Clare Swanson

In his fourth book, Lookaway, Lookaway, novelist Wilton Barnhardt sticks with what he knows. A professor at North Carolina State University and native of the state, Barnhardt is well equipped to bring the manicured, yet scandalous, world of Southern high society to life. The result is an effervescent novel best described in terms of the characters that populate it.

The story hinges on the Johnston family’s unflinching, poised, perfectly mannered matriarch, Jerene. Her husband, Joseph “Duke” Johnston, is a non-practicing lawyer and onetime rising political star in Charlotte, who now devotes most of his brainpower to an obsession with an obscure Civil War battle. Jerene’s brother Gaston, the author of a popular series of commercial novels, pines after a decidedly more highbrow reputation. He feels like a sell-out, and loses himself in bourbon at the local country club.

The Johnston children are as much at sea as the adults. Annie, the eldest, continually tries to subvert the notion of a good old-fashioned debutante. Bo, a preacher, feels out of place both on the pulpit and in his complicated marriage. The third, Joshua, is disenfranchised within his family by his homosexuality, which goes unacknowledged even after the most unceremonious of coming-outs. The baby, Jerilyn, begins as the natural heir to her mother’s legacy, but is shoved off course by a trauma that is, true to Johnston form, quickly swept under the rug.

As family members attempt to reconcile an antebellum past with their messy present, they grapple with evolving notions of legacy, race, class and personal identity. Their storylines circle one another, held in the same orbit by the unrelenting centripetal force that is Jerene. She manages the public relations for her family, rarely letting her humanity show even in the most raw and devastating scenarios. As the task of keeping the historic family name in good standing becomes too daunting even for her, the novel boils to its explosive conclusion.

In 2010, novelist and journalist John Lanchester published I.O.U, Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay—a timely, approachable and anecdotal look at the fiscal crisis in Britain and beyond. In his latest, Capital, he once again explores the unraveling economy, this time through the lens of fiction.

The novel revolves around the homeowners of Pepys Road, an imagined street in the South London neighborhood of Clapham, initially developed to provide housing for lower income families. Though some of the original homes remain, the street has been transformed, both by gentrification and lavish renovations, and the real estate is now worth millions. And in 2007, so are its residents, who include a banker and his label-hungry wife; a Pakistani shop owner and family; and a widow dying of a brain tumor. The many and varied narratives are woven together by a mysterious, anonymous campaign of postcards and DVDs sent to the residents with the simple, repeated message: “We Want What You Have.”

The thread works effectively as glue for the epic cast of characters, often bringing them together on a literal level, but it also functions well as a dramatic device. As the novel moves into 2008, the fiscal crisis takes shape, and life for the people of Pepys Road begins to fall apart in conjunction with the global economy. The ominous and ever-present phrase taunts the characters, and in different ways, forces them into self-examination. The story is peopled by engagingly flawed, fully realized characters, drawn into a harmonious narrative by taut, fluid prose.

Though Capital is a big, broad, multicultural cross-section of one street in a specific neighborhood of one city, Lanchester speaks of matters—a troubled economy; prevailing notions of class and race—that are all too universal.

Lily Tuck, who won the 2004 National Book Award for The News from Paraguay, has long been heralded for her elegant, spare prose and predilection for complex characters and philosophical inquiry. Her latest novel, I Married You for Happiness, which potently documents one woman’s response to her husband’s death, displays everything critics and readers have come to expect from this talented writer.

Philip, a successful mathematician at a university in Cambridge, arrives home from work and tells his wife, Nina, that he needs to lie down before dinner. A short while later, Nina discovers his lifeless body in the bed they shared. She spends the remainder of the night by his side, drinking the red wine meant for the meal and recalling their life together. Her fractured web of memories results in something of a meandering obituary for Philip, as well as their marriage, and carries us from their meeting at a cafe in 1960s Paris to his unexpected end. At first, it appears to be a classic case of love that relies on the joyful equilibrium of opposites—Nina, an artist, is the dreamer; Philip the logician. But as the novel progresses, her grief and introspection expose a decidedly more complicated relationship, one that is dominated by Philip’s relentless devotion to probability, yet, paradoxically, ridden with uncertainty. 

The writing is lyrical and striking, vividly capturing the nature of memory and the way in which love, though never simple, is contained and proven in the small, indelible moments of our lives. Many writers attempt to navigate the territory of grief: those manic days after loss, the weeks where life repairs itself and the months when normal begins to feel, once again, possible. But this slim, magnificent novel is rarified by its heartbreaking immediacy, and the moving, aching stream of consciousness chronicles not only the psychology of shock and mourning, but also the minute-by-minute way in which Nina begins to put life as she knows it in the past tense.