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Homeseeking

Karissa Chen’s Homeseeking is both a love story and a family story, capturing the ever-present yearning for “people, people who shared the same ghosts as you, of folks long gone, places long disappeared.”
Karissa Chen’s Homeseeking is both a love story and a family story, capturing the ever-present yearning for “people, people who shared the same ghosts as you, of folks long gone, places long disappeared.”
FictionLiterary FictionFamily Drama

I’ll Come to You

Rebecca Kauffman’s thoughtful portrayal of family relationships in all their tension and secrets as well as intimacy and wonder in I’ll Come to You resembles the introspective style of authors like Ethan Joella or Ann Napolitano.
Rebecca Kauffman’s thoughtful portrayal of family relationships in all their tension and secrets as well as intimacy and wonder in I’ll Come to You resembles the introspective style of authors like Ethan Joella or Ann Napolitano.
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Honor the unsung women of history with your book club

Feature by Julie Hale

Mark Braude’s Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris takes an in-depth look at Kiki de Montparnasse, a painter and performer who served as a muse to a number of the era’s preeminent artists, including photographer Man Ray. Longtime lovers and creative collaborators, Kiki and Man Ray worked together to produce some of his most famous images. In this wonderfully detailed history, Braude spotlights Kiki’s background and unique genius, her turbulent relationship with Man Ray and lasting impact on popular culture. Readers who are fascinated with the Lost Generation will savor this atmospheric account of bohemian Paris. 

In her captivating historical novel Becoming Madame Mao, Anchee Min tells the coming-of-age story of Yunhe, who is born into poverty in rural China but defies expectations by becoming the wife of Mao Zedong. Yunhe leaves home with hopes of becoming an actress, changes her name, enlists in the Red Army and eventually marries Mao. Min mixes fact and fiction as she depicts their troubled relationship and Yunhe’s evolution into a woman of political influence. This beautifully executed novel offers rich discussion topics including Chinese history and politics, gender roles and female agency. 

With The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, Jack Weatherford takes readers back in time to 13th-century Eurasia, when formidable women like Khutulun and Mandukhai the Wise helped to ensure the dominance of the Mongol Empire by developing commerce, supporting education and fighting in battle. Their stories appear to have been intentionally deleted from Secret History of the Mongols, an account of Genghis Khan’s reign that appeared in the 13th century. In this fascinating, well-researched narrative, Weatherford highlights their remarkable accomplishments while immersing readers in Mongol culture.  

Set in the 19th century and inspired by historical events, The Last Queen: A Novel of Courage and Resistance by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni chronicles the life of Jindan, a lowborn Indian girl who married Maharaja Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Sikh Empire. After the death of her husband, Jindan’s young son assumes the role of maharaja. Acting as regent, Jindan develops into a strong leader who is perceived as a threat by the British Empire. A bestseller in India, the book’s powerful themes of motherhood and female fulfillment provide great talking points for reading groups.

Behind every great man, there’s a woman—often with an excellent book about her.
FictionHorror

The 4 best horror novels of Halloween 2023

Feature by the editors of BookPage
Book jacket image for A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
STARRED REVIEW

October 9th, 2023

The four best horror novels of Halloween 2023

A gloomy forest, two haunted houses and a sinking city are nothing compared to the terrors of human nature.

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Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Last to Leave the Room

Review by Laura Hubbard

From ancient myth to urban legend, the uncanny valley that is the doppelganger has long terrified and mesmerized. Caitlin Starling’s latest novel, Last to Leave the Room delves deep into the realm of psychological horror, poking at our fears of what is alien in ourselves. 

Dr. Tamsin Rivers’ ruthless nature is legendary among her colleagues, as is her ability to overlook the vagaries of the law in order to get things done in the name of research. It’s no surprise to anyone when she is tasked with solving a major problem: The city of San Siroco is sinking, and no one understands why. The fact that Tamsin’s experiments on quantum entanglement began at the same time San Siroco started sinking could be pure coincidence, as Tamsin argues to her handler, Mx. Woodfield. But nowhere is sinking quite as quickly as Tamsin’s basement, the depths of which are descending into the ground at an alarming pace. And worse still, a mysterious door in the wall has spit out a perfect replica of Tamsin who has neither her memories nor her acerbic personality. She is pliable, innocent and biddable—the perfect test subject. As Tamsin begins her experiments on her double, her memory and faculties begin to falter, endangering both her professional standing and her personal safety. 

Last to Leave the Room is a study in claustrophobia and paranoia, combining the best of psychological horror and science fiction. Starling’s close perspective brings us into Tamsin’s brain, including the subtle, terrible ways it begins to falter. The effect is slow at first, with mismatched details that are easy to miss and a slow tension that ratchets up almost imperceptibly. Starling’s prose shifts with her main character, narrowing the scope of the novel as the walls begin to close in around Tamsin. This constricting perspective becomes viscerally discomfiting, as if the reader is losing pieces of their own memories. It’s psychological horror at its most terrifying, the kind of writing that makes you stop to question—just for a moment—how well you know your own mind and your own world. And that’s before Starling dives into the body horror possibilities that come with experimenting on your own doppelganger. Last to Leave the Room will deeply unsettle readers as it asks two existentially fraught questions: What exactly makes you, you? And who are you when all that is stripped away?

Caitlin Starling’s Last to Leave the Room is psychological horror at its most terrifying as it follows a ruthless scientist who experiments on her own doppelganger.
Science Fiction & FantasyHorror

A Haunting on the Hill

Review by Laura Hubbard

With remakes and reimaginings an integral part of our current zeitgeist, discussion of such projects often results in a common refrain: If it was good the first time, don’t bother remaking it. Luckily, no one told Elizabeth Hand this when she set out to write A Haunting on the Hill, a brilliant queer reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s 1959 classic, The Haunting of Hill House. Hand’s work both modernizes and deepens Jackson’s setting, pulling readers into the demented halls of Hill House and the minds of its denizens.

Struggling playwright-turned-teacher Holly Sherwin has landed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the form of a $10,000 grant. The funds are her big chance, allowing her the time and flexibility to develop her newest play. When a wrong turn leads her to the isolated Hill House, renting it out as a rehearsal space feels like fate. Against the better judgment of nearly everyone in Holly’s life—her girlfriend, Nisa, her friend Stevie and even the owner of Hill House herself—Holly moves her cast into the spacious home for several weeks of strenuous rehearsals and rewrites. From momentary delusions to black hares appearing out of nowhere, things start to go wrong as soon as they arrive. But as soon as its new inhabitants consider escape, their minds are suddenly changed. Desperate pleas to flee become arguments as to why they should stay as the house insinuates itself into their wildest fears and desires. To survive, they need to leave—but they are beginning to forget why they’d want to in the first place.

While fans of Jackson will no doubt revel in some of the obvious homages, Hand’s fresh text doesn’t require deep knowledge of Hill House lore to be intelligible or frightening. And its modern setting allows Hand to play with the paranoia and worries of a new age. A Haunting on the Hill explores age discrimination and the shadows of abuse as thoroughly as it does infidelity and professional jealousy, turning each into a tool that the house can use against Holly and her friends. True to Jackson’s original and the tradition of the haunted house novel, the eeriness builds subtly before bursting into full terror. There are no rattling chains nor wheezing ghosts; Hill House plays to its inhabitants’ expectations and warps their minds, needing nothing more than a trick of the light or a bit of faulty memory to unsettle and manipulate. But rationality begins to slip away soon enough, replaced by the glorious terror of one of literature’s most iconic haunted houses.

A Haunting on the Hill is a brilliant queer reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

After the Forest

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

What would Hansel and Gretel be like as adults? Kell Woods’ inventive retelling explores the answer to this question, following Hans and Margareta “Greta” Rosenthal as down-on-their-luck German peasants struggling to make a living in a world still recovering from the Thirty Years’ War.

Greta has never felt like she fit into Lindenfeld, a little town on the edge of the Black Forest—not before she and Hans fell prey to the gingerbread witch, and not after their return. Nothing has been easy for the siblings: They’ve lost their father and endured a stepmother rotten to her core. Now, reckless Hans continually mishandles their money, and instead of considering suitable suitors, Greta deals with nightmarish visions and other strange sensations After the Forest quickly reveals how the Rosenthals have kept themselves afloat: Greta’s descent into witchcraft, aided by the gingerbread witch’s grimoire. 

When a handsome stranger emerges from the forest with seemingly good intentions, while at the same time, Lindenfeld explodes in prejudice towards the wild animals and supposed witches that plague the land, Greta must make difficult decisions about her path in life and who she can trust. At first, she confines herself to baking magically scrumptious gingerbread to sell at market, but Greta soon evolves into a greenwitch, working with the forest itself to achieve her goals and save those she loves. As her powers grow, she learns about the terrible effects of more powerful, darker spells. Naturally, Greta swears off this dangerous magic at first, but the evil forces lurking in the woods outside Lindenfeld grow ever stronger, and she might not be able to keep her hands clean. 

Readers will root for Greta to finally achieve her happily ever after while also relishing Woods’ dark, folklore-infused story. Each chapter begins with a snippet of a fairy tale about noble sisters Liliane and Rosabell, who at first seem unrelated to Greta—until Woods unravels the secrets that bind them together. After the Forest is full of enchanting references to various folk tales and truly feels like a children’s storybook come to life, albeit one with delightfully wicked and haunting twists. With its cookbooks that speak (and bite!) and enchanted gingerbread, After the Forest is a tantalizing treat.

In Kell Woods’ darkly enchanting After the Forest, Greta of Hansel and Gretel-fame has become a witch herself.
Science Fiction & FantasyHorror

The September House

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

Empty nester Margaret Hartman is thrilled when she and her husband, Hal, buy a gorgeous old Victorian home. But the house soon begins testing them with annual September “shenanigans”: blood oozing down the walls, creepy spirits of 19th-century children and a demonic boogeyman that even an experienced priest can’t exorcize. Margaret and Hal weather three cursed Septembers, but Margaret in particular is in it for the long haul. When Hal disappears on the eve of the fourth September and his and Margaret’s daughter, Katherine, arrives to search for him, family secrets are brought to light.

From the ghost of a murdered maid to swarms of giant flies, the house’s antics become routine for Margaret, and her wry, witty narration will also accustom readers to these supernatural events. Despite the house’s horrors, it still provides Margaret with a haven, a purpose and an emotional connection to an eerie spirit community. But when author Carissa Orlando reveals why Margaret is so good at putting out proverbial fires and quelling very real ghosts, The September House takes an unexpected emotional turn. Margaret knows that ugly secrets can be carried well beyond the grave, and it’s better to heal, forgive and protect when you can. Her interactions with Katherine are particularly tense and anxiety-inducing as Orlando explores an estranged parent-child relationship impacted by intergenerational trauma. 

The September House pulls inspiration from classic settings such as the Bates Motel, Rose Red, the Overlook Hotel and Hill House, but Orlando’s characterization of the old Victorian is fresh and fascinating. The house serves as an analogy for the deterioration of family and mental health, with the collapse of a person’s mind being more terrifying than any specter lurking in the shadows. Some of the body horror moments may feel familiar, but Margaret’s delightfully matter-of-fact voice puts a new spin on even the oldest of tropes, and the novel’s horrifying events unfold at a furious pace. The September House is a riveting adventure that will grab you by the ankles and drag you down into the pitch-black basement you’ve been warned to avoid.

Carissa Orlando’s darkly funny and unexpectedly emotional The September House follows an empty nester who refuses to leave her extremely haunted Victorian home.

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A gloomy forest, two haunted houses and a sinking city are nothing compared to the terrors of human nature.
FictionLiterary Fiction

A Nearby Country Called Love

Review by Arlene McKanic

What is a man? And, still more important, what is love? These are the questions posed by Salar Abdoh’s latest novel, A Nearby Country Called Love. Manhood and the search for love bedevil Abdoh’s dispirited protagonist, Issa. Deported from the United States after years working a deadening hotel job, Issa has returned to his childhood neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. He never knew his mother, and his artistic gay brother died young of AIDS, followed quickly by his macho father. Though Issa loved them, he struggled to understand his brother, and his father’s determination to make real men out of both of them was damaging. Even after his father’s passing, a culture of crushing patriarchy overshadows Issa’s life: The novel opens with Issa and his friend Nasser ineffectively attempting to avenge a woman who found her husband so intolerable that she burned herself to death.

Into this violent, hypermasculine society, Abdoh introduces characters who quietly insist on being themselves, allowing Issa to see different, less rigid ways of being. They include Mehran, the gay man who becomes tough guy Nasser’s improbable lover; Mehran’s roommate, a trans man; and Babacar, a Senegalese man who’s always late for prayers but wants to become a Shia cleric. There’s also Issa’s formidable Turkish stepmother (who has a man’s name) and her equally formidable daughter, a doctor whose estranged husband torments her until he learns not to. Then, there’s Hayat, the young woman whose poetry Issa fell so in love with that he sojourned to Lebanon to meet her, not even knowing her real name.

When Issa and Hayat finally meet, she’s . . . not what he imagined. More trouble ensues. But Issa, a supremely loving, compassionate and accepting spirit (his very name means Jesus) fails to understand that he is already surrounded by the love he seeks. In Abdoh’s sad, hilarious, big-hearted book, the nearby country called love is the very place where Issa stands.

Salar Abdoh introduces characters who quietly insist on being themselves in a violent, hypermasculine community in Tehran, allowing his protagonist Issa to see different, less rigid ways of being.
FictionShort Stories

The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac

Review by Robert Weibezahl

Some 50 years ago, Edna O’Brien shook up preconceptions about the inner lives of Irish women with searing, lyrical fiction that spoke the truth about sexual yearning, moral repression, insidious abuse and symptoms of depression long shrugged off as chronic melancholy. Much has changed in Ireland since then, yet the sharply unapologetic stories in Louise Kennedy’s accomplished collection The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac tap into the same vein of quiet despair.

These 15 perceptive stories center largely on women confined by their circumstances, futilely grasping at elusive happiness. The very title of the opening story, which lends its name to the collection, sets the tone as a young woman, abandoned by her crooked husband, languishes like a prisoner in a newly built house that will soon be repossessed. Many of the situations that launch these stories are heartbreaking: A young mother internalizes feelings of anxiety and guilt over her developmentally challenged child (“Brittle Things”); a middle-aged woman watches her marriage wither after she and her husband agree to terminate a pregnancy (“Garland Sunday”).

Kennedy’s has a notable gift for infusing even fraught scenarios with a jaundiced Irish humor. The old friends who travel to Tunisia for an ill-conceived girls’ holiday in “Beyond Carthage” are savagely drawn bundles of human imperfection. In “Powder,” an awkward tentativeness is palpable between a young woman whose boyfriend has died and his grieving American mother as they drive through the west of Ireland scattering his ashes. One of the most penetrating stories, “In Silhouette,” harkens back to the troubles in Northern Ireland, as a ghost haunts the sister of the man who killed him. The troubles, of course, formed the backdrop of Kennedy’s well-received debut novel, Trespasses, which brought wide recognition to her as a writer in her 50s sharing her voice for the first time. The stories in The End of the World is a Cul de Sac reflect the formative experience of living through years of conflict, and confirm her place as a trenchant, keen observer of the violence and turmoil that live inside.

The sharply unapologetic stories in Louise Kennedy’s accomplished collection confirm her place as a trenchant, keen observer of the violence and turmoil that live inside.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Baumgartner

Review by Maya Fleischmann

Ten years after his wife’s death, an elderly man reflects on his mortality, the life he has lived and his designs for the future in this inspiring and sensitive portrayal of the complexities of getting older.

Philosophy professor Seymour (Sy) Baumgartner has much to ponder at 71. Each accident or encounter in his life sparks not only the remembrance of things and people past, but sometimes new visions and goals, such as moving forward in love, possibly with his UPS delivery person and secret crush, Molly, or finally publishing his late wife Anna’s collection of writing.

Author Paul Auster quickly establishes themes of aging, isolation, connection and the power of memories. As Baumgartner opens, Sy is on his way downstairs to find a book when he remembers that he promised to call his sister, but both tasks are diverted by a forgotten pot of water on the stove. Hurriedly removing it, Sy burns his hand, and he’s barely taken care of the burn when a man from the electric company calls to say that he will be late for an appointment Sy doesn’t even recall making.

Between Sy’s surprise at kindness from a stranger, his sense of detachment from his body, his imaginary conversations with his beloved Anna, and his recollections of his parents’ lives and their own senses of inefficacy, Auster creates a bittersweet emotional landscape combining sadness and insecurity with joy and inspiration. Auster’s narrative and observations are lucid, pithy and moving, and even some of his clichés ring true: “To live is to feel pain,” Sy declares, “and to live in fear of pain is to refuse to live.”

Nuanced, compassionate and simply eloquent, Baumgartner is a stirring portrait of a man trying to adapt to his aging body and mind.

Nuanced, compassionate and simply eloquent, Baumgartner is a stirring portrait of a man trying to adapt to his aging body and mind.
Science Fiction & FantasyRomanceNonfictionMystery & SuspenseFictionFeatured

The 33 best 2023 books to read with your book club

List by Savanna, Associate Editor
STARRED REVIEW
October 16, 2023

The 33 best 2023 books to read with your book club

Ambitious, accessible and thought-provoking, these titles will make your entire reading group happy.
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Ambitious, accessible and thought-provoking, these titles will make your entire reading group happy.
FeaturedGraphic Novels & ComicsGraphic Memoirs

The best graphic fiction and nonfiction of fall 2023

List by Phoebe Farrell-Sherman
Fall 2023 Graphics
STARRED REVIEW

October 24, 2023

The best graphic fiction and nonfiction of fall 2023

The illustrations set both the scene and the tone in these thoughtful graphic novels and memoirs, plus a fascinating graphic biography.

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NonfictionMemoirGraphic Memoirs

The Talk

Review by Emily Koch

Like many little boys, Darrin Bell wanted a water gun when he was 6 years old. Unlike the white boys in his neighborhood with slick black water guns, he received a bright green one, accompanied by “The Talk” from his mom. She explained that “the world is… different for you and your brother. White people won’t see you or treat you the way they do little white boys.” It’s The Talk that parents of Black children are all too familiar with in America.

Bell is a Pulitzer Prize winner known for his editorial cartoons and for being the first Black cartoonist to have his comic strips, Candorville and Ruby Park, nationally syndicated. The Talk, Bell’s striking debut graphic memoir, utilizes wit and emotional openness to chronicle the ways in which racism has shaped his life, from a police officer terrorizing a young Bell over his green water gun to protests in 2020 over the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Most of the book is illustrated in shades of blue, with flashbacks that come on suddenly and disjointedly—like real memories do—in yellows reminiscent of sepia photographs. Flashes of red are often used during intense moments, and one particularly philosophical page uses a purple that only appears again during the climax. Hyperrealistic pop culture items placed throughout both unsettle the illustrations and ground the reader within the timeline of Bell’s life, from the early 1980s until present day. At the end, Bell even includes some of his most iconic editorial cartoons.

This book is heavy, both emotionally and physically. The size allows Bell to use graphic conventions unlike those he’s usually confined to in a four-panel newspaper comic strip, frequently doing full-page illustrations or removing the panels all together. But during several important conversations, including The Talk between Darrin and his mother, as well as The Talk he has with his own son, Bell returns to an even grid of panels that hearken back to his old format and emphasize how important each moment is.

The deeply honest conversation Bell is able to have with his son is especially compelling when presented in contrast with a much more limited conversation about racism he had with his father, shown through a flashback. Witnessing their generational growth filled me both with empathy for Bell’s father and with hope for what Bell’s radical truth-telling can bring.

Darrin Bell’s striking debut graphic memoir utilizes wit and emotional openness to chronicle the ways in which racism has shaped his life, from a police officer terrorizing a young Bell over a green water gun to protests in 2020 over the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
FictionGraphic Novels & Comics

My Brilliant Friend: the Graphic Novel

Review by Mariel Fechik

On a quiet street in postwar Naples, two young girls embark on a complex friendship that will encompass decades of strife, jealousy, bitterness and fierce devotion. Since early childhood, Lenu and Lila have been each other’s protectors and confidantes. Lenu lives in fear of her domineering mother, while Lila is expected to put work and family first, with her education being a low priority.

Lenu worships the enigmatic Lila, believing her to be smarter, more beautiful and more interesting than herself. But Lila’s shifting moods are inscrutable, giving way to unpredictable bouts of anger, irritability and depression. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Lenu sticks by Lila’s side. As Lenu and Lila age, they are pulled in opposite directions—but they remain fixed points in each other’s orbits, for better or for worse.

Chiara Lagani and Mara Cerri’s adaptation of the first novel in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend: The Graphic Novel, is a brief and impressionistic rendition of the original. Lagani’s spare text (through Ann Goldstein’s translation) provides broad vignettes of the novel’s pivotal moments while Cerri’s artwork brings to life the often grim setting of Lila and Lenu’s neighborhood.

Ferrante’s original is a dense book, spanning years of childhood and adolescence over more than 300 pages. Rather than cover each event in detail, the graphic novel pinpoints the most life altering events for Lenu and Lila. The artwork is the true star of this adaptation. Using pencil, charcoal and pastels on coarse, off-white paper, Cerri reflects the harsh reality of postwar Italy—its grit, its violence and its fear. The panels are large and without straight lines as Cerri alternates between aerial views and intimate, uncomfortable moments. Similarly, the color palettes range from hyper-pigmented to washed out. The materials used imbue the book with an aged appearance, as though Lenu herself had crafted it as a diary—Cerri often leaves original pencil sketches in place, and the reader can see exactly where the drawing was altered.

It’s difficult to say if My Brilliant Friend: The Graphic Novel can stand on its own; most of its readers will likely be those who have read the original, and it’s unclear whether there are plans to adapt the rest of Ferrante’s quartet. That said, it is a unique and evocative tribute to a modern classic.

The artwork is the true star of this unique and evocative adaptation of the first novel in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.
FictionGraphic Novels & Comics

Roaming

Review by Mariel Fechik

It’s spring break in 2009. Childhood best friends Dani and Zoe are freshmen in college, and are finally spending a week in New York City like they’ve always dreamed. Accompanying Dani is her classmate Fiona, a cigarette-smoking, tragically hip art student whose uninhibited and self-possessed attitude attracts Zoe immediately.

Dani wants to do classic tourist things: eat pizza and see Coney Island, Times Square and the Statue of Liberty. But Fiona, who has been to New York many times, scoffs at the mere mention of tourism, instead suggesting they see “real” neighborhoods. Zoe, caught in the middle but unable to deny Fiona’s magnetic coolness, agrees. As the trio navigates a late-aughts New York with spotty cell service and tenuous personal connections, they will each have to reckon with something—whether it’s each other or something within themselves.

Roaming, cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s first graphic novel collaboration for an adult audience, is a slice-of-life story about growing up and growing apart, being on the cusp of adulthood and exploring an unfamiliar city. The characters and their experiences hit hard because of how incredibly real they feel; despite the intrinsic brevity of the format, Dani, Fiona and Zoe are fully fleshed out.

As a duo, the Tamakis possess a talent for crafting stories of immense substance out of small, zoomed-in moments. Because of their specificity, these micro-stories speak to a much broader macro-story: Almost everyone knows a Fiona, has been a Zoe or has become frustrated with the hesitance of the Dani in their life.

Jillian’s color palettes are typically spare and minimal, relying on thick black lines and one or two pastels—for This One Summer, a light, muted indigo; for Roaming, swaths of periwinkle, peach and white. The palette places a gauzy haze over the story’s heaviness, much like the function of memory itself.

Roaming is about young adults, new to being on their own and easy to see as naive. But the magic of the book is that it will speak to the 18-year-old in every reader—whether they’re just out of college or at retirement age. Some things, no matter how much time has passed, never change.

Cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki have created a slice-of-life story about growing up and growing apart that will speak to the 18-year-old in every reader—whether they’re just out of college or at retirement age.
NonfictionGraphic MemoirsFamily & Relationships

This Country

Review by Nicole Brinkley

In 2016, New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian and his wife needed a change, so they packed up their lives and fled—with their dog—from San Francisco to a cabin in rural Idaho. Despite not knowing what wood best keeps houses warm in frigid winters or how to stop a car from freezing during snowstorms, Mahdavian couldn’t help but want his version of the millennial American dream: living off the land in a house you own while building a career as an artist.

Most of Mahdavian’s debut graphic memoir This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America takes place on the six acres around his family’s cabin. There, Mahdavian wanders with his dog, tends to the garden and learns the history of the land—both the stories maintained by his white neighbors and the deeper Indigenous history. Mahdavian’s minimalist illustrations convey how large and rural Idaho can be, and they make it hard not to fall in love with that sort of hopeful landscape. Swaths of blank pages are populated by only the horizon and the plants and animals Mahdavian loves. If Idaho were simply gooseberries and black-billed magpies, it would be impossible to leave.

As Mahdavian settles into his cabin and tries to revel in the slow day to day of his life, he begins to fall in love with the natural world around him, even as his gun-toting neighbors remind him that people like Mahdavian—who is Iranian American—are considered outsiders. Beneath the big blue sky, Mahdavian struggles with their small-minded thinking and wonders if this place he loves can become home–and what choosing to make this place home really means.

It’s the surrounding people that leave Mahdavian feeling disconnected from the land whose history he seeks to understand. Mahdavian’s candid anecdotes showcase neighbors who welcome him and help during crises—even while slinging racial slurs and perpetuating stereotypes. Despite the serious and occasionally threatening nature of these exchanges, Mahdavian’s humor and thoughtfulness honors the kindness contained in these strange relationships while refusing to gloss over the harm that such insular thinking can cause.

Both poetic and personal, This Country meditates beautifully on what it means to create a home in the pockets of America where not everybody is wanted, due to their race or other aspects of identity. This Country is a must for fans of graphic memoirs like Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, and it’s not one to miss for anybody interested in insightful explorations of America’s heartland.

Both poetic and personal, This Country meditates beautifully on what it means to create a home in the pockets of America where not everybody is wanted, due to their race or other aspects of identity.
NonfictionHistory

Washington’s Gay General

Review by Nicole Brinkley

Biographies can intrigue and educate with subject matter alone, but some of the most interesting give both the story of a life and the reason behind the author’s fascination. Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben tells the story of the titular war general, who rose from Prussian obscurity in the 1700s to become a once legendary yet now forgotten leader, and why Eisner Award-winning author Josh Trujillo found his life so interesting.

Ambitious and idealistic, Baron von Steuben quickly rose through the ranks of the Prussian Army through a combination of genius, white lies and good old flirting. However, relationships with Prussian royalty and a reputation as a leader in the army weren’t enough to keep him safe from charges of impropriety, and von Steuben found himself fleeing his home country.

After arriving in America, Benjamin Franklin recruited him to help the Americans organize their untrained rebel army. With the help of young men, some of whom were his lovers, von Steuben shared Prussian army techniques with George Washington, eventually writing the Blue Book guide that laid the foundation for training American soldiers. Yet because of his romantic partners and his immigrant status, it was always a challenge for von Steuben to form a legacy that would be remembered.

Thoughts from Trujillo (and, occasionally, illustrator Levi Hastings) stitch together the gaps in the available information on von Steuben’s life by weaving in compelling modern conversations on queer identity and queer history. They don’t shy away from darkness: The book discusses the fact that von Steuben enslaved people and highlights how his relative wealth and status protected him from what poorer, less powerful queer folk faced.

Hastings ditches the more colorful artwork found in his children’s books in favor of a classy triad color scheme of black, white and blue–quietly patriotic, much like von Steuben himself. The most beautiful piece of art comes at the very end of the book: a single-page spread of von Steuben’s beloved hound, curled up asleep in a bed made of von Steuben’s coat and hat.

Washington’s Gay General examines the same questions of ideology and legacy that permeate the Broadway show Hamilton, and fans of the production will certainly find much to enjoy. For those who are less interested in early American history and simply want to connect with their queer roots, Washington’s Gay General offers an accessible introduction to the life of Baron von Steuben and, through him, the queer people throughout history who have been hiding in plain sight.

Washington’s Gay General examines the same questions of ideology and legacy that permeate Broadway’s Hamilton, and fans of the show will find much to enjoy in this historical graphic novel.

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The illustrations set both the scene and the tone in these thoughtful graphic novels and memoirs, plus a fascinating graphic biography.
FictionHistorical Fiction

The House of Doors

Review by Lauren Bufferd

Tan Twan Eng’s third novel, which was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, is set in the early 1920s, when the British writer William Somerset Maugham and his secretary (and lover) Gerald Haxton visit the coastal province of Penang, Malaysia, as the guests of Lesley and Robert Hamlyn.

Part of Penang’s European elite, Lesley and Robert live a comfortable, privileged life although their marriage is no longer as intimate as it once was and Lesley suspects Robert of having an affair. Over the course of his visit, Lesley shares her concerns with “Willie” and mentions that she was once close to the revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen, who spent time fundraising in Penang. Lesley was also a friend of Ethel Proudlock, whose murder trial in Kuala Lumpur sent shock waves through the British expat population. These details provided the seeds for several of Maugham’s future works, most notably “The Letter,” the final story in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree.

The House of Doors alternates between Lesley’s and Willie’s perspectives as Lesley unburdens herself to Willie, disclosing her fears of her husband’s infidelity and her involvement in Sun’s movement. Willie draws inspiration for his stories from Lesley and other locals, while hoping to dig himself out of a financial hole and worrying that Gerald will leave him now that money is flowing less freely.

Tan’s choice to tell the story from the view of the colonizing class highlights his characters’ limitations and blind spots. Many of the characters are living double lives; Willie hides his homosexuality, and Lesley too keeps an intimate relationship secret. Perhaps this is why, for a novel about desire and revolutionary politics, the tone of The House of Doors is surprisingly cool: The moral complexities of a colonial society are hidden behind a veneer of restraint and manners. Tan’s eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtfully written, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.

Tan Twan Eng’s eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtfully written, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.
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Top 10 titles of November 2023

List by the editors of BookPage
STARRED REVIEW

Our top 10 books of November 2023

This month’s top titles include career-best works from Jesmyn Ward, Alexis Hall and Naomi Alderman.
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Book jacket image for Nowhere Special by Matt Wallace

Author Matt Wallace excels at depicting realistic family scenarios, complex moral dilemmas, and good-hearted, but flawed, adults.

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The Space Between Here & Now is an intriguing mix of fantasy and realism that lures readers in with the promise of magic and keeps

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Book jacket image for Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

We sometimes forget that the descent in Dante’s Divine Comedy is a journey toward God. Jesmyn Ward’s portrayal of slavery is the profound manifestation of

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Book jacket image for The Future by Naomi Alderman

The Future is a daring, sexy, thrilling novel that may be the most wryly funny book about the end of civilization you’ll ever read.

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Book jacket image for When I'm Dead by Hannah Morrissey

Hannah Morrissey’s small-town murder mystery When I’m Dead is nigh-on impossible to put down.

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Book jacket image for I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast

Longtime New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chaste’s I Must Be Dreaming is an uproarious, touching and zany ride.

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Book jacket image for The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie

The Dictionary People—which chronicles the unsung heroes who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary—is sheer delight.

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Book jacket image for Flight of the WASP by Michael Gross

Michael Gross’ delightful cultural history of WASPs illuminates the odd corners of the lives of our nation’s elite—and American history itself.

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Book jacket image for 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall

Alexis Hall’s new rom-com might have a zany setup—a guy fakes amnesia!—but its authentic emotion will win readers’ hearts.

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Book jacket image for The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Beautiful and expertly executed, The Reformatory is a horror masterpiece that derives its power from both the magical and the mundane.

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This month’s top titles include career-best works from Jesmyn Ward, Alexis Hall and Naomi Alderman.
FictionLiterary FictionHistorical FictionFamily Saga

Connection across borders and generations

Interview by Stephenie Harrison

The Liberators explores themes of intergenerational trauma, reconciliation and forgiveness, both at an individual level and at a national one. These are topics you also delved into in your memoir, The Magical Language of Others. How do you view the two books in relation to one another?

Thank you for bringing to light the connection between The Liberators and The Magical Language of Others. There is a spider’s web hanging between the books that one can pass through without ever breaking the line. Just as the memoir makes the novel possible, the novel seems to offer new perspectives to the memoir—to deepen the conversation of human history, a lineage of atrocity and reparation. In The Liberators, Robert says, “Sometimes your past smiles at you. Other times your past points a gun at you.”

You recently worked as a writer on the television adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. For most authors, writing is a fairly solitary experience, so what was it like for you to be in a writers’ room where you were part of a team? Was there anything you learned during that process that you brought to writing The Liberators?

The notion of table setting, from my doctoral work, became a part of the writers room. Table setting is a way to hold many opposing ideas at once: You can set the table with your ideas but you cannot take off another person’s setting. So one may sit across from another with whom they disagree, with a willingness to watch what the settings would do on their own. This willingness is rooted in not what one has set on the table but what could be discovered. Extending the table, we extend ourselves—and together we can reckon with even the things we cannot change. This way of holding opposing ideas became a part of The Liberators.

“Through different perspectives across culture, geography and generations, I hope to continue investigating our collected memory as a braid of our humanity.”

You have translated other poets’ poems from Korean into English, but so far, your own works have only been published in English. How does your translation work inform your writing process? 

The Liberators will be my first work to be translated from English to Korean, and I won’t be translating it myself. Alongside readers, I will experience the sentences take on another shape and sound. Translation bridges histories between languages, nations and cultures. Translators like Don Mee Choi, Anton Hur and Sora Kim-Russell use translation to create pathways toward unsettled truths about imperialism and colonialism and militarism. In a way, my work as a writer wouldn’t be possible without me first understanding my work as a translator.

One interesting feature of The Liberators is that it is told through myriad perspectives over the course of nearly 40 years. What made you choose a multi-narrator approach?

Elizabeth Rosner writes in Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, “We are all responsible to continue unraveling and at the same time underscoring this tenacious human lineage of destruction and restoration.” Nona Fern&aacutendez’s novel The Twilight Zone is another book that collects the memories of perpetrators and victims, of prisoners and liberators. Through different perspectives across culture, geography and generations, I hope to continue investigating our collected memory as a braid of our humanity.

Food plays an important part in The Liberators. One dish in particular, mulnaengmyeon (cold noodles in chilled broth) is at the center of an especially moving passage. Are there any other food moments in the novel that stand out for you?

After reading my novel, my advisor Shawn Wong at the University of Washington, gave me such a compliment by asking where he could have mulnaengmyeon. Food crosses boundaries and borders—real and imaginary. A moment I love is when Insuk, upon meeting her daughter-in-law, feeds her constantly. Insuk changes in such a way that her heart takes on the shape of a spoon.

“I asked how . . . we recognize the dead, and how the dead recognize us. This is the place from which the book began to take shape.”

In addition to the personal storylines, historical events act as catalysts and propel the narrative. What kind of research did you do when it came to plotting the book and how did you approach balancing the historical with the fictional?

The first lines of the novel came out of my doctoral research in trauma across Korean American literature, history and film. At the same time, I was completing my memoir and the script for “Pachinko.” In the translator’s note to South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon’s collection, Autobiography of Death, translator Don Mee Choi defines autobiography as “an autotestimony and autoceremony that reenacts trauma and narrates our historical death—how we have died and how we remain living within the structure of death.” I asked how, beyond research and writing, we recognize the dead, and how the dead recognize us. This is the place from which the book began to take shape.

You recently completed your PhD in English Literature with a focus on Korean American literature, history and film. Can you recommend some books by Korean and Korean American authors that our readers may not be familiar with but should consider checking out? 

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women translated by Ju-Chan Fulton and Bruce Fulton, Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim translated by Janet Hong, Memories of My Ghost Brother by Heinz Insu Fenkl, DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi, How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee, Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon translated by Don Mee Choi, Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung translated by Anton Hur, I Hear Your Voice by Young-ha Kim translated by Krys Lee, and many works without whom neither this novel nor I myself could have existed.

Readers might be surprised to discover that in the last year you have set yourself a goal of writing 1000 love letters to strangers. Tell us how this project came about and what it means to you.

In 2016, I was heartbroken over my work and decided to give up writing. But I put out a call online: I would write 1000 love letters to strangers. The next day I found [I had received] requests from all over the world. For me, what I longed for through words was human connection. By some magic, I was able to complete a poetry book and memoir, and now I’m so grateful to share this novel.

With a PhD completed, a new novel out and 400 love letters to go, what will you do next?

It feels impossible to show the full extent of my gratitude to those who have helped me along the way—my teachers and colleagues: Susan E. Davis, Greg McClure, Greg November, Don Mee Choi, Shawn Wong, Paul Lisicky, Krys Lee, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Matthew Salesses, Tayari Jones, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Crystal Hana Kim, Emily Jungmin Yoon, David Krolikoski, Joseph Han, Ed Park, Jimin Han, Jang Wook Huh, Esther Ra, Elizabeth Rosner, Brian Reed, Timothy Donnelly, Eamon Grennan, Mark Strand and so many more. A part of that gratitude I hope to show by helping others who may feel the weight of loss and may need the reminder that, no matter what, you must not give up hope, because the sun shines on every wreckage and every place on earth, on everyone and on you.

Read our starred review of The Liberators.

E.J. Koh wields language in many ways: She has written memoir, poetry and TV scripts, as well as translating others’ poetry. Now, in her debut novel, The Liberators, Koh digs into the tensions between language, memory and history as she follows one family from the military dictatorship of 1980s South Korea to the conflicts of their Korean American community in 2000s California.
FictionLiterary FictionFamily Saga

A Grandmother Begins the Story

Review by Laura Sackton

Métis author Michelle Porter weaves a beguiling and intricate story out of sparse, interlocking poetic fragments in her fiction debut. Her expertise as a poet and writer of nonfiction is on full display in this genre-blending book, which is deeply rooted in Métis storytelling, matrilineal knowledge and spirituality. It feels more like a collection of stories told by elders gathered around a fire or in a kitchen than a traditional novel. This unique structure creates a surprising momentum, effortlessly drawing readers into many meandering plots.

The story follows several generations of Métis women as they face turning points in their lives. Geneviéve (Gee), in her 80s, has checked herself into rehab for drinking. Gee’s 20-something great-granddaughter Carter, adopted by a white family, meets her grandmother Lucie for the first time when she requests Carter’s assistance in her decision to die by suicide. Carter’s estranged birth mother Allie attempts reconciliation, often through texts. Meanwhile, Gee’s sister Velma has recently died and is trying to make peace with her life from the spirit realm.

However, these women and their complex relationships are not the novel’s sole focus. It also charts the life of a young bison, Dee, whose herd’s ancestral territory is now crisscrossed with fences that force bison to adjust to human constraints. Dee’s chapters are some of the most poignant in the book—she longs for freedom and adventure even as she learns that her survival is bound up with that of her herd.

Chapters from the perspectives of bison grandmothers, Gee’s dogs and the grassland itself add to a rich mix of human and nonhuman voices. In contrast to Carter’s wry and resigned narration, Dee’s voice bursts with unconstrained joy and heartache. Gee is constantly cracking jokes, her sister in the spirit world speaks with a melancholy longing, and the texts from Carter’s mother are clipped and full of simmering regret and pain.

A Grandmother Begins the Story is a beautiful meditation on the interconnectedness of spirit, land and family. It’s about what gets passed down from mothers to daughters and what doesn’t. It’s about the stories that persist through generations—sometimes hidden, but always present—and what happens when those stories break open into new shapes.

Chapters from the perspectives of bison grandmothers, dogs and the grassland itself add to the rich mix of human and nonhuman voices in A Grandmother Begins the Story.
FictionLiterary FictionComing of Age

Cross-Stitch

Review by Alice Cary

After receiving widespread acclaim for the autobiographical Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes, Mexican writer Jazmina Barrera delivers a dreamy yet compelling exploration of female friendship and coming of age in her fiction debut.

In Cross-Stitch, Mila finds her world shattered when she gets word that a childhood friend, Citlali, has drowned in the sea in Senegal. Few details are available about this shocking news, leading Mila to wonder if the death was an accident or suicide. As she organizes Citlali’s memorial service, Mila begins to sift through memories of Citlali and their mutual friend Dalia, whom she hasn’t seen for years. Sewing has long been central to Mila’s life—in fact, she’s just published a book about embroidery—and the three girls often sewed together. Now Mila muses, “I haven’t worked out how to sew and think about Citlali without pricking my fingers.”

Mila and Citlali had a middle school teacher who pointed out “that the words ‘text’ and ‘textile’ had the same root: the Latin texere, to weave, braid, or compose.” Throughout Cross-Stitch, Barrera weaves, braids and composes the story of the trio’s friendship into a plot so convincing and emotionally intelligent that readers may mistake it for a memoir, while seamlessly incorporating intriguing tidbits about the history of embroidery. The notes cover topics ranging from embroidery in ancient Egypt to a recent global campaign using crochet to raise awareness of the destruction of coral reefs due to climate change. Barrera’s prose is insightful and precise, and MacSweeney’s translation conveys a natural, conversational rhythm.

Barrera aptly writes: “While techniques for healing wounds have evolved over the centuries, a needle and thread are still commonly used. Something in the tissues, in the weaves . . . may offer answers to how other wounds can be healed.” As Mila desperately tries to make sense of both their shared history and Citlali’s loss, Cross-Stitch draws readers into the many strands uniting Mila, Dalia and Citlali.

Jazmina Barrera weaves, braids and composes this story of a trio of friends into a plot so convincing and emotionally intelligent that readers may mistake it for a memoir.
FictionPoetry

Give the gift of discovery with these 5 poetry collections

Feature by Freya Sachs

★Personal Best

Even well-loved, familiar poems can be mysterious. What if you could ask a poet to walk you through the why of one of their poems: why it matters, why they chose to share it, what’s at stake? Erin Belieu and Carl Phillips do just that in their delightful anthology, Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems that Matter Most. Including a remarkable and diverse array of contemporary poets, Phillips and Belieu assemble a collection of singular poems, each selected by its poet and accompanied by an explication of how it came to be written, illuminating the choices that make each poem sing. With poems by Danez Smith, Victoria Chang, Ada Limon, Jorie Graham, Ocean Vuong, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ilya Kaminsky and many more, there is something to appeal both to novice explorers of poetry and to writers and students hoping to deepen their appreciation for others’ work.

The anthology is full of gems. It was a welcome gift to reencounter poems I knew in fresh contexts, and it was equally enjoyable to explore poems and poets new to me and discover what I might read next. If someone you know is looking for some guidance in reading poetry, or seeking a deeper understanding of the poetic process, Personal Best would make an engaging, thoughtful gift.

Sukun

Poems of faith and doubt, wounds and wonder: The moments collected in Kazim Ali’s Sukun: New and Selected Poems are surprising and approachable. Ali moves between subjects—from prayers, fairy tales and myths to baggage claims, yoga classes, boats and rain—with an honest, searching voice. Equally engaging is the formal range of the poems. From sonnets to prose poems, from open-ended lines that propel you forward to tightly compacted end-stopped lines, the form and content come together. Mundane details are made surprising in new combinations: “a black and white film” in which “the water glows white.” Part of the wonder comes from Ali grounding these details with a sense of place, setting them against large scale images of the natural world.

“There’s an old line of Robert Frost’s—that a poem ‘begins in delight and ends in wisdom.'”

In “Exit Strategy”—part of the triptych that opens the book—Ali writes “Here’s the hardest geography quiz I’ve ever taken: / How does one carry oneself from mountain to lake to desert / without leaving anything behind?” This collection reveals the answer, taking us through real and metaphorical landscapes as the speakers gather images, moments and ideas, letting each build on the last, collaging something wholly new.

The Asking

In the first poem of Jane Hirshfield’s The Asking: New and Selected Poems, she begins: “ My life, / you were a door I was given / to walk through.” This beautiful opening is the door we readers walk through to discover and rediscover this retrospective collection of Hirshfield’s poetry. Throughout, her attention to and celebration of minute details brings readers into a space of awareness that continues even after our eyes leave the page.

The new poems that open the book examine our fractured planet and imagine better possibilities. Next, beginning with 1982’s Alaya, we move through 50 years of Hirschfield’s work, observing the ways that our planet and the interrogation of our relationship with it have evolved. Hirshfield writes in awe of the world, of science and of imagination, and she threads these ideas together with a specificity and power of observation that demands our attention. She notices the nuance of the world; so must we. There’s an old line of Robert Frost’s—that a poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” Hirshfield’s The Asking moves through both together, compelling the reader to wisdom and delight at interlocking, interconnected turns.

All Souls

All Souls, the posthumously published final volume of poems by Saskia Hamilton, conveys a richness of stories in beautifully captured vignettes. As Hamilton writes, “Why retell the stories of those before us? They already spoke them, or held their tongues—fell silent. . . . To say something sincerely yet inauthentically is the danger.” In this work, she avoids that danger, telling each poem in a way that is searingly authentic and resolved.

Hamilton takes bits of history and image, of story and sensory experience, and weaves them together to express something new. The poems organize around the painful, impossible moment when a mother must leave her young son. This devastation circles through the collection, asking the reader what is remembered, retold, forgotten. Remarkable shifts occur between seemingly fragmented moments—between the lyric and narrative, past and present. As you continue to read, the disparate images connect and begin to speak.

Razzle Dazzle

Traveling through Major Jackson’s Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2023 opens a new window to his work. The poems are vibrant and engaging, examining life in America, racial injustice, and the ways that humans and nature intertwine and connect. The poetic influences and legacies that echo through the poems are clear, and there’s a rich sense of community and conversation.

From the fresh images of Jackson’s latest work, like “My mouth puckered whenever lemon-colored / arches appeared five stories above the city / like golden gates to an unforeseen heaven,” we travel into the past to excerpts from Leaving Saturn (2002) before moving forward through the 21 years in between. In addition to the subjects and questions that complicate as they recur, Jackson’s voice and sense of form are impressive. Each line is carefully chosen; each stanza break opens up something new. Selections from Jackson’s The Absurd Man (2020) prove to be particularly compelling as a bookend to the opening section of new poems, titled “Lovesick.” To see Jackson’s recent poems surround and grow out of the earlier ones is a joy.

In each of these collections, from the wide-ranging anthology Personal Best to career-spanning looks at some of today’s most prominent poets, there’s something to surprise and delight every reader, as well as chances to gain insight into the writing process.

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Two turtledoves

Francesca Hornak, Samantha Silva

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Holiday preparations flood our hearts with the warmth of Christmases past—or the echoes of family dinners best forgotten. Wherever your memories lie, two debut works of Christmas fiction are sure to lighten your spirits.

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Megan Angelo

Cursive, privacy and other things worth saving

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Journalist Megan Angelo has written extensively about pop culture, motherhood, womanhood, TV and film for the New York Times, Glamour, Elle and more. Her debut novel, Followers, is a perfect intersection of her passions that delivers a curious tale of three influencers and their followers, from 2015 to 2051.

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