Jem, but the book begins and ends with Ruthie, whose interior state is rendered with remarkable insight. Blundell’s empathetic attention to tiny relational shifts makes every moment of connection feel magical.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“Summer was a forever season, and held no pain.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
The beach, of course, where you’ll dine al fresco, wander through an art gallery and casually infiltrate the lives of the obscenely wealthy.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
A screwball historical novel like Christopher Moore’s The Serpent of Venice. You’re looking for an armchair escape that also engages your brain.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
The Judge Hunter, a hilarious combination of historical adventure and bromance by acclaimed author Christopher Buckley. Hapless Balthasar “Balty” de St. Michel can’t seem to hold a job in swinging 1664 London, but his diabolical brother-in-law has hatched the perfect scheme: Send Balty to the New World in order to chase down some regicides on the lam. But Balty isn’t cut out for life in New England and only survives the first week thanks to a mysterious (and often murderous) secret agent of the crown known as Huncks. High jinks quickly ensue as Balty unwittingly blasphemes his way through Puritan society and Huncks attempts to covertly start a war with the Dutch. This is a Larry David- esque tale for the history buff, filled with delightfully off-putting characters and read-through-your-fingers moments of situational comedy.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“But you might fall in love with New England. . . . They say a man can be anything he wants to be there.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
A New England town with your bestie—ideally somewhere with a rowdy historical pub crawl.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
An entertaining deep dive into culture like The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
Planet Funny by Ken Jennings, whom you may remember from his record-breaking run on “Jeopardy” or his bestselling books like Brainiac. Humor is difficult to study—it’s hard to define, it’s different for everyone, and it changes over time. But it’s also incredibly important in today’s world, whether you’re making a flight safety video, trying to land a date or attempting to get into politics. Jennings has penned a highly entertaining yet genuinely scholarly look at the evolution of humor—from ancient Sumerian fart jokes to Andy Kaufman’s absurdist humor and internet cat memes. This book will have you analyzing everything around you, because these days, everybody’s a comedian.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“One of the worst qualities of a Roman jokester, according to Cicero, was that he used jokes ‘brought from home’ instead of ones made up on the spur of the moment.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
A road trip with someone who won’t mind that you’ll be spouting off funny facts and cracking jokes for the majority of the vacation. Just don’t bring any from home.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
An intense technothriller like Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. You’re looking for suspense that makes the pages fly by as quickly as those beautiful summer days.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
Exit Strategy by debut novelist Charlton Pettus. Wealthy scientist Jordan Parrish is on the brink of losing everything, so he makes the call to Exit Strategy, a secret organization that squirrels away high-profile criminals, crooked politicians or anyone who has reached the end of the line. They fake your death and give you a new face and life, and you can never contact your old family ever again—at the risk of their deaths. When Jordan begins to regret making the call, he starts asking questions: Was it really his choice, or did someone nudge him in the direction of Exit Strategy? As Jordan works his way back to his old life, the result is a fast-paced joyride with cool tech, hot romance and high-stakes adventure.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“In a while you’re going to be somewhere far away, new town, new life, new you.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
As far away from home as you can get.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
The latest action-adventure thriller from Clive Cussler or Stuart Woods.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
Gale Force by award-winning author Owen Laukkanen. When the cargo ship Pacific Lion founders off the coast of Alaska, it provides a multimillion-dollar opportunity for salvagers like McKenna Rhodes. After her father’s death at sea, McKenna left the deep-sea salvaging business, but retrieving the ship’s cargo would yield a profit she can’t pass up. And so she gathers her father’s old crew on her tugboat, Gale Force—but what they don’t know is that a stowaway was aboard the Pacific Lion with millions of dollars stolen from the Yakuza. The thrills come as hard and fast as a hurricane, and readers will love the brave female lead.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“She was happy, at least, to have escaped the city. The water was where she belonged.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
The Pacific Northwest, where you can marvel at the power of nature.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes or any story that makes you feel the full depth of human emotion.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
How to Walk Away, the latest uplifting novel by Katherine Center. This bittersweet romantic comedy covers all your heart’s bases: familial love, romantic love and, most importantly, self-love. The unthinkable happens to Margaret Jacobsen: Her fiancé, Chip, proposes to her while they’re flying high in a little white Cessna; when Chip tries to land the plane, he loses control, and they crash. Margaret wakes up in the hospital, badly burned and unable to use her legs. And the hits keep coming: Chip barely visits; Margaret’s physical therapist is morose and difficult; and Margaret’s estranged sister has returned after three years, dredging up long-buried family secrets. But lovable Margaret is enviably tough, and through all the trauma and change, she maintains a great sense of humor.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“It’s the trying that heals you. That’s all you have to do. Just try.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
A getaway with your closest girlfriends to a picturesque cabin, where any drama or pain will be met with understanding and love.

LAST SUMMER, YOU READ:
A book that made you laugh while also speaking to some deeper truths about femininity and aging, like I Thought There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.

THIS SUMMER, TRY:
There Are No Grown-Ups by Pamela Druckerman. In this “Midlife Coming-of-Age Story,” the fresh and witty Druckerman (Bringing Up Bébé) makes sense of life after the big 4-0, settling into her home in Paris with her husband and children, figuring out what “age-appropriate” clothing really means, grasping the French woman’s philosophy of aging and truly becoming comfortable with herself. Druckerman’s funny yet deeply insightful essays ring true, and they will no doubt have you nodding your head in appreciation, because yes, someone out there really gets it.

YOUR SUMMER INSPIRATION:
“You know you’re a fortysomething parent when you’ve decided that swimming counts as a shower.”

RECOMMENDED VACATION:
The nearest pool, or if you can’t get that far, a bathtub will do. Just make sure someone else is watching the kids.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Druckerman for There Are No Grown-Ups.

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Thrills, laughs, romance, drama—you know what you want out of a beach read. But just because you know what you want doesn’t mean you’ve found it yet. Based on what you read last year, we’re recommending eight new beachy books to fill your long summer days.

NonfictionParentingGraphic Novels & ComicsGraphic MemoirsFilmArt

A solution to the age-old conundrum

Feature by Keith Herrell

Father’s Day comes but once a year, and boy are we lucky for that. With ties going out of style thanks to tech billionaires (they’re all wearing hoodies now), the gift choices are slimmer than ever. Fortunately, as is so often the case, books can come to the rescue.

FOR THE SPORTS FAN
When it comes to sports, the “what-if” possibilities are endless. Mike Pesca has assembled 31 of them in Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History. His list might not match yours, but it’s still a fun exercise and a highly readable departure from traditional sports literature. Pesca, host of the Slate podcast “The Gist,” keeps his readers on their toes with a different author for each scenario, so an earnest “What If the National League Had the DH?” is followed by a whimsical “What If Nixon Had Been Good at Football?” (The verdict: still a president, but no Watergate.) Other authors bolster their arguments with charts (“What If Major League Baseball Had Started Testing for Steroids in 1991?”) or, in the case of “What If Nat ‘Sweetwater’ Clifton’s Pass Hadn’t Gone Awry?,” 38 footnotes. The contributors are a multitalented lot, including actor Jesse Eisenberg, radio host Robert Siegel and journalist/historian Louisa Thomas. The contributors are a multitalented lot but each one embraces the task with gusto, inspiring readers to come up with some “what-ifs” of their own.

FOR THE BIG READER
You probably know Michael Chabon as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, but he’s also an acclaimed essayist. His first collection, Manhood for Amateurs (2009), was subtitled “The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.” This time around, with Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces, he’s produced seven essays, all dad-oriented. The centerpiece, “Little Man,” recounts a trip to Paris Fashion Week with his youngest and most individualistic child, Abe. (Chabon was on assignment for GQ, where the essay originally appeared.) The essay is not about finding common ground, as is often the case in such essays where father and son are poles apart, but rather Chabon’s happiness that his son has finally found “your people.” The remaining essays are shorter and peppered with humorous insights, particularly “Adventures in Euphemism,” which has Chabon trying to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to his children without uttering a certain word. Chabon’s relationship with his own father, of course, does not go unexamined, and again he zigs where others zag, taking care not to be overly sentimental.

FOR THE MOVIE BUFF
A cute gopher popping out of his hole adorns the cover of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story. This is ironic, because the makers of the film hated the last-minute addition of the animatronic gopher that bedeviled Bill Murray in the 1980 film. They saw it as an example of the Hollywood studio system destroying their masterwork. But gopher or no gopher, Caddyshack, a slobs-versus-snobs tale set at a country club golf course, became a cult classic, rife with quotable lines and fondly remembered scenes. Film critic Chris Nashawaty tells the behind-the-scenes story in an entertaining fashion, starting at the very beginning with the founding of the National Lampoon, which served as a springboard for Doug Kenney, who co-wrote the classic Animal House and co-wrote and produced Caddyshack. In fact, Nashawaty doesn’t start recounting the actual filming of the movie until well past halfway through the book. No worries though, as readers will enjoy the backstories of writing, casting and the cocaine-fueled shenanigans of Murray and his pals, including Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield and Kenney, the real star of the book if not the movie.

FOR THE COMIC-BOOK FAN
The genre of graphic literature has grown past just comic books and the newspaper funny pages, and Michael Kupperman, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and Marvel comics, is deadly serious in All the Answers. This black-and-white graphic memoir is perfect for dads who grew up reading comic books and are looking for something with a bit more weight to it. It tells the story of the author’s father, Joel Kupperman, who became famous as one of the stars of the 1940s and ’50s radio and television show “Quiz Kids.” The elder Kupperman subsequently became an author and professor of philosophy, but he retreated from public life as an adult. Spurred by his father’s diagnosis with dementia, Michael coaxes him into talking about his experiences in the public eye and how they shaped his life as an adult. In the process, father and son have some frank exchanges. The son learns how to be a better father as a result of the failings of his own dad, who was perfect in math, perhaps, but not so perfect in the challenges of marriage and family life. Kupperman’s simple, stark drawings add to the somber mood of the book and enhance readers’ understanding of its haunting story.

FOR THE JOKESTER
So Dad thinks he’s funny, eh? He likely has nothing on Tom Papa, whose Your Dad Stole My Rake: And Other Family Dilemmas is a collection of essays with laughs on every page. The aptly named Papa, a father and head writer for the radio variety show “Live From Here” (formerly known as “A Prairie Home Companion with Chris Thile”), has a one-liner for every family situation, from Facebook (“a class reunion every day”) to owning a cat (“like dating a supermodel”). The book is organized by topics (wives, grandparents and so on), so skip around if you like, or simply read straight through for an extended look at Papa’s twisted but ultimately sunny (well, no more than partly cloudy) vision of family life. If you’re lucky, it lines up with your own.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Father’s Day comes but once a year, and boy are we lucky for that. With ties going out of style thanks to tech billionaires (they’re all wearing hoodies now), the gift choices are slimmer than ever. Fortunately, as is so often the case, books can come to the rescue.

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