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FictionFamily Saga

French Braid

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

Serena Drew is returning to Baltimore after a daytrip to meet her boyfriend’s family. As she and her boyfriend wait for their train home, she thinks she spots her cousin Nicholas Garrett. Her boyfriend is incredulous; how can she be unsure whether or not the man is her cousin? But Serena doesn’t come from the sort of family in which first cousins recognize each other in the wild.

Anne Tyler is a master of interpersonal drama and intricate depictions of characters’ lives. Her astute observations have earned her a Pulitzer Prize (Breathing Lessons) and two turns as a Pulitzer finalist (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and The Accidental Tourist), among other accolades. In French Braid, her skilled storytelling once again takes center stage as she reveals the minor family dramas that have resulted in Serena’s inability to positively identify her cousin. Chapter by chapter, Tyler follows a different member of the Garrett family, beginning with a family vacation in 1959 and ending in spring 2020.

As Tyler turns her attention to each Garrett, she reveals finely honed character portraits. Daughters Lily and Alice are opposites, and their little brother, David, often goes his own way. Mother Mercy searches for her identity as the kids grow up and leave the house, but father Robin is left confused; he has always been content with his home and family exactly as they were.

Each chapter is as well-crafted as a short story and reveals the heart of its central character. Tyler weaves these individual tales together to build something even greater, and like the braid of the novel’s title, this interpersonal family drama becomes more substantial as its pieces combine.

“That’s how families work, too,” says David, reflecting on the lasting effect of a French braid. “You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.” (His wife laughs and asks, “You are finding this out just now?”)

French Braid is a case study of the circumstances and interactions that shape the lives of one family.

Anne Tyler is a master of interpersonal drama, and her skilled storytelling takes center stage in French Braid.
FictionFamily Saga

Black Cake

Review by Alice Cary

“I write about foods with a strong sense of place,” notes a character in Black Cake. The same could be said about its debut author, Charmaine Wilkerson, whose exquisitely paced family drama begins on a small unnamed Caribbean island in 1965 and quickly shifts to 2018, where it makes stops in London, Scotland, California and Rome. Readers will quickly find themselves immersed in a mysterious, gripping journey, one that unfolds in brief but bountiful chapters and even includes a suspected murder.

When Eleanor Bennett dies in 2018, she leaves a recording with her lawyer, instructing her two adult children to listen to its full eight hours together. Her son, Byron, is a renowned ocean scientist working on mapping the ocean floor, and his sister, Benny, is a bit of a lost soul who left the family eight years ago. “You children need to know about your family, about where we come from, about how I really met your father,” Eleanor says. “You two need to know about your sister.”

This revelation is shocking; Byron and Benny had no idea that such a sister existed. In addition to her deathbed message, Eleanor has also left a black cake in the freezer for Benny and Byron to share “when the time is right.” The confection, a Caribbean version of plum pudding, is a family favorite and figures prominently—and creatively—throughout the novel.

The sea is a strong presence in Black Cake, its hidden depths paralleling the many veiled events of Eleanor’s past. The innate pull of the ocean, especially warm Caribbean waters, influences and transforms several of Wilkerson’s characters. As the family lawyer muses about Eleanor’s oceanographer son, he says, “The oceans are a challenge. And what about a person’s life? How do you make a map of that?” In Eleanor’s case, that map is full of surprises, and Wilkerson skillfully charts its course, showing “how untold stories shape people’s lives, both when they are withheld and when they are revealed.”

Wilkerson navigates multiple points of view and time frames while addressing—always with just the right touch—issues of domestic violence, race, sexual identity, colonialism, prejudice and more. Fans of family dramas by Ann Patchett, Brit Bennett and Karen Joy Fowler should take note. Black Cake marks the launch of a writer to watch, one who masterfully plumbs the unexpected depths of the human heart.

Read our interview with Charmaine Wilkerson, whose debut novel explores an island of mysteries and a cake full of surprises.

Black Cake marks the launch of a writer to watch, one who masterfully plumbs the unexpected depths of the human heart.
FictionFamily Saga

Charmaine Wilkerson’s ‘Black Cake’ is a slice of love

Interview by Alice Cary

“I never intended to write a story with a cake in it,” says Charmaine Wilkerson, former broadcast journalist and, with Black Cake, first-time novelist. “It just sort of walked into the story.”

And what a remarkable story it is. Wilkerson’s exquisitely written novel is a globe-trotting, multigenerational family saga set in the Caribbean, California, London, Scotland and Rome. Its rich plot—which includes a suspected murder—unfolds at an enthralling pace. 

The novel begins with a short, enigmatic prologue set in 1965, then jumps ahead to 2018, when an attorney summons Byron Bennett and his estranged sister, Benny, to listen to a lengthy recording made by their late mother, Eleanor, who divulges startling secrets about her life. “Please forgive me for not telling you any of this before,” she says. 

“I have always kept that recipe in a place where I keep precious things.”

When Benny was growing up, her mother taught her to make the special titular black cake, saying, “This is island food. This is your heritage.” Wilkerson, who grew up in Jamaica and New York and now lives in Rome, explains during a video call that the Caribbean fruitcake known as black cake has long been a family favorite, a descendant of “the good old-fashioned English plum pudding . . . transformed, over time, by tropical ingredients.” 

Long ago, Wilkerson’s mother mailed her a copy of her recipe, filled with comments and instructions. Later, after Wilkerson’s mother died, a younger relative asked her for a copy. “I don’t think I’d looked at it for years,” Wilkerson recalls, “but I knew exactly where to find it. I’ve moved a number of times in my life. I am not the neatest person in the world, but I have always kept that recipe in a place where I keep precious things.” 

Don’t expect to find the recipe within the pages of this novel, however. Wilkerson didn’t want readers to presume that this is simply a culinary tale. “It’s about the idea that there’s the story you tell about your life, about your family history, about your culture. And then there are the stories that are not told, or concealed, or not fully revealed,” she says. “The cake symbolizes the history of this family, in which the children, who are now grown, really don’t know the half of what their parents went through. Their journey of discovery is going to actually change the way in which they see not only their parents, their family history, but their own relationships.”

Warm, engaging and thoughtful, Wilkerson speaks precisely and with a hint of a lilt in her voice, a remnant from her childhood in Jamaica. Although she repeatedly states that she’s a private person, the handful of memories that she shares are reminiscent of her prose—sensory-­filled, memorable and layered with meaning. She recalls her first taste of sugar cane during a school field trip, when the bus broke down next to a sugar cane farm and someone chopped up pieces for the children to taste. She also offers a tantalizing clue to how she ended up living in Rome: “Most people who end up moving to Italy and staying there move for two reasons: It’s either art history, or it’s a love story. You can guess which one.”

Read our starred review: ‘Black Cake’ by Charmaine Wilkerson

Black Cake cover

Prior to writing this novel, Wilkerson spent several years working in short fiction—notably, flash fiction. The crafting of Black Cake first began when she wrote a short scene about two teenage girls swimming in Caribbean waters in the 1960s. “They were driven by this visceral ambition and connection with nature and this determination to swim, despite the fact that they were afraid,” she says. Next, she wrote some seemingly unrelated scenes set in contemporary times. “At a certain point,” she says, “I realized they were all the same story. And that’s when I knew I had a novel, you know—that I wasn’t just all over the place. I was circling an idea.”

Like a shark, perhaps?

Wilkerson laughs, saying, “That’s me, a shark. I don’t always manage to get a bite of food, but I did this time.”

She certainly has. Black Cake is slated to become a Hulu series with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and creator Marissa Jo Cerar (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) at the helm—not too shabby for someone who has long dreamed of telling stories. “I’ve always dabbled and written and read,” Wilkerson says, “but the act of writing regularly and making sure that you don’t lose the thread when you have all these different voices is something that takes consistent work. I came to that fairly recently.” 

“That’s me, a shark. I don’t always manage to get a bite of food, but I did this time.”

While Wilkerson’s mother gifted her with her prized recipe, her father’s work as a textile artist helped her zero in on her writerly goal. She remembers loving the smell of the dyes in his studio, and admired how he “was able to take art and turn it into a discipline.” After his death in 2013, she took one of his flannel shirts (which she still wears regularly) and finally began to write fiction. “I realized I had to stop thinking that I was being frivolous and recognize that it was work. So, I made some changes in my life.”

As a child, Wilkerson watched her father swim in the ocean toward the horizon until he disappeared, and similar imagery figures prominently in Black Cake. (Byron is a renowned oceanographer whose mother taught him to surf, and who encourages young people to “catch the wave and ride with it.”) “I think that’s what we do in life,” Wilkerson says. “We try to make a plan, but then life happens, and we try to use everything we’ve brought with us.” 

Undoubtedly, she has ridden her own wave like a pro. “This is what I have wanted to do for a long time,” she says.

Photo of Charmaine Wilkerson by Rochelle Cheever

Rooted in memories of her family, Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel explores an island of mysteries and a cake full of surprises.
FictionPopular FictionHistorical FictionFamily SagaComing of Age

Best Fiction of 2021

Feature by the editors of BookPage

We begin each new reading year with high hopes, and sometimes, when we’re very lucky, we find our expectations rewarded. So it was with 2021.

It must be said that a lot of these books are really, really long. Apparently this was the year for total commitment, for taking a plunge and allowing ourselves to be swallowed up. 

Also, it should come as no surprise that books-within-books frequently appear on this list. For all our attempts at objectivity within our roles as critics, we just can’t help but love a book that loves books. Amor Towles, Ruth Ozeki, Jason Mott, Maggie Shipstead and Anthony Doerr all tapped into the most comforting yet complex parts of our book-loving selves. 

But most of the books on this list hit home in ways we never could’ve prepared for, even when we had the highest expectations, such as in Will McPhail’s graphic novel, which made us laugh till we cried, and Colson Whitehead’s heist novel, which no one could’ve expected would be such a gorgeous ode to sofas.

And at the top of our list, a book that accomplishes what feels like the impossible: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ epic debut novel, which challenges our relationship to the land beneath us in a way we’ve never experienced but long hoped for.

Read on for our 20 best works of literary fiction from 2021.

20. What Comes After by JoAnn Tompkins

In JoAnne Tompkins’ debut novel, faith is simply part of life, a reality for many that is rarely so sensitively portrayed in fiction.

19. How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

To those disinclined to question the role that economic exploitation plays in supporting our modern lifestyle, reading this novel may prove an unsettling experience.

18. Gordo by Jaime Cortez

In his collection of short stories set in the ag-industrial maw of central California, Jaime Cortez artfully captures the daily lives of his characters in the freeze-frame flash of a master at work.

17. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro continues his genre-twisting ways with a tale that explores whether science could—or should—manipulate the future.

16. Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford’s graceful novel reminds us that tragedy deprives the world of not only noble people but also scoundrels, both of whom are part of the fabric of history.

15. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is one of our best chroniclers of suburban family life, and his incisive new novel, the first in a planned trilogy, is by turns funny and terrifying.

14. In by Will McPhail

Small talk becomes real talk in this graphic novel from the celebrated cartoonist, and the world suddenly seems much brighter.

13. Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

With hints of Jami Attenberg’s sense of mishpucha and spiced with Jennifer Weiner’s chutzpah, Melissa Broder’s novel is graphic, tender and poetic, a delicious rom-com that turns serious.

12. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

Robert Jones Jr.’s first novel accomplishes the exceptional literary feat of being at once an intimate, poetic love story and a sweeping, excruciating portrait of life on a Mississippi plantation.

11. Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

In her exceptional debut novel, Ash Davidson expresses the heart and soul of Northern California’s redwood forest community.

10. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

“There are few things more beautiful to an author’s eye . . . than a well-read copy of one of his books,” says a character in Amor Towles’ novel. Undoubtedly, the pages of this cross-country saga are destined to be turned—and occasionally tattered—by numerous gratified readers.

9. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Devastating, hilarious and touching, Torrey Peters’ acutely intelligent first novel explores womanhood, parenthood and all the possibilities that lie therein.

8. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies

Peter Ho Davies’ third novel is a poetic look at the nature of regret and a couple’s enduring love. It’s a difficult but marvelous book.

7. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

What does it mean to listen? What can you hear if you pay close attention, especially in a moment of grief? Ruth Ozeki explores these questions in her novel, a meditation on objects, compassion and everyday beauty. 

6. Matrix by Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff aims to create a sense of wonder and awe in her novels, and in her boldly original fourth novel, set in a small convent in 12th-century England, the awe-filled moments are too many to count.

5. Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

A surrealist feast of imagination that’s brimming with very real horrors, frustrations and sorrows, Jason Mott’s fourth novel is an achievement of American fiction that rises to meet this particular moment with charm, wisdom and truth.

4. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Sorrow and violence play large roles in the ambitious, genre-busting novel from Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr, but so does tenderness.

3. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Like Dante leading us through the levels of hell, Colson Whitehead exposes the layers of rottenness in New York City with characters who follow an ethical code that may be strange to those of us who aren’t crooks or cynics.

2. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

In her exhilarating third novel, Maggie Shipstead offers a marvelous pastiche of adventure and emotion as she explores what it means (and what it takes) to live an unusual life.

1. The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

From slavery to freedom, discrimination to justice, tradition to unorthodoxy, celebrated poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves an epic ancestral story that encompasses not only a young Black woman’s family heritage but also that of the American land where their history unfolded.

See all of our Best Books of 2021 lists.

Most of the books on this list hit home in ways we never could’ve prepared for, even when we had the highest expectations. Read on for the 20 best literary fiction titles of 2021.
FictionFamily Saga

Beasts of a Little Land

Review by Lauren Bufferd

Juhea Kim’s accomplished first novel, Beasts of a Little Land, opens in 1917, deep in the frozen Korean wilderness, where a penniless hunter saves a young Japanese military officer from a vicious tiger. The act sets in motion a story that spans half a century and explores the peninsula’s complex history of Japanese occupation, multiple wars and South Korea’s anti-communism purges of the early 1960s.

The novel artfully follows the life of Jade, a girl from an impoverished family who goes to work as a servant for a courtesan, Madame Silver. There she meets two other young women: quietly beautiful Luna and brash, outspoken Lotus. The three eventually come to Seoul, where they study the art of pleasing men at one of the city’s most celebrated and cosmopolitan houses.

Jade’s wit and intelligence take her to the very peak of high society and even into the Korean film industry, while Luna and Lotus struggle through careers marred by sexual assault and drug use. As the three women strive for independence, they are continually disappointed by the men closest to them, including loyal gang leader JungHo, who befriends Jade when they are children, and ambitious rickshaw driver HanChol, who becomes Jade’s lover but refuses to marry her. Jade and Lotus spurn the lavish attentions of wealthy but superficial SungSoo, and at the same time, SungSoo’s school friend MyungBo tries to involve Jade and JungHo in his revolutionary plans for Korean independence from Japan.

One of Kim’s core strengths is casting 20th-century Korea’s civic and social history as vital while never losing sight of her characters’ emotions. As the paths of her characters twist and cross, albeit with far too many coincidences, and their fortunes rise and fall, she keeps the weight of the personal and political in perfect balance. Beasts of a Little Land is epic in range but intimate in emotional depth, sure to appeal to readers of historical fiction who prize a well-wrought character.

Juhea Kim’s debut novel is epic in range but intimate in emotional depth, sure to appeal to readers of historical fiction who prize a well-wrought character.
FictionHistorical FictionFamily Saga

A fierce beauty comes to life

Behind the Book by Gregory Blake Smith

The new novel from award-winning author Gregory Blake Smith explores Newport, Rhode Island, through five stories spanning three centuries. From a tennis pro in 2011 to Henry James as a budding writer, the novel connects lives and loves in an emotional, moving epic that presents a truly unique portrait of America. In a Behind the Book feature, Smith introduces a few of his characters: closeted gay man Franklin Drexel, tennis player Sandy Alison and his love interest, Alice du Pont—plus a few more.

I fell in love with Newport, Rhode Island, as a young man when I was teaching myself how to make 18th-century furniture. Newport, with its fabulous Goddard-Townsend cabinetmakers, was like a mecca to me. Only years later did I get the idea of setting a novel there. It’s a city whose remarkable history is preserved in its streets and buildings. It almost seems like you can hear the boot heels of the past on its cobblestones, or spy the ghost of a Quaker peering out the tiny window of a half-cape, or see in the harbor the masts of ships, or dream of life in one of the fabulous Gilded Age “cottages” on Bellevue Avenue. Building my own cottage, Windermere (with the brick and mortar of my imagination: all 28 rooms!), and peopling Newport with three centuries of characters has been the greatest pleasure of my writing life.

So about those characters. Readers seem to wonder to what degree they’re based on historical people. While there are a couple of historical characters—my bon vivant conniver Franklin Drexel is very loosely based on Harry Lehr (called “King Lehr” for the way he ruled over Newport society)—most of the characters in The Maze at Windermere are the inventions of a novelist’s imagination. Where they come from is as much a mystery to me as it is to readers. But just as an illustration, here’s how my 21st-century heroine got herself born.

I had just returned from Newport, where the idea for the novel had first bloomed in me, and I was wandering in a kind of creative delirium through the Boston Public Gardens, dreaming of the novel-to-be, when I happened to see a young woman with cerebral palsy walking near the swan boats. I only saw her for a short time, but in those few seconds, the character of Alice du Pont came alive in my head. I saw her in all her tragic beauty: the encumbrance of her disability, and yet the fierceness with which she lives her life, her wit, her daring, her moral courage. OK, no doubt that’s not literally true—the complete character must have come later in the writing of Alice—but that moment, the sight of that young woman walking with her strained yet beautiful grace set in motion the story of Sandy and Alice.

And what about Sandy? For all his good looks and easygoing charm, there’s a kind of emotional blindness to him, isn’t there? A limitation to his moral sight that requires the reader to constantly re-evaluate him, especially in regard to what degree he is responsible for what happens to Alice. When he kisses her in that scene in the library at Windermere, is he succumbing to the duplicitous motives that lie at the heart of so many of the other characters in the novel? Or is it a moment when he begins to reach beyond conventional ideas of female beauty, of personal worth, and begins to grow both morally and emotionally?

In each of the novel’s eras, the reader is confronted with similar questions of culpability: Is Franklin Drexel’s scheme to marry a rich woman he can never love excusable because he lives in a world that has no place for him as a gay man? Should the young Henry James have seen sooner that his attentions to Alice Taylor might be misinterpreted? And is even the despicable Major Ballard redeemed by his beginning to love the young woman he had only meant to seduce? None of these questions are simply answered, but the reader’s mission—should she choose to accept it!—is to note the ways in which the different stories parallel or mirror or invert one another, and in doing so, to marvel at the infinite capacities—and the duplicities—of the human heart.

 

Author photo by Laura Goering

The new novel from award-winning author Gregory Blake Smith explores Newport, Rhode Island, through five stories spanning three centuries. From a tennis pro in 2011 to Henry James as a budding writer, the novel connects lives and loves in an emotional, moving epic that presents a truly unique portrait of America. In a Behind the Book feature, Smith introduces a few of his characters: closeted gay man Franklin Drexel, tennis player Sandy Alison and his love interest, Alice du Pont—plus a few more.

FictionSpeculative FictionFamily SagaDebut FictionComing of Age

Six of the brightest new names in fiction

Feature by the editors of BookPage

We’ve got our eyes on you: These emerging writers have stopped us dead in our tracks with their unforgettable first novels, from epic historical adventures to imaginative family sagas.

GOODBYE VITAMIN
By Rachel Khong

For fans of: Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Stephanie Danler, Nell Zink.

First line: “Tonight a man found Dad’s pants in a tree lit with Christmas lights.”

About the book: A 30-year-old woman returns home to help care for her father, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

About the author: The former executive editor of Lucky Peach magazine, Rachel Khong lives in the Bay Area.

Read it for: Hilarious, insightful observations that balance well with bittersweet memories.

REBELLION
By Molly Patterson

For fans of: Jane Smiley, Jane Hamilton, Min Jin Lee.

First line: “Hazel is driving and damn her children and damn her eyesight and who cares where she’s going.”

About the book: During the Boxer Rebellion in China, American missionary Addie Bell disappears, an event that will echo through the years and the lives of three other women.

About the author: Molly Patterson, who won the Pushcart Prize for her 2012 short story “Don’t Let Them Catch You,” is a native of St. Louis and lived in China for several years.

Read it for: The author’s dazzling ability to capture disparate settings, from a turn-of-the-century American farm to present-day China, and to weave together the stories of four strong women.

GATHER THE DAUGHTERS
By Jennie Melamed

For fans of: Tales of chilling societies like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

First line: “Vanessa dreams she is a grown woman, heavy with flesh and care.”

About the book: An isolated cult society ruled by men begins to crumble when young girls rebel against their preordained and doomed futures.

About the author: A psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in working with traumatized children, Jennie Melamed lives in Seattle with her husband and two dogs.

Read it for: The gripping, haunting portrayal of girls coming of age and questioning everything they’ve ever been taught.

SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE
By Sarah Schmidt

For fans of: Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites, literary horror like Stephen King.

First line: “He was still bleeding.”

About the book: This fictional retelling of the Lizzie Borden murders is a domestic nightmare, unfolding through multiple perspectives to reveal a claustrophobic household laden with dread.

About the author: Sarah Schmidt lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner and daughter, and works at a regional public library.

Read it for: Staggeringly gorgeous, feverish prose and the thrill of deep, dark, gruesome detail.

THE TALENTED RIBKINS
By Ladee Hubbard

For fans of: Toni Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Colson Whitehead.

First line: “He only came back because Melvin said he would kill him if he didn’t pay off his debt by the end of the week.”

About the book: Antiques dealer Johnny Ribkin journeys through Florida where he meets with other members of the Ribkin family, whose special abilities were used to further the civil rights movement.

About the author: Ladee Hubbard lives in New Orleans with her husband and three children. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Read it for: An intimate portrait of a black family battling against segregation and inequality whose strength literally turns them into comic book-worthy superheroes.

THE HALF-DROWNED KING
By Linnea Hartsuyker

For fans of: Ken Follett, Diana Gabaldon, George R.R. Martin.

First line: “Ragnvald danced on the oars, leaping from one to the next as the crew rowed.”

About the book: A brother and sister fight to seize power and control of their own fate in the harsh, beautiful and unpredictable world of medieval Norway.

About the author: A descendant of the first king of Norway, Linnea Hartsuyker grew up in the woods of upstate New York and turned to writing after a decade working at internet startups.

Read it for: A spellbinding evocation of a long-lost world of magic and blood feuds, populated by characters riddled with doubt and human failing beneath their epic exteriors.

 

Khong photo credit Andria Lo.
Patterson photo credit Elaine Sheng.
Melamed photo credit Jennifer Boyle.
Schmidt photo credit Nicholas Purcell Studio.
Hubbard credit Vilma Samulionyte.
Hartsuyker credit Nina Subin.

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

We’ve got our eyes on you: These emerging writers have stopped us dead in our tracks with their unforgettable first novels, from epic historical adventures to imaginative family sagas.

NonfictionFictionYA FictionYANatureFamily Saga

The Hold List: Explore the great outdoors

Feature by the editors of BookPage

Beautiful vistas. Shocking greenery. Bright, airy calm. Nature is magnificent, but sometimes the bug bites, poison ivy and boot-staining mud are not. Here are five literary landscapes you can discover from the comfort of your couch.

A Girl of the Limberlost

The U.S. is full of landscapes that capture the imagination, but the ones that remain are only a fraction of what once existed. Gene Stratton-Porter has preserved one of these lost natural wonders, the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana, in her bestselling 1909 book, A Girl of the Limberlost. As lonely young Elnora Comstock roams the swamp to collect moth specimens, Stratton-Porter uses her keen naturalist’s eye to bring its eerie beauty, watery dangers (quicksand!) and unique fauna to life. She hoped the book would encourage conservation of the wetlands, which were being ravaged by oil rigs and drained for agriculture. Read this classic to immerse yourself in a lost world, then console yourself with the fact that, due to recent conservation efforts, a small portion of the swamp has begun to bounce back.

—Trisha, Publisher

A Wizard of Earthsea

Practically all of the important action in Ursula K. Le Guin’s iconic fantasy novel happens outdoors on the windswept seas and craggy islands of Earthsea. Le Guin’s mages skip along the enormous ocean in small boats pushed by winds that they command, or they transform into birds to fly from island to island. As her protagonist, Ged, travels from the harsh island of Gont to a school for wizards on the island of Roke and then embarks on a quest to hunt down a shadow creature, Le Guin treats readers to one stunning vista after another. My personal favorite is the island of Pendor, which was once a stronghold for pirates and outlaws before their vast treasure attracted the attention of dragons. Once the dragons took over the island, they used the towers of Pendor as glamorous perches before flying off to terrorize unsuspecting villagers. 

—Savanna, Associate Editor

Gathering Moss

Recently I have fallen back in love with moss, that ubiquitous, unexamined miniature landscape that is, rather surprisingly, absolutely everywhere—on the driveway and in sidewalk cracks, adorning tree trunks and hiding in the garden. It’s so small that it can easily become set dressing to the larger wonders of the forest, but through naturalist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s eyes, there is nothing more exciting or life-giving than a carpet of moss. In this loving series of personal essays, she is a gracious guide to the boundary layer where mosses flourish, blending scientific detail with poetic ruminations on her life spent observing these tiny rainforests. Her love of the mossy world is as buoyant as deep peat, and she leaves her readers with a profound sense of stewardship. If you’re like me, you’ll soon find any opportunity to stop and pet the moss.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Who better to deliver a shock to your stay-at-home system than Annie Dillard? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is her nature writing masterpiece, full of all the scenery and savagery, tranquility and tragedy, mystery and miracle of the great outdoors—“beauty tangled in a rapture with violence,” as Dillard put it. This work of narrative nonfiction documents a year she spent exploring the natural world around her home in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley, through which the titular Tinker Creek runs. Dillard plays the part of pious sojourner, venerating monarch butterflies, muskrats, grasshoppers and pond scum in prose that is alternatingly lilting and electric. If summer’s monotony has dulled your senses, I recommend dipping into this iconic collection for a jolt of wonder.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Prodigal Summer

I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer for the first time one summer in Boston. I’d moved into an attic bedroom in a sprawling old house in Lower Allston, a neighborhood overrun with college students like myself. It had unfinished wood floors, mice and no air conditioning, so I often stayed up into the cooler hours of the morning reading, then caught a few hours of sleep before I had to head downtown for work. Kingsolver’s tale of the intersecting lives of humans and creatures in Appalachia was intoxicating. Reading it felt like falling under an enchantment—particularly since I was in the heart of a big city. Kingsolver explores the connections between humans and nature in many of her works, but this is the one I find myself returning to every year when the trees turn green and the sun shines warm.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Beautiful vistas. Shocking greenery. Bright, airy calm. Nature is magnificent, but sometimes the bug bites, poison ivy and boot-staining mud are not. Here are five literary landscapes you can discover from the comfort of your couch.

A Girl of the Limberlost

The U.S.…

FictionYA FictionYAWorld FictionFamily SagaDebut FictionComing of Age

Trend report: 12 best novels about immigrants and refugees

Feature by Cat, Deputy Editor

In recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in stellar novels of the immigrant experience—from Behold the Dreamers to Americanah, from The Book of Unknown Americans to The Buddha in the Attic—and 2017 continues that trend, with an even greater emphasis on refugees’ tales. It seems every month so far this year has offered a handful of stories that give a voice to the displaced, the fishes out of water, the strangers in strange lands. These are 12 of our favorites.

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

Fans of The Light Between Oceans will enjoy the moral dilemmas and tremendous heart of Sekaran’s second novel, the story of one boy tangled up in two families. When Soli, an illegal Mexican immigrant, is put in immigration detention, her 1-year-old son, Ignacio, enters the foster care system. He is placed with Kavya and Rishi Reddy, successful Indian-American immigrants. But as much as they may love him, Ignacio is not their son. Read our review.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Already one of the best books of the year, this multigenerational epic from Lee (Free Food for Millionaires) is a powerful account of one of the world’s most persecuted immigrant communities—Koreans living in Japan. This heartbreaking historical novel spans the entire 20th century through four generations and three wars, as a Korean family struggles to find a sense of belonging in a culture that regards them as aliens. Read our interview with Lee.

American Street by Ibi Zoboi

Don’t mind the YA label: Adult readers should read Zoboi’s debut as well as teens. Fabiola Toussaint, an American citizen by birth, is separated from her Haitian mother while going through Customs, and so she must travel by herself to Detroit, where her American cousins introduce her to a very new world. It’s an unforgettable story of what happens when cultures, nationalities, races and religions collide. Read our interview with Zoboi.

Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

The chilling and provocative debut from Israeli author Gundar-Goshen opens with a hit-and-run, when Israeli neurosurgeon Eitan Green accidentally kills an illegal Eritrean immigrant. The victim’s wife, the enigmatic Sirkit, blackmails Eitan into treating sick Eritreans in the desert. With ruminations on pain and medicine woven throughout, this is a superb exploration of how we see—or fail to see—each other. Read our review.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Hamid adds a dash of gentle magic to his tale of refugees and matters of the heart. In a Middle Eastern country on the brink of civil war, Nadia and Saeed fall in love. But soon they must flee their ruined homeland, passing through a doorway that acts as a portal to another city. As they journey around the world, the bonds of love are both forged and tested by displacement and survival. A must-read for 2017. Read our review.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Ko’s timely, assured debut received major critical acclaim before it was even published, as Barbara Kingsolver awarded it the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction (given to a novel that addresses issues of social justice). It’s the coming-of-age tale of 11-year-old Deming, who is adopted by a pair of white professors after his mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, doesn’t return from work one day. Read our review.

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal

That wry title is only a glimmer of the wonderful sense of humor that permeates the second novel from Satyal. The lives of three Indian Americans living in Ohio unfold with compassionate comedy and a nuanced look at sexuality and gender identity. It’s hard to categorize a book that tackles so many things so well, and the result can only be described as the new American novel. Read our review, and don’t miss our Q&A with Satyal.

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Alyan’s debut is a sweeping family tale told through multiple perspectives, and it all begins with the Six-Day War in 1967, when the Yacoub family is uprooted and forced to scatter across the globe. Alyan’s own parents met in Kuwait City and, after Saddam Hussein’s invasion, were forced to seek refuge in the United States. This spectacular novel, touching on questions of home and heritage, was our May Top Pick in Fiction. Read our review.

Live from Cairo by Ian Bassingthwaighte

Bassingthwaighte tapped his own experiences as a legal aid worker to craft his debut, set in 2011 Cairo. Four characters are at the heart of this remarkable novel: an Iraqi refugee who is denied her request to join her husband in the U.S.; the Iraqi volunteer assigned to her case; a lawyer for the Refugee Relief Project; and his translator. There is so much to like about this book, from brilliant characterization to exceptional writing. Coming July 11.

Refuge by Dina Nayeri

Nayeri moved to America when she was 10 years old, and the protagonist of her second novel makes a similar move, except she leaves her father behind. Over the course of 20 years, the daughter and father build a relationship through four visits, each in a different city. The more their lives diverge, the more they come to rely on each other—especially when the daughter becomes involved in the present-day refugee crisis. Coming July 11.

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons

Perfect for fans of Americanah, the much-anticipated debut from Clemmons unfolds through poignant vignettes and centers on the daughter of an immigrant. Raised in Philadelphia, Thandi is the daughter of a South African mother and an American father. Her identity is split, and when her mother dies, Thandi begins a moving, multidimensional exploration of grief and loss. Coming July 11.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

From acclaimed novelist Shamsie comes the story of two Muslim sisters: Isma, who has just left London to attend grad school in America; and the headstrong, politically inclined Aneeka, who stayed behind. Their brother, Parvaiz, is seeking his own dream in the shadow of his jihadist father. And then the son of a powerful political figure enters the girls’ lives, setting in motion a tale of complicated loyalty. Coming August 15.

Plus one more: It’s not a novel, but we have to mention Viet Thanh Nguyen’s exceptional collection of short stories, The Refugees. The nine stories, set within California’s Vietnamese community or in Vietnam, are dedicated to “all refugees, everywhere.”

In recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in stellar novels of the immigrant experience—from Behold the Dreamers to Americanah, from The Book of Unknown Americans to The Buddha in the Attic—and 2017 continues that trend, with an even greater emphasis on refugees’ tales. It seems every month…
FictionFamily Saga

Of Women and Salt

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The relationship between mothers and daughters is a richly mined topic in fiction. In her beautifully written debut, Gabriela Garcia presents a new classic of mother-daughter literature. 

Of Women and Salt tells the intertwined stories of women in two families from the 19th century to the present day. After an unstable childhood during the Cuban revolution, Carmen leaves her mother behind and immigrates to Florida. Later, in a wealthy suburb, Carmen tries to provide her daughter, Jeanette, with a comfortable American life. Jeanette has a drug addiction, is hiding a tragic secret and is desperately seeking a purpose. 

Their lives intersect with that of Gloria, an immigrant from El Salvador who hopes to give her young daughter, Ana, a better life in Miami. Then Gloria is seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Ana must reunite with her mother at a detention center in Texas. They are deported to Mexico with no resources and forced to start over on their own.

Some novels attempt to tell a sweeping narrative only to get bogged down by a busy plot and too many characters, but despite a large cast from numerous time periods, Of Women and Salt expertly threads each woman’s story to another’s and pulls their stories taut. Disparate hardships propel each of their lives, but they are linked by a shared struggle to carry on in a harsh world, whether each survives her circumstance—or not.

Motherhood is “a constant calculation of what-if,” Garcia writes. At the heart of Of Women and Salt are the sacrifices made by mothers so their daughters can have different lives—perhaps better ones. But daughters may make choices based on their own wishes and needs, and this possibility is ever poised to pierce a mother’s heart. In this way, the novel is quietly heartbreaking. As Garcia writes, “Even the best mothers in the world can’t always save their daughters.”

In her beautifully written debut, Gabriela Garcia presents a new classic of mother-daughter literature.
FictionFamily Saga

Infinite Country

Review by Grace Lichtenstein

The fourth novel by Patricia Engel is a 21st-century odyssey about a Colombian family bifurcated by immigration rules. It’s an intriguing, compact tale, rife with both real-life implications and spiritual significance.

Escaping poverty in Colombia, the family initially arrived in the U.S. on tourist visas that later expired. They remained together until the father, Mauro, was briefly imprisoned and then deported. Unable to bring infant Talia to her minimum-wage jobs, mother Elena sent the child, the youngest of three, to live with Talia’s grandmother in Bogotá. 

The story opens as Talia, now a nervy 15-year-old, breaks out of a Catholic reform school where she was sent after an impulsive, violent act. One of the novel’s multiple storylines follows Talia as she hitches rides back to Bogotá, where Mauro waits with a plane ticket to the United States, offering the possibility of a long-delayed family reunion.

Another major storyline follows Elena, who tries to make a life for herself in New Jersey with her two older children. She is mistreated by one employer in a restaurant and disrespected by another. She finally lands a job with a wealthy family, taking care of a son who forms a stronger bond with Elena than with his own mother.

Infinite Country joins a growing category of fiction about the U.S. and its attitude toward Latinx immigrants, and Engel stands out as an especially gifted storyteller who elevates this saga through the use of Andean folk tales. She also heightens our interest by shifting the novel’s perspective to Talia’s sister in New Jersey more than midway through the book, and her voice adds a new dimension to the tale.

Engel does a marvelous job of rendering these characters as individuals, each with a unique story. Mauro’s journey is illuminated by his visits to the sacred Lake Guatavita outside Bogotá, where gods of wisdom reside, and where the birds above the lake mirror the family’s mantra: “We are all migrants here on earth.”

The fourth novel by Patricia Engel is an intriguing, compact tale, rife with both real-life implications and spiritual significance.

FictionFamily Saga

My Brilliant Life

Review by Leslie Hinson

Areum’s parents were 16 when he was born. Now they are 32, and Areum is 16, but it is he who is confronting old age. He has a rare syndrome called progeria, which makes him age roughly eight times faster than the average child, so he is a teenager in the body of an 80-year-old. As a gift to his parents, he decides to write down the stories they’ve told him over the years. He hopes to finish before his 17th birthday, which will likely be his last.

Areum struggles with self-doubt as he writes, even scrapping an early iteration of the project before he gains the inspiration to write again. This inspiration comes from a pen pal, and Areum, stuck in the hospital for the rest of his life, develops a crush. He wants to experience life like a “normal” kid, even saying that he wants to make mistakes and be disappointed, because other kids get those opportunities. But Areum’s reality is that while he develops this relationship, he also deals with arthritis and begins going blind.

Author Ae-ran Kim considers age versus maturity in My Brilliant Life, which was originally published with the title My Palpitating Life in South Korea in 2011 and then adapted into a film in 2014. Areum’s parents are children when he is born, and they are in their early 30s when he dies. His existence in their lives caused them to grow up quickly, and even more so when he developed special needs. The presence of a neighborly father and son, both elderly, serves as a constant reminder that Areum will not have the chance to take care of his parents when they are old.

Translated into English by Chi-Young Kim, My Brilliant Life is told in poetic, succinct vignettes, ranging from the stories that Areum writes for his parents to narrations of his present. The text never teeters into gawking over Areum’s ailments, and he remains fixed as a curious, emotionally adept protagonist trying to navigate the awkwardness of being a teenager.

Areum’s reckoning with his fate makes for a wrenching story. This slim book has so much heart, packing quite an emotional investment into its 208 pages. As fleeting as Areum’s fictional life may be, he will not be a character easily forgotten.

Areum’s reckoning with his fate makes for a wrenching story. This slim book has so much heart, packing quite an emotional investment into its 208 pages.
FictionFamily Saga

Bride of the Sea

Review by Freya Sachs

The opening premise of Eman Quotah’s debut, Bride of the Sea, is intriguing: Muneer and Saeedah marry, move from Saudi Arabia to the United States and, as the relationship deteriorates, decide to divorce, going against Muslim tradition. As their world crumbles, Saeedah abducts their daughter and disappears. The novel only gets better from this setup, transforming into a family saga that spans from 1970 to 2018.

This ambitious tale moves between Saudi Arabia and the United States, touching on the Gulf War, 9/11, increased Islamophobia in the U.S., the beginning of women being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia and other moments of social and cultural upheaval. Through it all, the secrets, desires and fears of Muneer, Saeedah and their daughter compose a complex picture of how society and the individual shape and inform each other. When society’s expectations render certain decisions impossible, how can an individual choose to live? This question shapes the novel, from Saeedah’s choice to run away with their daughter and Muneer’s search for her, to considerations of journalistic integrity and how familial ties bind and dissolve over time.

Impressive, too, is the sense of place, the ways that bodies of water connect characters to each other. The details of each country are so richly and vividly imagined that as characters travel, so does the reader.

Structurally and syntactically, Bride of the Sea is a gem. The shift from the opening in 2018 to the events in 1970 is abrupt, and these moments fuse again as the novel concludes. Quotah structures these connections to maintain the reader’s sense of wonder, to keep you reading through the loop as you learn of each character’s identity and fate, their secrets and stories.

The opening premise of Eman Quotah’s debut, Bride of the Sea, is intriguing: Muneer and Saeedah marry, move from Saudi Arabia to the United States and, as the relationship deteriorates, decide to divorce, going against Muslim tradition.

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