All Reviews

NonfictionBiography

Ingenious

Review by Roger Bishop

Benjamin Franklin was among the most influential of the Founding Fathers. He signed all four major founding documents, and his diplomacy brought about our fledgling nation’s alliance with France and the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. A true Renaissance man, Franklin was also a publisher, printer, businessman, community leader, inventor, widely read author and much more. And although his scientific work is sometimes described by historians as a hobby, Franklin was in fact a visionary scientist. Richard Munson’s splendid Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist convincingly argues that Franklin may not have been as effectual as a politician “if not for his fame as a leading scientist, which opened doors for him in the worlds of diplomacy and nation-building,” Munson writes. “Science, rather than being a sideline, is the through line that integrates Franklin’s diverse interests.”

Franklin’s “core and consistent attribute,” according to Munson, was curiosity. While only upper class men in Europe had the financial resources, equipment and time to pursue scientific projects, in the Colonies, inquisitive amateurs like Franklin approached the same concerns. As Franklin became a man of means, he purchased sophisticated instruments and assembled a team to work with him. Skilled in communications, he shared his experimentation with a network of fellow scientists around the world.

Franklin is best known for his experiments with electricity, and Munson covers the subject in considerable detail. Robert Millikan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923, said that Franklin’s research was “probably the most fundamental thing ever done in the field of electricity.” But the broad range of Franklin’s interests included the interaction of oil and water, weather patterns, demographic studies, circulation of blood, ant behavior, smallpox, salt mines, whirlwinds and waterspouts, the absorption of heat by different colors, the threat of lead poisoning, purification of air by vegetation and the management of silkworms. Franklin’s well-written accounts of his experiments were accessible to readers of all kinds. He received many honors in Europe and the U.S. for his scientific work. As a founder of the American Philosophical Society, he supported the scholarly pursuit of what he called “useful knowledge.”

Munson’s absorbing narrative biography guides us expertly through Franklin’s extraordinary life. Page after page, Ingenious shows how one person with little formal education made an impact that still has relevance today. For readers of history, biography and science (or simply those in search of an outstanding book about Franklin that is not too long), Ingenious is an excellent choice.

Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Precipice

Review by Thane Tierney

It’s probably manageable if the leader of the free world goes off the deep end, or if the continent that drives the world’s economy loses its collective mind . . . unless both things happen at the same time. In 1914, at the beginning of Robert Harris’ latest novel, Precipice, the stars align to create a war so horrific in its size and scope that it would later (wrongly, as it turned out) be called “the war to end all wars.” Meanwhile, British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith has fallen head over heels for Venetia Stanley, an aristocrat 35 years his junior.

Did we mention he is married?

It should be also said at this juncture that, while Precipice is a work of fiction, virtually all of the characters are real, as is the correspondence from the PM to his inamorata. In fact, the letters (which she saved) provide some of the only historical insight into meetings that determined Britain’s decision to involve itself in the continental conflagration. The lone fictional character, a Scotland Yard Special Branch officer named Paul Deemer, has been tasked with monitoring what, if any, secrets are being spilled in the lovebirds’ copious correspondence (Asquith wrote to Venetia as many as three times a day).

Harris steers the reader through the slalom course of this ill-fated love story, set against the backdrop of the war’s more consequential casualties. His supporting cast, ripped right out of the society pages, includes the ruthlessly ambitious David Lloyd George, who would succeed Asquith as PM; the poet Rupert Brooke, who is enamored of Asquith’s daughter; Winston Churchill, whose hubris led to disaster at Gallipoli; and King Edward VII, who had somewhat scandalously anointed Asquith as PM in Biarritz, France, rather than on British soil.

Harris’ ear for language is keen, capturing both Britain’s elite and hoi polloi with effortless grace. Of course, he is aided by Asquith’s actual words, quoted from one of the avalanche of love letters: “Do you know how much I love you? No? Just try to multiply the stars by the sands.” Certainly more poetic than Charles’ phone calls to Camilla, though every bit as moonstruck.

Despite the fact that anyone acquainted with modern British history already knows the outcome of the story (spoiler alert: we won the war), Harris’ skill keeps the action taut and the reader focused. And the novel echoes a much older bit of classical English political fiction: As Shakespeare said, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Robert Harris’ Precipice dramatizes a real-life scandal: On the eve of World War I, the British prime minister engaged in a national security-jeopardizing love affair.
NonfictionNatureAnimals

Thinking Like a Wolf

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Rick McIntyre began working at Yellowstone National Park in 1994, just before the Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced gray wolves in an effort to balance the ecological diversity of the park. He has spent thousands of hours observing many generations of wolves, and documents his insights into their social dynamics in his endlessly compelling Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, which has brought a groundbreaking understanding of the species to readers.

Thinking Like a Wolf: Lessons From the Yellowstone Packs explores personal territory: how the wolves have inspired the author. In 2015, when McIntyre was recovering from major heart surgery, he began seeing wolf 926 (the wolves are not named) in his dreams. Small but intelligent, 926 had lived a tough life but rose to dominance in her pack. McIntyre writes that in time of need, she “motivated me to emulate her determination to advance in life regardless of any setbacks and trauma.”

He follows this powerful introduction with eight stories of different wolves. While Thinking Like a Wolf is the fifth book in the Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, it’s not necessary to have read any of the previous titles. The author provides a treasure trove of information at the start, including maps of the parks, illustrated renderings of the wolves and timelines that record each pack’s principal members. Based on McIntyre’s extensive field research notes, as well as deep knowledge of Yellowstone and wolf behavior, the portraits are fascinating, informative and sometimes heartbreaking. McIntyre provides remarkable histories, like that of 755, a lone wolf who sired pups in several different packs over more than nine years before disappearing from human view (he likely outlasted the battery in his collar).

The power struggles documented are reminiscent of the jockeying for dominance in Game of Thrones, and thanks to McIntyre’s compelling storytelling and keen observations, the narrative sparkles. At one point, he watches five little cubs play “like kids during recess in a schoolyard.” One of those pups is 926, the wolf who inspired the author in his cardiac recovery. Her later death and McIntyre’s efforts to honor her legacy remind us that protecting the wilderness and the wolves that call it home is not simply a responsibility, but a privilege. Thinking Like a Wolf, and the entire Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, is a remarkable account of animal behavior, and a singular contribution to our understanding of wildlife.

The fifth entry in Rick McIntyre’s Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series chronicles the lives of eight wolves in stories that sparkle with insight.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Author’s Guide to Murder

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

What’s better than traveling to Scotland with your besties, staying in a castle run by a literary legend and writing a book together? For Kat, Cassie and Emma, literally anything, but a job’s a job—until someone drops dead and they are the prime suspects. The Author’s Guide to Murder, co-written by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White, is the coziest of cozy mysteries, a celebration of feminism, friendship and solving a murder while wearing only the best in Land’s End plaid.

The trio of authors couldn’t be more different (Cassie’s a Southern mom of six who pens cupcake- and cat-themed cozy mysteries; Emma’s an East Coast scribe of enormous historical novels; and Brooklynite Kat writes erotica and sports sexy outfits) and they definitely aren’t the best friends they claim to be. They do, however, share an editor and a fascination with “Naughty Ned,” the laird of Castle Kinloch who collected old-timey “marital aids” before his mysterious demise in 1900. In the present day, Castle Kinloch is occupied by celebrated writer and not-so-secret misogynist Brett Saffron Presley—and each of the three authors has a connection to him too. Squabbling, rather than writing, ensues, but when another Castle Kinloch occupant is found dead, the three women band together to crack the case, discovering secret passageways, muscular shepherds and a whole lot about one another.

Individually bestselling authors Williams (Husbands & Lovers), Willig (the Pink Carnation series) and White (the Tradd Street mystery series) have previously teamed up on four historical novels, most recently The Lost Summers of Newport. From Cassie’s chirpy insistence on countless selfies to Emma’s propensity for obscure facts to Kat’s favorite “pantaboots” (tight trousers that seamlessly transition to stiletto footwear), each narrator possesses enough quips, quirks and juicy secrets for a trio of spinoff sequels, and the colorful cast of locals, including handsome detective Euan Macintosh, who can’t get his mind off Kat even when he’s investigating her for murder, add more flavor than the most buttery scone. The Author’s Guide to Murder is a triple-perspective, locked-room mystery that’s long on suspense, sass and sumptuous Scottish scenery. Grab a cuppa and dig in.

The Author’s Guide to Murder is a triple-perspective, locked-room mystery that’s long on suspense, sass and sumptuous Scottish scenery.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Karla’s Choice

Review by Elyse Discher

It seems like an impossible task to resurrect a beloved character, much less to do so in the voice of the most iconic espionage thriller writer after Ian Fleming. But in Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway, son of the late John le Carré, manages to accomplish both, adding more nuance to the mythos of his father’s seemingly inimitable George Smiley.

Karla’s Choice takes place in 1963, shortly after the events of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and British intelligence officer Smiley is questioning his place in “the Circus”: le Carré’s nickname for Britain’s MI6. Smiley’s reeling from the recent death of his colleague, Alec Leamas, and has become cynical after discovering his home country employing the same morally gray strategies of their Communist enemies.

Smiley is fully intent on retiring when a Soviet hitman defects, turning himself in to a young Hungarian emigre, Szusanna. He soon finds himself swallowed back into the fold of espionage, first agreeing only to interview Szusanna and the defector, but eventually traveling back to Berlin, the site of his recent trauma. As he excavates Soviet spy networks and counterintelligence plots, Smiley learns more about his nemesis, an agent named Karla who will feature heavily in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

“It was a benign, elective haunting”: How Nick Harkaway channeled his late father’s voice.

Smiley is an unlikely spy. Unassuming, a little frumpy and rather forgettable, his strength is his ability to blend in; he is a “Gray Man” in a genre of action heroes. He’s also a man conflicted about his country’s actions in a new type of war, where violence is carried out on a faraway stage. Despite being set in the 1960s, Smiley’s concerns will resonate with readers who are familiar with today’s geopolitical conflicts. 

Karla’s Choice may be best suited for fans of le Carré or vintage espionage thrillers: George’s world is a cerebral one—a chess game with a barely known enemy—not one of action or explosions. Harkaway mimics the tone of le Carré’s novels, which after 80 years may feel opaque and ponderous to newcomers.

However, Harkaway also does his late father justice in capturing Smiley’s subtlety and his shrewd ability to read the people around him. This, and the focus on the history of his nemesis, Karla, adds depth to the existing Smiley narrative, making Karla’s Choice a worthy and elevated addition to le Carré’s series.

In Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway ably updates his father’s iconic George Smiley novels while lovingly preserving the tone and mood of the original novels.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Deadly Animals

Review by Alice Cary

Ava Bonney of Birmingham, England, is not your typical sleuth, and she’s one readers of Marie Tierney’s debut mystery, Deadly Animals, will long remember. Living in a sparse apartment with her younger sister and selfish mother, 14-year-old Ava makes her own entertainment. Bones fascinate her—“We are our bones,” she says. To further her scientific studies, she has created a secret “body farm” to study the anatomy of decomposing roadkill that she finds. A former biology teacher who grew up in Birmingham herself, Tierney sets the book in the early 1980s of her youth, writing with the analytic precision of a scientist and the literary aplomb of a gifted storyteller. 

During a morning outing to her farm, Ava discovers the body of 14-year-old local bully Mickey Grant and, soon after, the missing, now murdered 6-year-old Bryan Shelton. Ava quickly acts to preserve valuable evidence in danger of disappearing. Fearing the police won’t take her seriously, she pretends to be an adult while calling in Mickey’s murder, and enlists her best friend, John, to call about Bryan. “Their secret was gargantuan,” Ava and John realize. “It was scary and exciting, an adventure—but also a horror story.” 

A serial killer is on the loose, and Ava begins a surreptitious partnership with Detective Seth Delahaye—who recognizes her genius—to track down the murderer. Ava and Delahaye’s initial cat-and-mouse communications burgeon into mutual trust and respect, forming the empowering heart of the novel. “Ava was custodian of the dead,” Tierney writes, “this she understood. The idea of hurting an animal, by accident or on purpose, was anathema to her.” As Ava stumbles across murdered bodies and tortured animal corpses, she has an “awful epiphany: this killer was just herself turned inside out: her fatal inversion.” 

This noteworthy debut is a fast-paced, brilliantly plotted mystery, filled with short chapters and crisp prose. Gory—but never gratuitous—details of dead animals and humans abound, but all are in service of the plot, as well as Ava’s scientific interests and investigation. As the book progresses, the stakes become higher and danger creeps closer to Ava and John, leading to a dramatic conclusion. With Deadly Animals, Tierney has created an exceptional heroine who demands a sequel.

Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Murder Town

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Anyone who’s lived in a small town (or enjoys thrillers about them) knows that secrets, lies and betrayals are heightened by close proximity—especially in an isolated area that’s hard to get to, and even harder to escape. 

Shelley Burr deftly captures and conveys that particular brand of tension in Murder Town, and turns it up several notches by making her fictional Rainier, Australia (located halfway between Sydney and Melbourne) a place once charming, now cursed.

Seventeen years ago, travelers routinely popped into Earl Grey’s Yarn and Teashop or picnicked in Fountain Park. But then a serial killer murdered three people in Rainier, and the town and its traumatized residents have never recovered.

In the present, over the objections of victims’ families, some residents are campaigning for outsider Lochlan Lewis to set up a “Rainier Ripper” tour that could bring in desperately needed revenue. Ghoulish true crime fans routinely show up to gawk and ask intrusive questions, so “Why not make it formal?” teashop proprietor Gemma Guillory muses. “Why not scrape a little bit of a living back from the horror they’d all endured?”

Shelley Burr explores the deadly consequences of true crime tourism.

Alas, an entirely new horror emerges when Lochlan is found murdered in the fountain. Gemma decides to secretly investigate; it won’t be easy, but she’s tapped into the gossip pipeline and a pro at “glid[ing] through the day greasing every interaction with white lies and fakery.” Fans of Burr’s 2022 bestseller, WAKE, will be thrilled when private investigator Lane Holland joins her quest: He’s working remotely this time (from prison, to be precise) but has his own urgent reasons for pursuing the case. Can they pull it off before the Ripper’s legacy destroys Rainier once and for all?

Murder Town is a twisty rural noir rife with cleverly tangled character dynamics, claustrophobic suspense and an intriguing exploration of true crime fandom through the lens of a community struggling to heal even as terror strikes once again. And Gemma makes for a compelling tour guide through life in Rainier: She’s a community mainstay, protective parent and risk-taking undercover novice determined to drag the town’s darkest truths into the light, no matter the danger or consequences.

Shelley Burr’s rural Australia-set mystery Murder Town explores an intriguing angle of true crime fandom: so-called “dark tourism” of serial killer-related sites.
FictionSpeculative FictionShort Stories

Ruined a Little When We Are Born

Review by Matthew Jackson

The first thing you’ll notice when you open Tara Isabel Zambrano’s Ruined a Little When We Are Born is just how many stories she’s managed to pack into this slim volume. There are more than three dozen of them, some running less than two pages as part of her continued practice of flash fiction, others running to more conventional short fiction lengths, all of them united by common themes of family, femininity and motherhood. 

Rooted in the Indian diaspora, many of the stories in Ruined a Little When We Are Born are centered on rituals of one kind or another, ranging from the mundane to the arcane. In the opening story, “Mother, False,” a girl experiences shocking physical changes upon the death of her mother. In “Shabnam Salamat,” the arrival of her father’s new young bride sparks an awakening in a daughter. In the bewitching “There Are Places That Will Fill You Up,” a girl connects with her long-lost mother in a search for new meaning, with surprising results. And in “Milky-Eyed Orgasm Swallows Me Whole,” a woman has a conversation with the physical manifestation of her sexual climaxes.

Through beautifully constructed sentences that read as much like prayers as they do like prose, Zambrano’s stories slither and grow like unpredictable, invasive vines, creeping inside your brain and refusing to leave. It doesn’t seem to matter whether she gives herself 10 pages or just one; this is an author who understands that the job of fiction is to generate empathy and genuine emotional response in the reader, and who knows how to extract those things with poise and confidence. 

There’s a swagger to this book, a sense of being in gifted hands, and yet there’s also a dramatic vulnerability that comes through, particularly in the stories about growing up, learning what adulthood means or realizing that parents are not superheroes. Whether she’s exploring Indian folklore or introducing an old woman to the strange powers of a dishwasher, Zambrano is always in command, always writing earnestly and vividly. Anyone who enjoys the careful art of the short story will find that in this case, “art” is very much the key word.

Anyone who enjoys the careful art of the short story will find that in Ruined a Little When We Are Born, "art" is very much the key word.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

Brooklyn Kills Me

Review by Jamie Orsini

After solving an attempted murder in Emily Schultz’s Sleeping with Friends, book editor Agnes Nielsen is learning to navigate her newfound fame as a minor celebrity. She moves into an upscale condo building in Brooklyn and forms a quick friendship with her neighbor, the magnetic heiress Charlotte Bond. While attending a party at Charlotte’s, Agnes meets some of New York City’s biggest movers and shakers—and is possibly drugged by another guest. Agnes leaves the party, unsure why she was targeted, and within hours, Charlotte suffers a fatal fall from their shared building. The police investigation rules her death as accidental, but Agnes suspects the heiress was murdered. Though her memories of that night are hazy, Agnes leans into her recent success as a detective and launches her own investigation to find justice for Charlotte.

Brooklyn Kills Me is a sharp and original cozy mystery. It’s easy to root for Agnes: She’s still figuring out her life, but she’s also deeply committed to finding out what happened to Charlotte. She’s levelheaded and quick on her feet, even when dealing with powerful members of the New York City elite. Agnes’ investigation is aided by her friend Ethan Sharp, and the novel is better for it. Agnes and Ethan have a long and complicated friendship, but both care about each other and are integral to solving the murder. The duo is also genuinely funny, and Schultz expertly threads their humor through the novel, elevating it beyond a by-the-numbers cozy.

The central case is fast-paced and clever, with an exciting midpoint twist that deepens the mystery and reveals that Agnes may be in more danger than she realizes. A fun, fresh cozy with an engaging puzzle at its core, this second installment in Schultz’s series starring Agnes can be read as a standalone, with one caveat: The ending of Sleeping with Friends is revealed in this book, so readers be warned!

Emily Schultz’s Brooklyn Kills Me is a sharp, original and genuinely funny cozy mystery.
FictionLiterary Fiction

How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?

Review by Alice Cary

Soon after Magda Eklund turns 65, she and her longtime best friend Sara have a discussion about birthday parties. Magda brings up one of her earlier parties, where Sara was at first “nowhere to be seen,” eventually arriving late. Sara reassures her by saying, “Mags, I will only ever surprise you by showing up, how’s that? For the rest of your life, whenever you least expect it, I’ll be there.”

Read our interview with Anna Montague about How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?

That prescient pledge turns out to be the premise of Anna Montague’s debut novel, How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? By 2011, when Magda turns 70, Sara has died—quite suddenly—and her husband has asked Magda to become caretaker of Sara’s ashes because his girlfriend is moving in. Magda, a psychiatrist, obliges: The ebullient, artsy Sara was the shining light in her life, and after her death Magda has drifted. She spends all of her time helping patients in her Manhattan practice, while steadfastly ignoring her own confounding issues. She continues to write letters to her late friend, noting, for instance, “How perhaps I’ve always been a better custodian of other people’s feelings than my own.” However, when she stumbles upon Sara’s plans for the two of them to celebrate Magda’s 70th birthday with a road trip, Magda decides to forge ahead with the journey.

In lesser hands, this setup—having a deceased major character—might present hurdles, such as the difficulty of revealing layers of the past while advancing the plot, and of making Magda’s interior psychological journey compelling. Rest assured, Montague nimbly tackles each of these challenges and more, including frequent, well-balanced doses of humor and pathos. Magda’s road trip, which includes stops in Virginia, Tennessee, New Orleans, Texas and New Mexico, allows her to meet an intriguing succession of characters, all while learning more about her own psyche and her relationship with Sara. At one point, she wanders into a women’s retreat, where the dubious director’s words prove apt: “The real trips happen here, in our heads. In our hearts.”

How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? is a noteworthy debut about looking back while moving forward. Friendship, love, regret, repression, grief, yearning, aging and new beginnings—Montague explores each of these themes with both creative and contemplative depth.

Read our review of the audiobook of How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?

Anna Montague explores friendship, aging, grief, regret and love with both creative and contemplative depth in her noteworthy debut, How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?
FictionLiterary FictionHistorical Fiction

Our Evenings

Review by Alden Mudge

Alan Hollinghurst’s exquisitely fashioned seventh novel arrives in the form of the memoir of David Win, a gay, mixed-race, somewhat successful actor in British experimental theater. The novel opens with a prologue in which David acknowledges the death of Mark Hadlow, “an ethical businessman, a major philanthropist, married to one woman for seventy years.” Mark and his wife Cara changed David’s life by awarding him a scholarship to attend an elite English boarding school. Interested and caring but not close, they remain connected to David until their deaths.

So too, in a different way, does their son, Giles, who is David’s teenage tormentor when we encounter him in the novel’s first chapter. David has been invited on school break to the Hadlows’ farm to meet his benefactors. David does everything possible to avoid Giles, who as a boy and, later, as an adult, is filled with resentment, right-wing political ambitions, vanity and bluster. By the time of his father’s death, Giles is the leading government minister heading the Brexit effort to rid Britain of immigrants.

At its most graspable, Our Evenings is about the conflict between an open, generous Britain and a clenched, intolerant one. Hollinghurst explores this divide through the consciousness of an extremely bright and observant brown-skinned English boy who is attracted to other boys, born to an unknown Burmese father and an English dressmaker from a middling town in the countryside.

Of greater interest is that which is harder to describe. Hollinghurst has an astonishing ability to convey the ineffable; seemingly minor exchanges among boys at school or classmates at Oxford, for example, burst with revelation. He unveils the subtle gestures of class distinction and cultural power as they modulate over the course of roughly 70 years. Hollinghurst is not half Burmese, but his artistry is such that we feel the same visceral shock as David himself when strangers other him. The novel also continues Hollinghurst’s profound examination of gay love amid homophobia. The author manages to do all this while keeping his story at human scale, without grandiosity or abstraction. In short, Our Evenings is a masterful accomplishment.

Our Evenings is a masterful accomplishment: an intricate vision of the conflict between an open, generous Britain and a clenched, intolerant one from Booker Prize-winner Alan Hollinghurst.
FictionPopular FictionHistorical Fiction

This Motherless Land

Review by Lauren Bufferd

Nikki May’s second novel, This Motherless Land, opens in Nigeria in the late 1970s after 9-year-old Funke Oyenuga’s comfortable world is shattered when her mother and younger brother are killed in a car accident. Her father folds under pressure from his extended Nigerian family and sends Funke to live with her maternal grandparents at a remote estate in rural England. Isolated and miserable, a victim of her aunt Margot’s racism and condescension, Funke strives to fit in, even dropping her Nigerian name and going by Kate. But the aggressions pile on: She’s sent to the village school while her cousins Liv and Dominic are enrolled in private education, and sleeps in the attic even though there is an extra bedroom. Funke’s grandparents, though grieving, are no match for Margot’s selfish sulking. Only adventurous, spunky Liv offers Funke sympathetic companionship. But as the girls grow up, societal pressures and concerns about money, school and status get in the way of their friendship. After another traumatic accident, Funke is packed up and sent back to Nigeria to live with the father who so cruelly sent her away. 

In alternating chapters, This Motherless Land follows Funke and Liv into adulthood. Liv falls into a pattern of dead-end jobs, drugs and casual sex, before getting sober and accepting steady work at a day care center, while Funke pursues a medical degree in Lagos and restarts her relationship with her father and his new family. Though rocky at first, her return to Nigeria reconnects Funke to the spirit of her mother as she realizes just how many people her mother’s life has impacted for the better. 

With clever references to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, another novel that explores class, bad parenting and a beloved ancestral home, This Motherless Land reaches back to canonical English literature while presenting something new and fresh. Though there are a few hard-to-believe plot twists, especially toward the end, May’s warm way with her characters and her sharp eye for the details of life in Lagos, as well as the outsider’s view of English culture she presents, make this an engaging and thought-provoking family-centered novel about race and reinvention. 

Nikki May’s warm way with her characters and her sharp eye for the details of life in Lagos make This Motherless Land an engaging and thought-provoking novel about race and reinvention.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Clean

Review by Harvey Freedenberg

On the second page of Alia Trabucco Zerán’s novel Clean, we learn that “the girl dies.” That startling disclosure propels readers into an extended, engrossing monologue that blends a taut mystery with a vivid account of the hardships of a servant’s life in the home of the family for whom she works.

Addressing unidentified interrogators located on the other side of a one-way mirror, Estela Garcia asserts early on that her account “has several beginnings” and that “nothing is ever as simple as it seems.” From that it’s clear that the story of the circumstances leading to the tragic death of 7-year-old Julia, the daughter of lawyer Mara Lopez, and her husband, physician Juan Cristobal Jensen, of Santiago, Chile, will be a digressive one. 

For Estela, hot, dry Santiago provides a dramatic contrast to her home on an island off Chile’s southern coast. Mara is pregnant when 33-year-old Estela joins the household, and the maid quickly must adapt herself to the demands of her employers, which become even more challenging after Julia’s birth. She’s a difficult child, especially when it comes to her resistance, as she grows, to eating.

In Sophie Hughes’ spare, quietly eloquent translation, Zerán portrays a life of incessant toil, interrupted by the Sunday of leisure Estela often spends without leaving her room. Her employers make little effort to relate to her on a human level, and she’s haunted by her separation from her mother, who had urged her not to work as a domestic servant. 

Estela’s melancholy, which at one point drives her into a protracted silence as she goes about her duties, is interrupted only briefly when a mutt she names Yany follows her home from a nearby gas station, later returning for periodic visits that must be concealed from Mara and Juan. The “charmless dog” is involved in the cascading series of events that culminate in Julia’s death, and by the time Estela’s narrative comes to a close, the ultimate responsibility for that tragedy is anything but clear. Clean is a well-drawn character study whose sadness lingers in the mind. 

Alia Trabucco Zerán’s Clean is the story of a live-in servant who is involved in a child’s tragic death. This well-drawn character study’s sadness lingers in the mind.

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Reviews

All Reviews