Matthew Jackson

With The Furies, British writer Natalie Haynes has delivered an addictive, dark and suspenseful— yet sensitive—debut about death, obsession and fate.

After a sudden tragedy shatters her happy life as an actress and theater director in London, Alex Morris moves to Edinburgh to teach at a “last-chance” school for troubled teens. When she faces down her most intimidating class, a group of fierce personalities who convene in the school’s basement classroom, she finds common ground with them by teaching classic Greek drama. At first, the students seem interested only in the stories’ sensational plot developments, but as time passes they grow more intent, more fascinated—and more likely to take the tales of revenge, fate and fury to heart.

Haynes explores the twisting relationship between Alex and her students not just through Alex’s narration, but also through the diary entries of her most attentive pupil. The result is a novel of dueling perspectives, a dance of two tragic lives intertwining in ever more fascinating, ever more destructive ways.

The novel generates a whirlwind pace and a psychological tension as it darts between points of view, but the boldest thing about The Furies is the way Haynes explores something universal in a very intimate way. She laces the psychological tragedies at the heart of her plot with a sense of deep vulnerability and humanity in her characters as they explore not just the white heat of tragedy, but the never-ending throb of grief.

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Stories of human survival and hope after an apocalyptic event are well worn at this point. As a result, the themes and tropes of these tales often feel so trodden and predictable that they become little more than echoes. Then, there are stories like California.

In the near future, civilization as Cal and Frida know it has crumbled. Hoping for a new life, they flee the ruined city of Los Angeles and settle in a small shed in the wilderness, carving out the best life they can with what little they have. It’s hard, but they have each other, and that seems comfort enough—until Frida discovers she’s pregnant.

Fearing what might happen if they try to survive the pregnancy alone, Cal and Frida set out for a mysterious nearby settlement, but when they arrive, it becomes clear that this hoped-for sanctuary is instead a world where it seems no one can be trusted.

The real secret to the greatness of California, aside from its fully realized characters and thoughtful narration, is an attention to detail that draws you immediately into Edan Lepucki’s mysterious new world. This isn’t a place of easy answers, but it is a place of layered, constantly unfolding ones. Frida and Cal’s journey is a web of secrets, fears and truths old and new, and Lepucki deftly creates the sense that these elements are simultaneously happening all at once and feeding off each other, crafting a truly unpredictable tale of human frailty and determination. Here, the world ends messily, like an ugly relationship, and the ways in which the characters have to put their lives back together are equally fractured. The result is not only a singular post-apocalyptic novel, but a debut you won’t want to miss. California will lure you in with its mysteries, seduce you with its secrets and haunt you long after you’ve finished it.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Simon Wroe is a former chef, so it’s no surprise that he set his debut novel in a kitchen. What is surprising about Chop Chop, though, is how little Wroe lets this fiendish little book get bogged down in the details of its setting. It’s very much about the chaotic life of a kitchen, but this darkly comic narrative covers so much more, and the result is addictively entertaining.

Wroe’s unnamed narrator (dubbed “Monocle” by his coworkers because of an English degree he isn’t using) sets out for the excitement of London after university and quickly finds himself desperate for a way to pay his rent. He takes a job at a past-its-prime restaurant called The Swan, doing grunt work. It’s a place where anything can happen, and The Swan’s outrageous characters—barbaric head chef Bob, Racist Dave, Ramilov and the beguiling Harmony—push and pull Monocle in different directions, from torture to romance to devilish pranks. Monocle finds himself swept into a world that’s as much battleground as it is kitchen, even as he’s tormented by his past and his parents’ crumbling marriage.

Wroe not only refuses to glamorize what goes on behind this restaurant’s kitchen door, but also refuses to tell his tale with anything but a kind of impish brutality. Bob isn’t just a taskmaster. He’s a slavedriver. Harmony isn’t just a crush. She’s a dream girl. Ramilov isn’t just a comrade in arms. He’s a lifesaver. Everything is amplified in this cramped, sweaty little space, but Wroe still leaves plenty of room for the unexpected, the uncomfortable and the uncommonly funny.

Chop Chop might be fiction, but the truth of the author’s experience shines through. The result is a compelling debut from a mischievous new voice.

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Reimagining a well-trodden fairy tale is tricky business. Rely too much on the tropes of the original story, and the plot becomes wooden, predictable and dull. Drift too far, and it’s easy to lose the point of the exercise. Few writers can pull off this balance, but with While Beauty Slept, Elizabeth Blackwell proves she’s one of them.

For her take on the Sleeping Beauty story, Blackwell—a former journalist—shifts focus from the titular Beauty to Elise, an attendant to the queen when the Beauty, a girl named Rose, is born. When we first meet Elise, she’s an old woman with great-grandchildren, and the memory of the real story of Sleeping Beauty has long been buried in her mind. One night, hearing her great-grandchild tell the fantastical version of the tale, the tale of a princess who slept for a hundred years, Elise decides it’s finally time to tell the real story: the story of a queen desperate for a daughter, a treacherous aunt and the curse she brought to the palace, a war, a plague, a king striving to save his heir. Elise was at the center of it all, protecting her queen, her princess and her own chance at survival.

Blackwell succeeds at deftly weaving her own elements into a classic story without ever doing either a disservice, but there’s perhaps a more important balancing act she pulls off that makes the novel even more rewarding: the balance between Elise’s place in the fairy tale, and her own personal journey. This is not Sleeping Beauty’s story, though she is vital to it. This is Elise’s story, and not as a supporting character. It’s the story of her love life, her fears, her hopes, her mysterious past and her determination, and Blackwell makes sure it matters by rendering Elise as a powerful, vulnerable and inviting voice. The strength of Elise as a character is the reason this novel works.

Fans of novels like Wicked and lovers of fairy tales will no doubt find something new to love in While Beauty Slept, as will anyone who enjoys a layered drama rich with juicy palace intrigue.

A good debut novel can deliver a compelling story, well-formed characters, interesting dialogue and a solid thematic punch—but a great debut novel also introduces an unforgettable voice. With The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel, Magdalena Zyzak has done all of the above, creating a modern folktale that’s both delightfully strange and remarkably sensitive.

Zyzak’s titular hero is a simple swineherd in the fictional Eastern European nation of Scalvusia who, in his own mind, is a legend in the making. Barnabas finds his reflection so remarkable that it actually hurts to turn away from it. He finds the fact that he’s failed at every job he’s ever had to be proof not that he’s inept, but that his mind is filled with thoughts too lofty for manual labor. Most importantly, though, Barnabas is in love with the beautiful gypsy Roosha, who is unfortunately living in the home of one of the richest men in town.

Determined to win his beloved, Barnabas saddles his noble steed Wilhelm and sets off on a series of attempts at romance that never end well. Meanwhile he must deal with, among other things, a murder investigation, a mad priest, a man who married a goat and the looming specter of World War II.

Zyzak, who came to the U.S. from her native Poland to attend university in 2002, has a remarkable gift for prose. She regularly crafts phrases that feel simultaneously fresh and familiar—like her claim that Barnabas’ mother died of “acute incomprehension.” The story’s quirkiness is unapologetically front-and-center, but eccentricity is not Zyzak’s main goal. Instead, she makes us feel for this quixotic young adventurer and the community of oddballs around him.

With a fascinating blend of literary deftness and Marxian (Groucho, not Karl) zaniness, Zyzak has delivered an absurdist page-turner that’s also thoroughly human and moving.