Dennis Lythgoe

Sebastian Faulks, an experienced journalist and novelist best known for Birdsong and On Green Dolphin Street, writes in a style that is always sophisticated and sometimes satirical, but he never fails to draw in readers looking for a good story. In A Week in December, Faulks brings the story to his hometown (though he lives in London, he has rarely written about the city before now) and chooses a familiar vehicle for his novel—the exploration of the lives of a number of diverse characters at a specific moment in time. It is the week before Christmas 2007, and the reader is introduced to several interesting people who have nothing in common save their shared mode of daily transportation—a London tube train whose driver guides a Circle Line train in a daily loop.

Faulks brilliantly creates a pattern—symbolic of modern urban life—in which seven fascinating characters struggle with climactic problems in deeply creative ways. It should not be said that the author inspires a rush of fast reading, the kind of book one cannot put down; instead he utilizes a more careful approach that allows for thoughtful analysis and depth. Each character is richly diverse—solid proof of the author’s admirable gift for creating fiction—and they come to life in different ways. How could a hedge fund manager find ties to a professional football player? How could an underworked lawyer given to speculation involve himself with a superficially successful book reviewer? What about a student who finds himself trapped in discussion of Islamist theory with a schoolboy hooked on reality TV? And how will the charismatic driver of the tube train, a young woman looking for love, fit into Faulks’ puzzle?

The answers just might be that none of these characters need the others to solve their problems, but their situations mirror those of many who will read this book and use it to re-examine their own unique predicaments in an outrageously modern, ever-interconnected society.

Dennis Lythgoe is a writer who has lived in Boston and Salt Lake City.

The setting for Canadian writer Thomas Trofimuk’s inventive, charming new novel, Waiting for Columbus, is a mental institution in Sevilla, Spain. There, a 21st-century inmate persuasively argues that he is actually the legendary 15th-century navigator Christopher Columbus.

Although medical personnel initially suspect his is a stereotypically disturbed mind—like that of an inmate who calls herself Pope Cecilia, purporting to be the first woman Pope—they are startled by his detailed and colorful knowledge of his subject, time period and descriptions of his ostensibly first-person experiences.

Columbus, as they dutifully call him, speaks with an incisive vocabulary and tells 15th-century stories with uncanny credibility. At the same time, he also has a disjointed, perhaps playful habit of interspersing his stories with contemporary elements that do not fit—like telephones in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Nurse Consuela, a beautiful and witty woman, listens intensely to his stories and writes them down for psychiatrists. In spite of Columbus’ sometimes destructive behavior, she finds herself increasingly attracted to the intellectual, cultured side of this mysterious man and patient.

Soon, however, Consuela becomes frustrated with Columbus; his salacious stories of romantic encounters with women exotically named Beatriz, Selena—and even Queen Isabella—make her inexplicably jealous. And the more she comes to know about Columbus, the more questions she has about the nature of his true identity.

Dr. Fuentes, the medical chief of the facility, loses interest in Columbus, but Dr. Balderas, who replaces him, is anxious to unravel his personal story. His chats with Columbus create rapport, just as Consuela’s have—and together Balderas and Consuela begin to unravel the nature of Columbus’ past.

The author is inventive in structuring a multifaceted story that never loses its vitality. His literary gifts allow him to portray each character with depth, while at the same time creating a rising sense of suspense at the possibility of uncovering Columbus’ true identity.

While the name Thomas Trofimuk is hardly one that trips easily off the tongue, we can only hope that this promising novelist will continue to create fascinating fiction.

Dennis Lythgoe is a writer who has lived in Boston and Salt Lake City.