Rebecca Stropoli

Not much happens in Strangers, British author Anita Brookner’s 24th novel; it’s the quiet tale of a man facing his mortality and wrestling with regret, and much of the action goes on inside the protagonist’s head. But the plot’s minimalism is exactly what makes it so intriguing; the story of Paul Sturgis is so utterly, painfully human that it’s nearly impossible not to relate.

Paul, a retired, never-married banker in his 70s with few remaining acquaintances and no relatives (save for the widow of a long-dead cousin), lives his isolated life in London. He relishes his time spent walking among the strangers who share the city streets—strangers whom he expects to die among—but his interactions with them are superficial at best. The one person whom he visits on a semi-regular basis (Helena, the cousin-in-law) offers him little more than those strangers in the way of companionship and conversation.

What keeps Paul company are his books, thoughts and memories; like so many people who are closer to the end of their lives than to the beginning, his recollections, while frequently painful, often seem more vivid than his present life.

Everything changes for Paul when, on a solitary trip to Venice, he meets a younger woman named Vicky, a peripatetic divorcée who immediately insinuates herself into his life. Soon after he meets Vicky, Paul runs into an old girlfriend, Sarah, a formerly vibrant woman who has been burdened by age. With these two women suddenly a larger part of his life than anyone has been for years, Paul finds himself weighing his desire to be alone against a thirst for human contact that he barely knew he had.

In the account of Paul and the very few people in his life, Brookner expertly taps into the dark realities of the human condition: loneliness, regret, fear of death and sometimes-destructive rumination. Even when Paul’s ponderings become tiresome, they are relatable—after all, who among us doesn’t find our own internal dialogue tedious at times? Ultimately, Strangers is a satisfyingly melancholy read, powerful in its simplicity.  

How often do we contemplate what it is that makes us human? Caught up in the daily minutiae of our lives, many of us lose sight of the true miracle that is our existence. This is the sentiment explored by British author Matt Haig in his novel The Humans, which takes a hackneyed premise (the observation of Earthlings by a visitor from another galaxy) and turns it into a surprisingly touching and often hilarious tale.

Our narrator is Professor Andrew Martin, a brilliant mathematician who has just cracked the Riemann hypothesis, a mind-bending, real-life theory that is considered one of the math world’s most significant unsolved problems. Only it isn’t really Andrew the reader is following. Our protagonist is actually an alien being, sent from his hosts on a far-distant and extremely advanced planet to kill the professor, take on his identity and delete all knowledge of the solved hypothesis from Earth. In the view of these extra­terrestrials, humans are nothing but incredibly simple, brutally violent, money-hungry beings who aren’t worthy of the revolutionary effects this proof would have.

If this sounds far-fetched and a bit ridiculous, well . . . it is. But Haig elevates the premise with his deft, humor-rich storytelling skills, even as some plot points can be seen several pages away. Will the alien Andrew Martin realize that the “simplicity” of human emotions such as love and grief—things not experienced in any way on his planet—are actually complex and beautiful? Will the idea of mortality—also not seen on his planet—cause him to appreciate the magnificent fragility of earthly life?

What do you think?

Yet even when the storyline seems predictable, there is much pleasure in the journey as the previously impassive “professor” is awakened to the joys of the Talking Heads, crunchy peanut butter, sex, soccer and the sloppy-tongued loyalty of a good dog. A reverence for mathematics and history also runs through the book, cutting through some of the sentimentality with a healthy dose of intellectualism. The Humans is an engaging summer read.

One mark of a good book is that you are truly sorry to say goodbye to the characters when you come to the final page. Jonathan Evison’s third novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, definitely fits the description. Yes, it is a road trip tale that plays on the “hitting rock bottom and making your way back up” theme. But any plot clichés can be forgiven when a book’s major players are such a joy to spend time with.

Following a horrific tragedy that the reader is slowly given clues to throughout the novel, our humorously named protagonist Benjamin Benjamin finds himself nearing 40 with no family, no money and very little motivation to live. He becomes a caregiver to Trev, an acid-tongued teenager suffering from muscular dystrophy. Evison imbues their exchanges with the darkest of humor—including that of the sexual and scatological variety—and an obvious affection for a character who never stoops to becoming the embodiment of a sappy “lesson teacher.” Evison makes it apparent, in fact, that Trev would give a swift middle finger to any such individual.

The excuse for the road trip Benjamin and Trev embark upon is to pay a visit to Trev’s estranged father. But the reader knows that the real motivation for both of them is to shake up their less-than-satisfying lives. Evison has the enviable ability to weave together a funny, tragic and very entertaining story. This reader would be more than happy to pick up a sequel.