How does one sum up the arc of a long life? That’s the intriguing question Joshua Ferris poses in A Calling for Charlie Barnes, a poignant, bitingly funny exploration of how a life that’s riddled with defeat may turn out, after all, to be profoundly meaningful.

Inspired by the death of Ferris’ own father in 2014, the novel tells the story of Charlie Barnes, nicknamed “Steady Boy,” an investment adviser struggling in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse whose ambition is matched only by the number and magnitude of his professional and personal debacles. Charlie is a bundle of contradictions—an ethical money manager in a world of charlatans, and someone whose endlessly inventive mind conjures up bizarre moneymaking schemes that are distinctive only for their consistent failures, like a flying toupee called the Original Doolander or the Clown in Your Town, a franchised fleet of party clowns.

But when, at age 68, Charlie is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he’s forced to confront his mortality and come to terms with a chaotic family life that has included five marriages—four of which ended badly—and has caused the bitter estrangement of his two eldest children. His youngest son, Jake, the only Barnes sibling who remains close to his father, is a novelist who takes on the project of chronicling Charlie’s “perfectly failed life.” From moments of rollicking humor to episodes of deep pathos, Jake strives to capture his father’s utterly ordinary, strikingly tumultuous biography with as much fidelity to the facts as he’s able to muster while keeping it “honest, but respectable.”

In addition to its autofictional component, A Calling for Charlie Barnes contains a strong metafictional element, as Jake comments frequently and incisively on the challenges of storytelling, even assuming the mantle of unreliable narrator almost with a sense of pride: “Like reliability exists anywhere anymore,” he writes, “like that’s still a thing,” reminding the reader of “the power you have when you control the narrative.”

Ferris’ control of his own narrative is impeccable, but that doesn’t mean readers shouldn’t be prepared for the frequent wicked curveballs he delivers with evident zest. A Calling for Charlie Barnes has plot twists as manifold as its protagonist’s cruelly dashed dreams, but when Steady Boy’s story reaches its end, it’s a reminder of how little we know about the ones we love and the fact that even the humblest life story encompasses unfathomable depths.

For the audiobook, Nick Offerman delivers a powerful performance as Jake Barnes.

A flailing commune. A lead singer of a touring rock band. Sex, drugs and then even more sex and drugs. Zoe Whittall’s taut novel The Spectacular has all the trappings to become the season’s dishiest read. It’s also a gem of literary fiction. 

Whittall, a poet and novelist who has also been a writer on the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” introduces three women with very different plans for their lives. Missy is a 20-something rock star with a penchant for drugs and a love’em-and-leave’em attitude toward men. Early in The Spectacular, she is upset to learn that she is pregnant. Carola, Missy’s mother, has provided maternal succor to many, first at a hippie commune and later at a yoga ashram. But she struggles to show up for her own daughter and, in many ways, to show up for herself. Finally there’s Ruth, Carola’s mother-in-law, whose sacrifices as a young immigrant in Canada set the stage for her family’s life. 

The plot of The Spectacular isn’t clearly defined; all three women’s stories connect at certain points, and the narrative jumps forward and backward in time. But this is not a typical sprawling family drama, and in Whittall’s smart and capable hands, these unconventional women are given the space to experience their full, complicated lives. Whittall takes the long view with this multigenerational arc to explore the responsibilities of motherhood, the boundaries of biology and the price for women’s freedom to live fully actualized lives.

Award-winning Israeli writer David Grossman’s More Than I Love My Life is a complex novel about the secrets that scar three generations of women for a lifetime.

Upon her 90th birthday, family matriarch Vera Novak reunites with her daughter, Nina, after five years of separation. Both Vera and Nina have committed the almost unpardonable act of abandoning young daughters—Vera when Nina was 6, and Nina when her own daughter, Gili, was even younger. The circumstances surrounding Vera’s and Nina’s departures are complex, slowly revealed and come to dominate all three women’s emotional lives.

When Nina, who has spent several years on a tiny island between Lapland and the North Pole, announces that she’s in the early stages of dementia, she asks Gili, a writer and filmmaker now approaching her 40s, and Gili’s father, Rafael, formerly a film director himself, to record Vera’s story. The novel reaches its climax when the foursome journeys to the island of Goli Otok, off the coast of Croatia, once home to a notorious labor camp and reeducation center for opponents of the Tito regime in the former Yugoslavia. Vera was sent there after the death of her husband under circumstances she’s withheld from Nina all her life. 

In harrowing passages that alternate with the present action, Vera recalls two months of her nearly three-year imprisonment when she was marched daily to a cliff top and forced to stand in the blazing sun, her only companion a sapling she shaded with her body.

Vera, Nina and Gili are memorable characters, each suffering in different but equally profound ways. Grossman effectively inhabits the consciousnesses of these women and doesn’t spare the reader any of their considerable emotional pain. He’s a sympathetic if unfailingly honest chronicler of their anguish. A reader doesn’t have to identify with the particulars of the women’s stories to appreciate how the consequences of fateful choices can reverberate down through the generations.

As its title suggests, Tracey Lange’s debut novel, We Are the Brennans, tells the story of the Brennans, a large Irish American family that’s long been established in Westchester County, New York. But the novel opens in Los Angeles, where Sunday, the only Brennan daughter, has gotten herself banged up in a drunk-driving accident.

Sunday left home abruptly five years ago, and after the crash, eldest brother Denny persuades her to return. Their dad, Mickey, shows signs of dementia; middle brother Jackie’s on probation after a drug charge; youngest brother Shane has developmental disabilities; and Denny is struggling to pay the bills at the pub he runs with best friend Kale (who is Sunday’s ex-fiancé).

With Sunday back in the family house, the other characters' secrets, and the ways those secrets have burdened them, come to light. Denny’s trouble is most apparent at first; his wife has moved out, taking their young daughter with her, and his financial troubles are much worse than we initially see. The other Brennans face their own challenges as well. Each chapter follows a family member, beginning with a repeated line of dialogue from the previous chapter, an intriguing structure that links the characters and offers a wider perspective while also propelling the reader along.

We Are the Brennans is well plotted, offering plenty of action, but it shines brightest in depicting family relationships, love mixed with resentment and guilt, and in character development. The Brennan siblings are believably flawed, their troubles multifaceted. The family house and Denny and Kale’s bar are almost characters, too, well depicted throughout: “Sunday climbed the porch, stepped across the threshold, and slammed into the familiar mixed aroma of old wood, black tea, and fresh laundry.”

We Are the Brennans is firmly in the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and J. Courtney Sullivan’s Saints for All Occasions, though not as literary in its prose style. It’s a page-turner in the best way, slowly doling out the family’s life-altering secrets. We root for the Brennans the whole way through, waiting for them to face hard truths about one another and, we hope, to move forward together.

Unembellished and forthright, The Tiger Mom’s Tale is a touching story that illuminates intricacies of race, ethnicity, traditions and stereotypes.

Thirty-something Lexa Thomas is a fitness trainer living in New York City, and she’s trying to adjust to the news that her white mother is divorcing Lexa’s white stepfather after falling for an Asian American acupuncturist. Then Lexa receives a call from her half sister in Taiwan, Hsu-Ling, who informs Lexa that their biological father has died. This stirs up memories of what happened during Lexa’s last visit to Taiwan, when she was forced to abandon her father and her heritage 22 years ago.

But Hsu-Ling has more news. Their Uncle Pong has also died, within moments of their father’s death, and he left a mysterious letter for Lexa. Encouraged by her two half sisters, one Taiwanese and the other a white American, Lexa returns to Taiwan to claim her rightful place in the family.

Lyn Liao Butler’s tale is a literary melting pot brimming with blended families and cultures. The straightforward, exposition-heavy narrative is sprinkled with Mandarin and broad references to different Asian foods and cultural elements, although the lack of development of these aspects may distract the reader from fully immersing themselves in Lexa’s journey to connect with her heritage. Scenes that reveal backstory and the surprising events that turned Lexa away from her Taiwanese relatives slowly tease out the novel’s climax.

Lexa’s gentle humility and quiet confidence will garner the support of readers looking for a likable protagonist. A heartwarming romantic subplot is a sweet result of Lexa’s transformation and self-acceptance and provides another union of ethnic backgrounds.

Filled with potential book club discussion topics and perfect for fans of YA novels by Jenny Han, The Tiger Mom’s Tale will unleash timely dialogue about identity, family secrets and cultural divides.

You can’t escape your past. It’s one of the oldest literary motifs around, yet it feels fresh in Mia McKenzie’s Skye Falling. The novel explores how dealing with painful memories and embracing anger can unlock a freer future—but only if you’re brave enough to try.

Most people wouldn’t call Skye brave; they would call her the poster child for insecure attachment. Her father was physically and emotionally abusive, and her mother let it happen. Now Skye, a 38-year-old Black travel guide, flits from bed to bed and from country to country, only occasionally stopping home in Philly to see her one remaining friend.

Skye has avoided dealing with her traumatic childhood and would probably continue to do so if she could. Then a 12-year-old girl named Vicky shows up. She is the product of the egg that Skye donated when she was broke in her 20s. Skye learns that Vicky’s mother has died from cancer, and now the spunky, headstrong tween wants a relationship with Skye.

A more simplistic story would be one in which, all of a sudden, Skye realizes it might be time to grow up. But Skye Falling is a more complex expansion of what it means to be maternal and nurturing, and how we may fulfill those needs ourselves. Throughout the novel, traditional family structures let people down. It is the families of choice, bound together by love and respect, whose support is given most freely.

Skye Falling is multilayered in the best way as it explores Skye’s character growth. McKenzie weaves together several themes—gentrification, racism, child abuse, grief and Skye’s relationship with Vicky’s queer aunt, Faye—and each topic carries equal weight. For a novel that addresses many serious subjects, the story never feels heavy. That’s a credit to Skye’s narrative voice, which McKenzie infuses with both a sense of humor and strong opinions.

Readers will wish for a happy ending for Skye. But more strongly, they’ll wish for a follow-up to Skye’s (and Vicky’s) story.

Golden Girl is Elin Hilderbrand’s 27th novel, an especially astonishing number considering that she explores the same rich terrain of Nantucket and the surrounding areas in almost every one of her books. A reader might be wary of the author becoming formulaic, but Golden Girl is surprising, delightful and—dare I say?—quirky.

Vivi Howe is a Nantucket-based novelist who has found significant commercial success even as critical acclaim eludes her. “Vivi had legions of loyal readers, but she’d never quite captured the interest of the serious reviewers,” Hilderbrand writes. “They had called her first novel, The Dune Daughters, ‘three hundred pages of word salad.’” Vivi is on the verge of tasting the adoration of critics for the first time when she’s struck and killed by a car while jogging.

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Killing off the main character just a few pages into a book is somewhat unorthodox, but it’s just the first of many interesting choices Hilderbrand makes. The next twist is that Vivi’s Hermès scarf-wearing guardian angel grants her a 75-day window to watch the aftermath from a perch above. Vivi is also allowed to use three “nudges” to influence the outcome of events.

The remainder of Golden Girl explores what happens to the family and friends left behind, as fragile bonds are tested and long-buried secrets come to light. Vivi’s three children deal with grief in different yet equally destructive ways, while her ex-husband questions his decision to leave Vivi for a much younger woman years before.

The book is filled with Hilderbrand’s trademark gorgeous scenes and delicious dialogue. But Golden Girl also explores the author’s own place in the literary pantheon, often with a wink and a nod to the reader. In one scene, as Vivi is watching an interaction and wondering whether to use a nudge, she says, “I’m the novelist here. . . . Let’s give it another couple of chapters.”

Like Vivi, Hilderbrand is commercially successful but doesn’t always get her due as an immensely talented writer. Golden Girl will help change that. It is funny and heartbreaking, and even though it’s in some ways a departure for Hilderbrand, the novel still offers plenty of that Nantucket air to keep you turning pages.

Kristen Arnett delivers a fantastic follow-up after her bestselling 2019 novel, Mostly Dead Things. With Teeth is a hilarious and astute dive into the not-so-fun parts of parenthood. Arnett shows her range with laugh-out-loud scenes and moments of honest sadness as she puts protagonist Sammie through the wringer. With Teeth begins with an attempted child abduction at a playground; just try to stop reading after such a harrowing scene.

Sammie and her wife, Monika, have a lovely life together in Orlando, Florida. They have a nice house, a comfortable income and a son, Samson. But like any family, there are cracks in the foundation, and Arnett steadily subjects those cracks to pressure until they rupture.

A significant cause of strain is that Sammie’s and Monika’s parenting styles are at odds. Even after their romantic relationship ends, the former wives continue to cohabitate for the sake of their son, but the reader may begin to wonder if this benefits him at all. Samson is far from an easy kid, and Sammie often feels like she gave birth to and is living with a stranger. He is difficult and rude past the point of typical child behavior, but as soon as the reader is fed up with him, Samson offers a moment of insight into Sammie’s parenting that partially redeems him.

Sammie’s resistance to change is frustrating, engaging and propulsive. She drinks too much, and she tends to unravel when she learns the truth about a situation. Brilliant asides from peripheral characters such as therapists, teachers and convenience store workers expose the gaps in her reality. Some particularly devastating insight comes from a woman named Debbie who works at Sammie’s childhood church. Sammie perceives Debbie’s actions as homophobic, but when an aside reveals Debbie’s point of view, the reader becomes aware of Sammie’s miscalculations. 

Though it is obvious that many of Sammie’s actions are the cause of her alienation, readers will still root for her from start to finish in this complex picture of queer parenthood.

At the beginning of Steven Rowley’s third novel, The Guncle, Patrick O’Hara’s life is a little too quiet. Only a few years ago, he was a sitcom star with his own catchphrase who was recognized wherever he went. Now he has exiled himself to Palm Springs, California, seeing no one.

But then Patrick’s sister-in-law, Sara, dies after being ill for three years. Sara was Patrick’s best friend in college before she married his brother, Greg. At the funeral, Greg reveals his addiction to painkillers and asks if Patrick will take his kids for the summer while Greg goes to rehab. Patrick resists, finding the notion preposterous, but after a surprising moment of connection, he and his niece and nephew agree on the visit.

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Patrick’s not quite equipped to parent the bereft 9-year-old Maisie and 6-year-old Grant, who in turn are mystified by their GUP’s life. (GUP: Gay Uncle Patrick, soon amended to “Guncle.”) Rowley spins Grant’s first terrified encounter with Patrick’s fancy Japanese toilet into a lovely, funny scene, and such comic misunderstandings pepper the novel. Maisie and Grant take Patrick’s snark, zingers and pop culture-laden wit literally, repeatedly reminding their uncle that they don’t understand what he’s talking about.

Patrick tries to bring color and light into his niece’s and nephew’s lives, aiming to serve as an exuberant Auntie Mame, but he’s grieving, too. When he begins to share his memories of Sara and to ponder his midlife self-exile, he connects more deeply with Maisie and Grant, which allows him to consider returning to his old life and to rethink his own sibling relationships.

The Guncle does wonderful work with its youngest characters. Patrick’s exchanges with Grant and Maisie are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, even as they reveal two kids at different stages of development and grief. The novel's light touch extends to its secondary characters, including Patrick's neighbors and old friends.

Never going too dark, The Guncle is a sweet family story that offers an unexpected yet inevitable ending. 

What happens to our secrets after death? What do we do when we discover things we never imagined—about ourselves, our families or the stories we tell to make sense of the world? These questions drive Claire Fuller’s engaging Unsettled Ground. 

As the novel opens, 51-year-old twins Jeanie and Julius are at a loss when their mother, Dot, dies unexpectedly. The twins lived in a cottage with Dot; Jeanie, who has a heart condition and never learned to read or write, tends the garden, while Julius brings in a small income by way of odd jobs in town. Their home is their sanctuary until Dot’s death, when the careful life she controlled and constructed for her family begins to crack. Questions arise about past and present relationships, land and money.

The reader travels with Jeanie and Julius as they begin to grapple with the complexities of adulthood and the truth about their mother. This exploration builds a sense of mystery at a slow and steady pace. There comes a moment when the reader must know what happened, and they won’t be able to stop reading until they discover how it all resolves.

Even the title opens up questions, about what it means to settle or to remain unsettled, and about the nature of home and how one is made. The story exists on ground that has been disturbed by secrets and money, by the need for both independence and connection—and that ground continues to shift underfoot as the novel progresses.

Readers will root for Jeanie and Julius to survive and, even more than that, to live.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Claire Fuller is one of our 2021 Writers to Watch: Women on the rise. See the full list here.