Thirty miles off the coast of California sit the Farallon Islands. To visit them is to feel as though one has cast aside the constraints—and comforts—of civilization. At best, these shores of shale and rock have been ungenerous to humans trying to eke out a living; at worst, they have proven deadly. 

In Abby Geni’s dazzling debut, The Lightkeepers, a young photographer named Miranda joins a small band of biologists who study the birds, sharks and whales that migrate annually to the islands to mate and spawn and, in some cases, die. Though her integration into the group is far from seamless, Miranda finds herself connecting with the bleak and barren beauty of her surroundings. However, when an act of unspeakable violence is perpetrated, it unleashes a cycle of destruction and devastation that not all of them will survive.

With The Lightkeepers, Geni has crafted a novel filled with wide-open spaces and also a creeping claustrophobia. The setting takes on the role of a character, and the Farallons are masterfully brought to life on the page through Geni’s luminous prose. There is a soothing, hypnotic quality to Geni’s writing—and an unexpected tenderness, too, one that belies the thick sense of malice and increasing sense of dread that swirls about Miranda’s island home. Though some of the plot points are predictable, the story is rife with satisfying surprises, in large part because of the successful air of uncertainty that surrounds Miranda’s narration. Riveting from beginning to end, The Lightkeepers is unsettling in all the best ways.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In the final year of the Civil War, 15-year-old horse thief Callum meets a girl who changes his life forever. Both he and the girl, Ava, are orphans—Callum is from Ireland and hasn’t seen his family in years, and Ava’s father and brother were casualties of war. After Callum’s band of marauders finds Ava in her crumbling, dilapidated home and threatens her, Callum sets out to rescue her, leaving the group of pillagers behind and stealing their leader’s horse as transport. 

Soon the two find themselves pursued across the savage, war-ridden wilderness by a ruthless slave hunter, with a bounty on their heads. With dreams of making it to Atlanta, if not the Florida coast, Callum and Ava barrel headlong through the bleak, cold landscape with little food and protection, pushing through disappointment after disappointment with the hope that peace lies just around the corner.

Taylor Brown grew up on the Georgia coast and has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and western North Carolina, where much of Fallen Land is set. Filled with metaphor, poetic imagery and rich descriptions, Fallen Land is a beautifully written chronicle of love and hardship, following two people who are meant to be as they fight their way through a world seemingly set against them.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

A reader need not be a disciple of rock legend Neil Young to find that Only Love Can Break Your Heart strikes a nostalgic chord.

But for those of us who appreciate Young’s immense musical gifts, Ed Tarkington’s debut novel will likely prove twice as harmonious. In many ways a classic coming-of-age story, the novel also digs deep into the loamy depths of the modern Southern Gothic genre, circa 1970s.

Tarkington’s novel unfolds from the perspective of its young narrator, Rocky, whose older brother and hero, Paul, is the quintessential teenage bad boy. When Paul’s bitterness toward the boys’ father leads to a reckless act of defiance that places Rocky in peril, the brothers become geographically estranged, but never divided at heart. Years later, a crime divides their hometown but brings them back together.

The small Virginia town of Spencerville is filled with an eclectic cast of characters that keeps the tale moving at a brisk pace, even after Paul’s early departure from the narrative scene. This is a dark story of a dysfunctional crew, from the cantankerous family patriarch and his young wife, the religious and submissive Mrs. Askew, to the horsey debutante and seductress Patricia Culver and Paul’s fragile soul mate, Leigh. 

Without spoiling the ending of this compelling page-turner, it can be said that Tarkington’s impressive first novel achieves every author’s goal: Once you start reading, you can’t stop. And as an added bonus for Neil Young fans, Tarkington’s riveting tale provides plenty of classic rock riffs, too.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Fiction Top Pick, December 2015

Decades after fleeing Japan and building a new life in America, Amaterasu Takahashi is confronted by a man claiming to be a missing piece of her past. Badly scarred and bearing a trove of family secrets, he stands on her doorstep claiming to be her grandson, Hideo, who died in the bombing at Nagasaki along with Ama’s daughter, Yuko. Ama knows her family is dead; she had spent countless hours searching the rubble and hospitals with her husband, Kenzo. She doesn’t believe the man at the door.

His proof of identity is a collection of sealed letters that carry not only the story of Hideo’s survival and how he came to find her in the States, but also the secrets of a seemingly ordinary family, opening up wounds Ama had long tried to pretend were healed. As chapters alternate between the past and the present, Ama confronts feelings of guilt and grief over her losses as well as hope that the future might hold more than loneliness.

In her debut novel, journalist Jackie Copleton—who lived in Nagasaki for two years—manages to sensitively portray Japanese culture as well as the utter horror and devastation of August 9, 1945, an angle often unexplored in Western writing. Characterized by heartache, memories and promise, A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding is a gripping narrative about family and loss that will appeal to readers of historical and literary fiction.

This article was originally published in the December 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Few debut novels get the kind of attention—and the multi-million dollar advance—that Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire has. But to say that this book deserves the buzz understates what is hardly an understated accomplishment. Like the work of other literary masters (Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace and Donna Tartt are just a few of the novelists worth drawing comparisons to), this is a book that will endure in many ways.

On the surface level, City on Fire is a mystery. New York City, New Years Eve, as the year turns to 1977: a girl, Sam Cicciaro, is shot in Central Park. While this is the inciting incident—an old detective grows obsessed with the case; a washed-up journalist tries to find meaning through his own investigation—the narrative strays far and wide. It oscillates around New York City, through the perspectives of pretty much every character related to the case. Hallberg crafts men and women both gay and straight, black and white, young and old—all with such precision and empathy that even the villains feel alive and complexly human.

One of the main plotlines follows a rich and powerful family of Manhattanites, glancingly reminiscent of Salinger’s Glass family. Another trudges in the grime and bohemian color of the Lower East Side’s punk-rock scene, where Patti Smith and post-humanism reign supreme. Interspersed between these temporally and geographically expansive sections are found-writing type documents: hand-written journal entries, psychological profiles, collaged fanzines. It’s a large novel that takes its time giving each character attention, and is full of stylistic innovation, but never gets too cute with its doses of post-modern artifice. The connections arise and converge, ultimately culminating in the blackout of 1977 and a novel that triumphs over both New York City and stories themselves.

But like Roberto Bolaño’s magnum opus, 2666, the story itself is not propelled by plot or incident, but by the details. What Hallberg has achieved is subtlety original, considering how much fun it is to read the cinematic collection of scenes and follow the numerous story arcs. Through this panorama of characters, Hallberg explores what it means to feel alone in a city of millions. And while it certainly is long, what will last about this book is a sense of empathy for myriad multicolored lives, a feeling that stays in the heart even after having put down the book.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Garth Risk Hallberg about City on Fire.

In 2012, Claire Vaye Watkins burst onto the literary landscape with her prize-winning short story collection, Battleborn. In Gold Fame Citrus, Watkins follows through on her literary promise with an excellent novel, set in a drought-ridden California in a future that feels alarmingly near.

Gold Fame Citrus is the story of Luz, a woman born when California was merely on the cusp of collapse but who must make her way in a world where the waters have run dry and the borders into more verdant parts of the country are blocked off to people of her provenance, so-called “Mojavs.” Along with a drifter named Ray, Luz has managed to carve out an existence in the arid remnants of a place that once glittered, and the two have learned to get by however they can. When they become guardians to an enigmatic slip of a child, however, Luz’s desiccated dreams of what life once was and, perhaps, could some day be again, gush forth. For the sake of their family, they decide to brave the ever-encroaching dune sea, a desolate shifting stretch of sand that separates them from a more habitable climate. But the wasteland they have been led to believe is barren is far from empty and contains untold hazards—some physical, some spiritual, some psychological.

There is no shortage of dystopian literature examining the destruction to the planet that man has wrought and humankind’s tenacious will to survive, but Gold Fame Citrus easily catapults itself into the upper echelon of the genre. Deeply evocative and emotional, Watkins’ writing is hypnotic, drawing readers into a fevered lullaby that feels fantastical and all-too-real simultaneously. This is the kind of novel that readers will want to consume in great gulps as they race to discover Luz and company’s fate, but Gold Fame Citrus is best read slowly, allowing the words to wash over you.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

As you’d imagine from the title, bats are a key element in Zachary Thomas Dodson’s intricately constructed and elaborately illustrated debut. But the book’s real spirit animal is the ouroboros: a snake eating its own tail. Built as a novel within a novel, with supporting material in the form of letters and journal pages and drawings (all reproduced here as if photocopied from an archive), Bats of the Republic follows a pair of adventurous young men, several generations apart, on similar missions.

The first of these is Zeke Thomas, an heir to a senate seat in the citystate of Texas in the year 2143. The post-disaster world he lives in is strictly controlled, with communities organized around “life phases” in order to facilitate repopulation. Most historical documents were lost in whatever disaster befell the planet, so now there’s a recording-and-archiving system with creepy parallels to the modern world, a nod to the perils of ceding privacy to government in exchange for security. Zeke’s trouble begins with a letter he inherits that was never opened or properly archived—a criminal offense. Will he report it?

Back in 1843, Zadock Thomas—an ancestor to Zeke—also has a problem caused by a mysterious, unopened letter. Zadock works at Chicago’s new Museum of Flying and is in love with the daughter of the museum’s founder. But just as he’s about to propose, his boss sends him on a mission to deliver a letter to a storied general in the embattled republic of Texas. If he doesn’t get back in time—or at all—his beloved will be forced to marry his awful cousin. Naturally, Zadock encounters every possible obstacle, including a cave filled with bats that may or may not be related to the bats that live in the archive of the future world. Will he make it back home?

The stories circle around and fold into each other (in one instance, literally) to delightful and dizzying effect. Dodson is a book designer, and the book is subtitled “an illuminated novel.” The often elaborate design serves the story, underscoring the various narrative voices and timelines, as well as adding visual texture. It’s a pleasure to get lost here, though you might be glad the author includes a few maps.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Sloane Crosley is a familiar name to many readers of nonfiction, both for her self-deprecating essay collections and her contributions to the New York Times. Now she lends her insight and sense of humor to the world of fiction in a debut novel, The Clasp. 

Kezia, Nathaniel and Victor, three friends from college, are reunited at the extravagant wedding of a mutual friend. Though they have been semi-estranged since graduation, all their college feelings resurface in the present day. Victor harbors feelings for Kezia; Kezia is infatuated with Nathaniel; and Nathaniel is absorbed with himself. Victor, never at his best in social situations, separates from the reception and wakes up to the groom’s mother slapping him the next morning. Her abrupt wake-up call transitions to the story of a valuable necklace that disappeared during the Nazi occupation of France. Consumed with the idea of finding this necklace, Victor sets out on a journey that takes not only him, but also Kezia and Nathaniel, from Miami to New York to France. All three friends experience a level of self-discovery along the way. 

Crosley is an innate storyteller and writes with her signature wit and flair. Each character’s flaw—whether it be Victor’s apathy, Kezia’s need to be needed or Nathaniel’s self-absorption—is relatable, and The Clasp speaks to flaws in humanity and friendships in a charming and realistic way. This novel entertains even as it provokes internal examination of one’s own relationships.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The challenge for an author who writes about a lonely character is to make that character interesting—and keep him that way. Happily, this is what Lori Ostlund has done in After the Parade, her sensitive and realistic tale of the excruciatingly lonely Aaron Englund. What’s intriguing about him is that he seems not to mind his loneliness. This may seem odd, for the difference between loneliness and solitude is that a person minds the former and doesn’t mind the latter. But Aaron holds his pain like a shield against a world that never had much use for him.

The story alternates between scenes of Aaron’s childhood and his early middle age, at a moment when he is contemplating just how life ended up this way. We start with his parents, who should have listened to Philip Larkin and never reproduced in the first place. Aaron’s dad was a brute who didn’t even bother to hide his hatred of his sensitive son. Aaron’s mother loved him for a time, but abandoned him when he was a teenager. Aaron, too gentle or maybe too passive to embrace his father’s brutality, learns much from this disastrous woman. When we meet Aaron, he is preparing to leave his partner of 20 years with a cold efficiency. At least Aaron tells him goodbye.

Still, Ostlund—a Flannery O’Connor Award winner who spent 15 years shaping this novel—gives us reason to hope for her troubled protagonist. Aaron is befriended by a detective whose childhood was as rotten as his, and a nice man he meets in a café seems interested in him. And he is loved—by his ESL students; by his ex-boyfriend, Walter, in spite of everything; and especially by Walter’s sister, whose support helps him do a hard thing near the book’s end. After the Parade is a sad book, but a hopeful one.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Memoirist and literary agent Bill Clegg (Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man) has now conquered the world of literary fiction with his searing debut, Did You Ever Have a Family. As a boy “wakes to the sound of sirens,” we learn that an explosion has taken the life of a bride and groom just before their wedding day. Clegg then slowly, intricately reveals the wider ramifications of this unthinkable tragedy through the eyes of more than a dozen characters. The title (from an Alan Shapiro poem) most deeply refers to June Reid, who lost the most in the explosion that fateful day. But Clegg’s wide lens compels the reader to think deeply about what a family is and how they influence us, for better or worse. 

The pain in this novel is raw and visceral, though there are brilliant, subtle touches as well. In one scene, a mother and son have a talk they should have had a long time ago. Across the street, “two teenage boys scrape paint from the house,” a revealing image of painstakingly stripping away the past. Ultimately, readers of Did You Ever Have a Family will be reminded of both Faulkner (in Clegg’s dark material and kaleidoscopic storytelling) and Colum McCann (in the genuine search for meaning or redemption amid tragedy). 

Clegg’s novel is not for every reader. In addition to the bleak events, the flashbacks and lack of dialogue can become a bit wearisome. Nevertheless, Clegg has produced an insightful portrait of adversity. The characters, by and large, are memorable and their struggles genuine. One of Clegg’s guilt-wracked characters describes the reflection of the night sky on a lake as “both ominous and beautiful.” The same can be said of Did You Ever Have a Family.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

They say that with every loss comes a gain, but in Charlie Cates’ case, that seems unimaginable. Her 5-year-old son’s sudden death from a brain aneurysm has turned her world upside down. A divorced single parent, Charlie put Keegan at the center of her world. Well-intentioned attempts from neighbors and colleagues to help Charlie get back on her feet only remind her of her dreaded new normal. When her old editor at Cold Crimes magazine calls with an unusual opportunity, Charlie—ready for a change—boldly seizes it, heading to Chicory, Louisiana, to write about a long-cold missing-persons case.

In 1982, 3-year-old Gabriel Deveau disappeared from his bedroom in the middle of the night. Although the case was highly publicized and ruthlessly investigated, no one was ever convicted, and no body was ever found. Charlie hopes to find a new angle—and she also thinks that the psychic visions she’s been having of children in danger since Keegan’s death may help her solve the mystery. But once she is inside the gates of the Deveaus’ luxurious plantation home, Charlie realizes there is more than one skeleton in the closet.

Hester Young’s debut novel, The Gates of Evangeline, is a thrilling Southern Gothic mystery. Full of family secrets, betrayals and unexpected romances, it pulls readers along on a dark, twisted ride through the Louisiana swamp.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.