Eleanor Morse’s precise, patient prose captivates from page one of her fourth novel, Margreete’s Harbor, as she describes an early winter morning for an elderly woman named Margreete. At home on the Maine coast, Margreete heats up some bacon drippings and retrieves her slippers, but while she’s sidelined by a dead mouse that the cat brought in, poof—her stove catches fire. That fire leads to big changes, as Margreete’s daughter, Liddie, and her family must move from Michigan to look after Margreete in Burnt Harbor, Maine. 

Beginning in 1955 and continuing through 1968, this is a bighearted, multigenerational saga with a simmering social conscience, as Margreete; Liddie; her husband, Harry; and each of their three children wrestle with their secrets and desires. Morse chronicles big and small moments equally well, the sum of which can make—and sometimes break—a family. 

Burnt Harbor is “the tiniest eyelash compared to the great eye of the ocean beyond,” and Morse expertly plays with this perspective, showing how global events seep into every molecule of the family’s life. For example, with dogged determination, teenager Bernie tries to head to Washington, D.C., to join Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, partly motivated by his realization that he loves his best friend, a Black boy named Noah. A few years later, Harry chains himself to a White House fence to protest the Vietnam War—at a moment when Liddie desperately needs her husband by her side.

Margreete’s Harbor is also a particularly tender portrait of a family faced with dementia. All three grandchildren safely confide their greatest secrets to their grandmother, sure that she won’t remember their confessions. But Margreete still has wisdom to share, and when Bernie is just a boy, she advises, “When you grow up, don’t ever try to love someone you don’t love. And don’t ever try to not love someone you do love.” 

Of course, things aren’t always rosy. By moving to Maine, Liddie must leave behind her spot as first cellist with the Ann Arbor Symphony. One of the grandchildren must stop Margreete from jumping out a bedroom window, and Harry has a secret rendezvous with a nurse he encounters in the emergency room. As Morse writes, “Unless you live in a cave by yourself and speak only to the chickadee, life is messy, because humans are messy.”

Full of love, triumph and a boatload of heartbreak, Margreete’s Harbor is a celebration of life’s inevitable messiness. As after any good visit with family or dear friends, you will leave feeling satisfied while yearning for more.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's 2016 debut novel, The Nest, was an instant bestseller for a reason. It had the lure of cash; a charismatic, lovable rogue as a central figure; and a crackling cast of New York City characters. In her second novel, Good Company, Sweeney once again flexes her talent for crafting loving family dynamics that splinter due to errant behavior.

Flora Mancini’s seemingly idyllic life in Los Angeles as a voice-over actor and wife to Julian, a full-time TV actor, hits the rocks when she discovers an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring, supposedly lost years earlier. From this pivotal moment, chapters begin to alternate between present and the past, revealing the reason for the ring’s disappearance when the couple was living in New York City with their young daughter, Ruby, and struggling to keep Julian’s theater company, Good Company, from sinking.

When the lure of steady work spurs the Mancinis to switch coasts, upgrading their climate and lifestyle, they are able to reunite with Flora’s best friend, Margot, another Good Company alum. Margot’s husband, David, was forced to give up his East Coast job as a heart surgeon after he had a stroke, and Margot was lucky to land a recurring role on a daytime soap opera. Now she’s living the celebrity life.

Along the way, there have been bumps in the road for the four friends, but life on the West Coast is treating the former Manhattanites well. Flora’s discovery, however, shatters the illusion of her perfect marriage and her rock-solid friendship with Margot.

As in The Nest, Sweeney skillfully navigates the narrow path between literary and commercial fiction with plenty of wit, warmth, heartache and joy. Like a comfy armchair, this is a novel you can sink into and enjoy. Good company, indeed.

It can take very little to upend a life and send it on an entirely new trajectory. As David Bowie rather cryptically said during a 1999 interview for Uncut, “A spoon might affect my performance.” Maybe he was suggesting that the size and shape of a coffee spoon, and whether it was metal or plastic, would affect how he enjoyed his coffee, which in turn would affect how the interview went. The Bruce family would certainly understand what he’s getting at, as an old, dented soupspoon is the MacGuffin in Pamela Terry’s debut novel, The Sweet Taste of Muscadines.

The spoon is found in the hand of Geneva Bruce as she lies dead in the family’s muscadine arbor one hot summer morning in Georgia. Nobody, including her three grown children, knows what she was doing with it, but they find out soon enough. To say that the little spoon affects the performance of this genteel Southern family is an understatement. 

The Bruce children are narrator Lila; her jovial brother, Henry; and sister Abby, who was Geneva’s favorite. Abby is most upset by their mother’s death, and she shows up drunk to the memorial, wearing a fuchsia suit and teetering on stiletto heels, her hair dyed screaming red. She manages to curse out her second-grade teacher before Henry hustles her from the scene. In moments like this, the book feels like a mashup of Fried Green Tomatoes and You Can’t Go Home Again with a sprinkling of William Faulkner.

Abby is in such bad shape that Lila and Henry decide to answer the lingering questions about their mother—indeed, their parents—without her. The trail leads them first to the Carolina low country, then to the beautiful but rugged highlands of Scotland. One of the many pleasures of the book is Terry’s descriptions of details like the lushness of gardenias and crepe myrtles, and the way steam rises from a Georgia blacktop after a hard summer rain. When the story moves to Scotland, she’s just as skilled at describing fierce sea storms, the welcome coziness of a bed-and-breakfast and the colors and textures of tweeds and tartans.

But Terry’s real focus is forgiveness, radical acceptance or even what some might call grace. A reader might wonder if they could ever be as forgiving as the Bruce children are of their parents’ transgressions. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines encourages readers to believe that they could.

Hala Alyan’s second novel, The Arsonists’ City, follows the members of the Nasr family as they debate the sale of the family home in Lebanon. Like the Yacoub family in Alyan’s debut novel, Salt Houses, the Nasrs are spread all over the globe, but when Idris, the family patriarch, decides to sell the ancestral home in Beirut after his own father’s death, his wife and children unite in their shared desire to stop him.

Though the house in Beirut has been a constant touchstone, the Nasrs’ lives are marked by the effects of political upheaval, migration and globalization. In 1978, Mazna met Idris through mutual friends while she was training to be an actor in her hometown of Damascus, and she began secretly visiting him in Beirut, though her romantic interest was initially sparked by Idris’ best friend. After the city was torn apart by civil war, Idris and Mazna married and immigrated to suburban Los Angeles, where Idris worked as a cardiologist. Mazna abandoned her dreams of being an actor, raised their three children and took a job in a small garden center. 

Now their oldest daughter, Ava, lives in Brooklyn, and their middle son, Mimi, manages a restaurant in Austin, Texas, though most of his passion is thrown into a middling rock band. Mimi’s lack of fulfillment puts him at odds with his younger sister, Naj, whose music career took off internationally and who chose Beirut as her home, in part to keep her sex life far from the judgmental eyes of her parents.

Idris’ decision to sell the house brings the parents and adult children, with and without their life partners, to Beirut, where the safe distance that cushioned their complicated relationships is eliminated. Old passions, betrayals and bitter jealousies quickly arise.

Alyan, who is a family therapist as well as a poet and novelist, has a gift for depicting the knotty, messy but ultimately resilient bonds of family love. Though The Arsonists’ City lays bare how civil war and brutal violence impact a single family, it is the everyday, sometimes petty squabbles between husband and wife, brother and sister, parent and child that make this novel both memorable and relatable.

“If there’s something I’ve learned in this country, it’s that your address decides everything.” That piece of advice is tucked among the rich character descriptions in the opening chapter of Naima Coster’s second novel, What’s Mine and Yours. What could be taken as a passing remark is actually a poignant thesis for the story that follows as it unfolds from the 1990s to the present.

In early 2000s North Carolina, Jade is thrilled that her son, Gee, and other students from their part of town will have the opportunity to transfer to the predominately white Central High School. The newspaper reports that the merging of the city and county school systems is popular among the town’s residents, and pilot programs provide incentives for students to transfer across the system. But at the crowded town hall meeting before the start of the school year, Gee doesn’t share his mom’s enthusiasm. He’s sure this isn’t a welcoming committee; he’s heard white parents plan to protest.

Lacey May is among those pushing back. She hasn’t had it easy; after her husband went to jail, she chose to couple up with a man who could provide for her and her three daughters. Lacey May’s oldest, Noelle, is embarrassed by her mother’s actions and is sure they’re motivated by the color of her new classmates’ skin. Noelle and her sisters are half-Latina, though they pass for white. She concocts a plan with Central’s theater teacher: They’ll put on a Shakespearean performance to build a bridge between existing students and newcomers. The play brings Noelle and Gee together, even as their mothers continue to rage outside the classroom.

In vividly detailed scenes spanning more than 25 years, Coster (author of Halsey Street and one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2020) illuminates the impact of Noelle’s and Gee’s families and formative years. The pair is the heart of What’s Mine and Yours, but Coster allows every major player their time in the spotlight. Her rich character development illustrates the many ways family and circumstances can influence who we become.

Bennett Driscoll has what you might call a “Take It Easy” problem. You remember that 1972 song from the Eagles: “I’ve got seven women on my mind / Four that want to own me / Two that want to stone me / One says she’s a friend of mine . . .”

In Super Host, the first novel from Kate Russo (daughter of Richard Russo), Bennett has been taking it a little bit too easy. Once a painter of note, he has slid mindlessly into an indeterminate middle age, where he has been abandoned, in rather quick fashion, by critical notoriety, wealth, his gallery, his wife and any real sense of purpose. While he ponders how to extricate himself from several of those situations, the wealth bit demands his immediate attention, so he converts his estate into a short-term rental while he occupies the detached building that serves as a studio and occasional living quarters.

At this point, the only notable achievement left to Bennett is his status as a Super Host, which he jealously guards, even as it brings him into contact—sometimes too-close contact—with his renters, all of whom turn out to be women. In the hands of an author with darker leanings, this could have morphed into a creep show or even Psycho-esque territory, but Russo plays on the lighter side as the women in Bennett’s life (some intentionally, some otherwise) peel back his psyche, spurring him closer to some degree of self-awareness. 

The book lumbers out of the station a bit leisurely at first, but like a locomotive, it gains steam until Bennett’s life seems like it might derail. Can he regain his painting mojo, and even if he does, will it matter to the critics? And what will he do when his ex-wife, his tenant and his girlfriend all converge in competition for his affection?

Ultimately, Bennett discovers that his great new artistic challenge is one he hadn’t remotely anticipated: a return to the unfinished canvas that is his own self. And the critics he must attempt to win over aren’t the ones who write for newspapers or magazines; they are the people he holds most dear.

Once in a while, you come across a book that seems to exist in its own bubble of space-time. It may be set in the present, but its roots reach deep into the past. The location may be a real place, like Oklahoma, but as you read, you’re not really sure if it’s set anywhere in particular. A word for such a story might be numinous, which ably describes Brandon Hobson’s splendid The Removed.

The story revolves around the Echota family of Quah, Oklahoma, as they prepare for a bonfire to commemorate the death of their son Ray-Ray. Many years before, the teenage Ray-Ray was the victim of what’s called a “bad shoot” in police lingo. The remaining family consists of mother Maria; her husband, Ernest; their daughter, Sonja; and surviving son, Edgar. Maria is patient and caring as Ernest sinks deeper into what everyone believes is Alzheimer’s disease. Sonja is a restless loner, hooking up with and discarding younger men. Edgar, just as unsettled, is an addict. The family is mired in profound grief and trauma, including trauma from the forced removal of their Cherokee ancestors to Oklahoma in the 19th century. It’s not surprising, and may not even be a coincidence, that the anniversary of Ray-Ray’s death is also the anniversary of the beginning of the Trail of Tears.

Things start to change when Maria fosters a teenager named Wyatt. Exuberant, smart and talented, Wyatt can’t help but remind her of Ray-Ray. To Ernest, Wyatt is Ray-Ray reincarnated. And why couldn’t he be? In this novel, the ghosts of ancestors narrate entire chapters, animals may be familiars, Edgar stumbles into what seems like a smog-filled purgatory, and the very wind and water seem to be sentient.

Hobson, a National Book Award finalist for his novel Where the Dead Sit Talking, weaves strands of the past and present so skillfully that events that would be improbable in the hands of another author are inevitable in The Removed. More than anything, in the case of the beleaguered Echota family, Hobson understands William Faulkner’s adage, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: The excellent cast audiobook for The Removed feels more like a recorded play than a straightforward reading.

It’s easy to think of intimate, single-POV novels as somewhat simple narrative exercises, but Ashley Audrain’s gripping debut is proof that this is an illusion. In the hands of the right storyteller, even the most compact novels can be works of great complexity.

The Push unfolds through the mind and pen of Blythe, an aspiring writer whose decision to become a mother is weighted against her own difficult childhood. Blythe is determined to be the mother she never had, but her first child, Violet, doesn’t make that easy. Blythe’s husband gets along with their daughter fine, but Blythe can’t help but think that something is off, particularly when their second child gives her the kind of parenting relationship she always wanted. Even then, the feeling that something is not quite right about Violet persists, until it goes so far that Blythe’s entire world is altered in a single shattering moment.

The Push is a dazzling exercise in both economy of language and vividness of expression. Audrain’s grasp of Blythe’s inner life—her fears, her hopes, the details that linger in her mind— is so precise and mature that we get lost in this woman’s often troubling world. That feeling propels the novel forward at a blistering pace, but Audrain doesn’t stop there. This is just one woman’s side of the story—a woman who’s a writer, at that—so even as we feel we know Blythe, we can’t help but wonder how much of what she’s telling us is fiction. That this suspicion can coexist with the intimacy of Blythe’s narration is proof of Audrain’s skill as a storyteller and makes the book that much more spellbinding.

The Push announces Audrain as a sophisticated, compelling writer, perfect for fans of thrillers and intimate family dramas alike.

As challenges go, fatherhood can be beautiful and rewarding. The health of one’s child, however, may complicate matters. A couple forced to confront some of these challenges is at the center of Peter Ho Davies’ excellent third novel, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself.

The book is told from the perspective of a man who is now a writer but used to be a scientist. At the outset, in wrenchingly spare prose, a doctor gives the man and his editor wife, expecting their first child, a grim prognosis: The fetus had mosaicism, a rare condition that offers only “a tiny chance. BB-sized” that the baby will be born in normal health. The couple decides to abort.

The next pregnancy produces a seemingly healthy boy, until he turns blue on the delivery table and has to spend four days in the neonatal intensive care unit. Davies infuses these scenes with heartbreaking detail, as when the father sits by the incubator, talking to his son, saying, “Little guy, it’s Daddy,” while an IV drips into a tiny arm.

After the boy recovers, Davies brilliantly describes the quotidian aspects of raising a baby that leave the couple “floaty with exhaustion,” from shopping for baby monitors to, in one of many invocations of Schrödinger’s cat, wondering whether the quiet of the baby’s room means their child is sleeping or dead.

When a kindergarten teacher suggests the boy may be autistic, the couple resists having him tested for fear of what they might learn. This leads to more soul-searching on the part of the father, even prompting him to volunteer at an abortion clinic to help him sort through lingering feelings about the couple’s earlier decision.

Though the child comes across as an abstraction rather than a fully fleshed-out character, the eloquence of Davies’ writing will make readers sympathize with a father trying to be a good parent and a good person and wondering if he’s succeeding. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is a poetic meditation on the nature of regret and a couple’s enduring love through myriad difficulties. It’s a difficult but marvelous book.