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When Driss Guerraoui, the owner of a diner near Joshua Tree National Park, leaves his restaurant one night, he’s killed in a mysterious hit-and-run while crossing the street. But this wasn’t an accident; it was murder, concludes his daughter Nora, as a variety of surprising details about her father’s life emerge. He was, after all, feuding with Anderson Baker, the owner of the bowling alley next door.

As aspiring composer Nora returns to her hometown to help run the family diner and grieve with her mother and sister, she encounters a variety of ghosts from her childhood, including Baker’s son, A.J., who in high school wrote “raghead” on her locker, bullying her because her parents emigrated from Morocco out of fear of political unrest.

Moroccan-born Laila Lalami was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Moor’s Account, and her much-anticipated fourth book, The Other Americans, doesn’t disappoint. The story carefully unfolds from multiple viewpoints, including that of Nora’s immigrant mother, Maryam; her jealous and seemingly highly successful sister, Salma; and even her dead father. There’s also Detective Coleman, an African-American woman investigating the case, as well as a Mexican immigrant who witnessed Driss’ death and remains haunted by his ghost but is afraid to come forward and risk deportation. Nora also reconnects with her high school friend Jeremy, now an Iraq War veteran and sheriff’s deputy.

Lalami’s crisp, straightforward prose offers the perfect counterpoint to the complexity of her plot, which artfully interweaves past and present. Reminiscent of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth in its depiction of the enduring effects of family secrets and betrayals, The Other Americans also addresses a multitude of other issues—immigration, prejudice, post-traumatic stress, love and murder—with what can only be described as magical finesse.

When Driss Guerraoui, the owner of a diner near Joshua Tree National Park, leaves his restaurant one night, he’s killed in a mysterious hit-and-run while crossing the street. But this wasn’t an accident; it was murder, concludes his daughter Nora, as a variety of surprising details about her father’s life emerge. He was, after all, feuding with Anderson Baker, the owner of the bowling alley next door.

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Sally Rooney became a literary sensation in her native Ireland with the release of her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, in 2017. Now, the brilliant, Booker Prize-nominated Normal People has only enhanced her reputation.

The novel is partly set in the small Irish town of Carricklea. Sixteen-year-olds Marianne and Connell attend the same school but are worlds apart socially and financially. Marianne is plump, uncool and unliked. She comes from a well-off family, which isolates her from her blue-collar classmates. The star of the football team, Connell, is a slightly aloof, decent, sweetly unassuming guy who picks his mother up from her cleaning job.

A clandestine affair starts between the two, but at school Connell barely acknowledges Marianne. Marianne is treated badly at home, too, where she is ignored by her widowed mother and bullied by her brother. Connell’s casual cruelty evokes all the insecurities of teen life, of fitting in and worrying about what people think. It sets a precedent: Marianne longs for Connell’s love, and he appears unable to give it. The complex relationship between the two—their incredible closeness and dysfunction—is masterfully done.

Both Marianne and Connell receive academic scholarships to Trinity College in Dublin, and over the years, their lives bisect and cross. Marianne becomes popular, while Connell becomes introverted and distant. They become best friends, relying on each other’s counsel as they both enter into new relationships. But there is also a fractious, complicated longing that neither seems to know how to handle. Marianne’s bad choices in boyfriends—bullies and emotional abusers—only put Connell’s qualities in sharp relief. But he, too, is suffering. Depression sees him visiting a therapist and scuppers his relationship with a college girlfriend. 

The quality of Rooney’s writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists’ true selves. Ultimately, when life bashes them and there is nowhere to turn, they find they always have each other.

Sixteen-year-olds Marianne and Connell attend the same school but are worlds apart socially and financially. Marianne is plump, uncool and unliked. She comes from a well-off family, which isolates her from her blue-collar classmates. The star of the football team, Connell, is a slightly aloof, decent, sweetly unassuming guy who picks his mother up from her cleaning job.

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If you’re a scientist, you tend to believe in facts, not ghosts. You can imagine, then, how MIT professor of theoretical physics Helen Clapp must feel when she starts receiving text messages from her friend, Charlotte “Charlie” Boyce, shortly after Charlie’s early death. 

That’s the premise with which Nell Freudenberger opens her third novel, Lost and Wanted. And what a novel it is, a work about cold, hard science that is also a warm and insightful look into human relationships and the mysteries of time.

Charlie and Helen, who met at Harvard during freshman orientation in 1989, came from disparate backgrounds. They were, respectively, “an upper-middle-class black girl from Brookline and a work-study white science nerd from Pasadena.” Helen became a physicist, wrote two popular books for laypersons about quantum cosmology and black holes, and co-published a celebrated model for “quark gluon plasma as a black hole in curved five-dimensional space-time” with a former boyfriend named Neel Jonnal. 

Charlie, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles and became an executive television producer. She had a daughter after marrying a “blindingly attractive” surfer whose brother was in jail for drug possession. But life wasn’t always easy for Charlie. At Harvard, a professor’s advances persuaded her to abandon her thesis on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of Dangerous Liaisons, and give up her dreams of studying at Oxford. Later, she contracted the lupus that led to her death.

Shortly after Charlie dies, Helen’s 7-year-old son, Jack, whom she had through an anonymous donor, claims to have seen a ghost in their house. And that’s when the texts start arriving, messages containing information that only Charlie could have known. 

Also arriving in Massachusetts: Charlie’s surfer husband, who plans to live with his in-laws, and Helen’s former boyfriend Neel, who accepts an MIT post to continue groundbreaking work on gravitational waves. 

Refreshingly, the science in Lost and Wanted is never window dressing, as the technical concepts that Freudenberger describes at length are integral to the plot. And the story takes unexpected turns on its way to a heartbreaking conclusion. It is a magnificent novel.

If you’re a scientist, you tend to believe in facts, not ghosts. You can imagine, then, how MIT professor of theoretical physics Helen Clapp must feel when she starts receiving text messages from her friend, Charlotte “Charlie” Boyce, shortly after Charlie’s early death. 

In his 2001 collection of poems, Landscape with Chainsaw, James Lasdun staked his claim as a poet who finds the best words about the most difficult things: displacement, broken dreams, the fragile integrity of nature and the just-as-fragile nature of integrity. Since then, Lasdun has found an equally impressive place in the field of fiction. His latest novel demands no less acclaim than his poetry and is no less exquisite in its crafting.

Afternoon of a Faun is a sustained meditation on the #MeToo movement, shining uncompromising light into the darkest areas of our current malaise—this surreal era in which a person called to administer our nation’s highest justice can be publicly accused of having perpetrated unconscionable sexual offenses.

It is the maddening elusiveness of facts that motivates and saturates Lasdun’s novel. Marco Rosedale, a celebrated English journalist, finds himself accused by a former colleague of sexually assaulting her decades earlier. Julia Gault intends to publish an account of the incident in her memoir. Rosedale fights back with the help of his famous father, one of the most distinguished lawyers in the United Kingdom. As layer upon hidden layer of the story unfolds, the first-person narrator (who is Marco’s closest friend) discovers his feelings about Marco and Julia (whom he also knows personally) radiating into disturbing regions of his own accountability.

Without spoiling anything, I want to bear witness to this novel’s most unnerving aspect: the Heisenbergian principle that no one—not any of us—can stand by and observe a desperate situation without actually affecting and even abetting its outcome. In Stéphane Mallarmé’s haunting poem “Afternoon of a Faun” (the origin of Lasdun’s title) and Debussy’s great musical setting of it, an oversexed mythical creature cannot even remember whether or not he has ravished the nymphs. The elusiveness of facts turns out to be, tragically, the foundation of myth.

In his 2001 collection of poems, Landscape With Chainsaw, James Lasdun staked his claim as a poet who finds the best words about the most difficult things: displacement, broken dreams, the fragile integrity of nature and the just-as-fragile nature of integrity. Since then, Lasdun has found an equally impressive place in the field of fiction. His latest novel demands no less than his poetry, and is no less exquisite in its crafting.

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Andrea Rothman’s debut novel tells the story of Emily Apell, an accomplished scientist who studies smell: “Smell is an illusion, my father used to tell me: invisible molecules in the air converted by my brain into cinnamon, cut grass, burning wood.” Illusion or not, Emily’s work is certainly illusive. Allergic to cut grass from a young age and raised by a scientist single father, Emily comes to a new job at a laboratory in New York City, where she is hired to map how smell is processed.

Emily’s research is closely related to that of two other lab workers, Aeden and Allegra, who are less than thrilled with Emily’s presence. As Aeden and Allegra’s research misses its mark, Emily pulls Aeden onto her project, which has the potential to be a success. And despite her usual lone-wolf nature, Emily is attracted to Aeden. 

Emily and Aeden’s research progresses, as does their relationship, and soon Emily finds herself at a crossroads: She can continue with her career aspirations or leave the lab with Aeden and explore whether the things society wants for her—a husband and children—are things she actually wants for herself.

With crisp descriptions and keen observations, author and neuroscientist Rothman creates a realistic picture of the life of a scientific researcher, including the long, lonely hours in a lab, the envious and possessive behavior of other scientists and the highly competitive nature of publishing scientific results. Fresh and intelligent, The DNA of You and Me is a tale of a modern woman in science, though it can be enjoyed by any reader working to balance career ambitions with the possibility of a family.

Andrea Rothman’s debut novel tells the story of Emily Apell, an accomplished scientist who studies smell.

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Krungthep, Bangkok, New Krungthep—the Thai capital city goes by many names and assumes many, ever-changing facades in Bangkok Wakes to Rain. Past and future intermingle like the waters that converge in the Chao Phraya river running through the heart of the city. 

Pitchaya Sudbanthad’s first novel ranges wide in time and scope, and the author masterfully captures dozens of different voices and thoughts in his vast cast: the vagabond photographer who avoids returning to his ancestral home; a 19th-century missionary doctor who wants nothing more than a transfer to another posting when he first arrives in Siam; studious young swimmer Mai who achieves success in business that is the stuff of sci-fi dreams; a wandering jazz pianist who goes by “Crazy Legs” and plays for hours in the nightclubs; sisters Nee and Nok, who find themselves forever affected by the student political protests of the 1970s. Teenage girls obsessed with their looks grow into mothers, spouses cheat, parents age and die, and sons and daughters are born. 

This ambitious novel’s many overlapping stories chart a fast pace, and at times, the connective thread between them gets muddled. Sudbanthad’s narrative flits around and back and forth, much like the colorful parrots that inhabit the old colonial house at the epicenter of the novel and, later, the animatronic birds used to scan the infrastructure of the city in a technologically advanced future. The lives of the people who call, or once called, Krungthep home are inextricably tied to this place.

In this city prone to flooding, rain is a constant, continually washing away what once was. And yet, in the words of a mother, “truth lingers, unseen like phantoms but there to rattle and scream wherever people try hardest to forget.”

Krungthep, Bangkok, New Krungthep—the Thai capital city goes by many names and assumes many, ever-changing facades in Bangkok Wakes to Rain. Past and future intermingle like the waters that converge in the Chao Phraya river running through the heart of the city. 

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The wonderful debut novel from Emmy-winning journalist Anissa Gray, who has a background in English and American Literature, is a brilliant culmination of her talents. Its remarkable craftsmanship and honest, pure tone make it an absolute pleasure to read. Comparisons to Brit Bennett’s The Mothers are spot on, and Gray’s penetrating prose is also reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s work.

The novel follows a family of three grown sisters after Althea, the oldest sister and the family matriarch, is sent to jail along with her husband. Her sisters, Viola and Lillian, must rise to the occasion to care for Althea’s twin daughters. While each woman battles demons of her own, they take turns carrying the story, each adding a beautiful and vivid layer to the plot as the narrative torch is passed. 

Viola, the middle sister, struggles with the eating disorder that has plagued her for years. As she contemplates whether or not she has what it takes to raise her teenage nieces, she’s also trying to reconcile her own marriage. Lillian, the youngest, has tenaciously held onto and restored her family’s old house, a place where she experienced profound pain and loneliness during her adolescence. She has a history of taking on the responsibilities of other people’s families: Along with Althea’s twin daughters, Lillian cares for her late ex-husband’s grandmother, Nai Nai. Althea’s twins are as different as sisters can be and have dealt with the fallout of their parents’ incarceration in vastly different ways. When Kim, the more headstrong of the twins, goes missing, Lillian and Violet must band together to bring her home.

The fourth narrator is Proctor, Althea’s husband, whose capacity for love is apparent in his letters to his wife. Through these letters, Proctor offers a subtle but brilliant contrast to the women’s internal monologues. Through these intimate perspectives, the family becomes a breathing entity, giving space to peripheral characters such as the parents (both deceased) and the brother, a troubled teen turned preacher. 

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls has an unforgettable force. Gray possesses the ability to avoid judging her flawed, utterly human characters, who are without exception crafted from the heart.

The wonderful debut novel from Emmy-winning journalist Anissa Gray follows a family of three grown sisters after Althea, the oldest sister and the family matriarch, is sent to jail along with her husband. Her sisters, Viola and Lillian, must rise to the occasion to care for Althea’s twin daughters. While each woman battles demons of her own, they take turns carrying the story, each adding a beautiful and vivid layer to the plot as the narrative torch is passed. 

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The Irish have a reputation, deserved or not, for being storytellers, drinkers and fighters, not necessarily in that order. Eighty-four-year-old Maurice Hannigan, the gruff, unsparing narrator of Dublin-born writer Anne Griffin’s satisfying first novel, When All Is Said, is no exception. 

Without informing his son, Maurice has sold his home and farm, given away his dog and told everyone he is retiring to a nursing home. First, though, is a nightlong stop at the well-appointed bar of the Rainsford House Hotel, where Maurice will raise a glass five times to five different people, and remember, as he says, “All that I have been and all that I will never be again.”

Maurice’s full and prosperous life is now filled with ghosts: the older brother he watched waste away with tuberculosis; his daughter, Molly, a stillborn he held for just 15 minutes but has seen every day of his life; and his beloved wife, Sadie, who has been dead two years to the day he steps into the bar. His son, whom he loves with a fierceness more evident for his inability to express it, lives across the ocean in New Jersey and has a family of his own. 

So it’s alone Maurice sits, toasting and remembering. In a rough-hewn voice smoothed by whiskey and as mesmerizing as a coiled cobra, he spills out a life of joy and regrets, full of tender love and bitter, enduring hatred, by turns accepting his sins and mitigating them. As he toasts and talks, a mystery surfaces. Why, after all those close-mouthed decades, is Maurice finally opening up? Is he really going to a nursing home, a place he’s about as well-suited for as for a yurt? Or does he have another destination in mind? 

Griffin, the author of numerous short stories, is an exciting new voice in Irish literature. Her versatility makes When All Is Said a pleasure to read. Maurice’s story is told with wry humor and pathos that avoids sentimentality, giving us a clear-eyed look at a man fumbling with a question we all must eventually face: What do you do with your life when all you have left are memories and regrets?

Without informing his son, Maurice has sold his home and farm, given away his dog and told everyone he is retiring to a nursing home. First, though, is a nightlong stop at the well-appointed bar of the Rainsford House Hotel, where Maurice will raise a glass five times to five different people, and remember, as he says, “All that I have been and all that I will never be again.”

After a break-in at her home in which she is forced to defend herself from an assassin, Marie Mitchell decides to document her life for the benefit of her children in case she is one day killed. So begins Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel, American Spy, which chronicles the life of a black woman recruited to the CIA during the height of the Cold War.

In the ensuing pages, Marie recounts her early childhood infatuation with spies, such as James Bond in Goldfinger, and her own family’s role in law enforcement, from her father’s position in the Harlem police department to her sister Helene’s work as an Army intelligence officer. Even though she proves more than adept at both physical combat techniques and mental manipulation of her own “recruits”—the kind of stuff that only the best spies are capable of—Marie is consigned to being a paper pusher for much of her career in the FBI. So she is more than surprised when she is approached to work undercover for the CIA in a high-profile case.

The CIA needs Marie to get close to and undermine Robert Sankara, the revolutionary president of the tiny West African nation of Burkina Faso. At first, Marie is reluctant to accept the job, but her desire to make something more of her life—and perhaps her despair over the mysterious death of her sister—convinces her otherwise. Taking on the task becomes more than complicated, however, when she develops a real affection for Sankara, who will eventually father her two boys, thereby causing her to question her loyalty to the U.S. and its policies.

While not as complex as a John le Carré spy thriller, Wilkinson’s debut is both emotional and poignant, and one that readers can easily get caught up in.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book feature from Lauren Wilkinson on American Spy.

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

After a break-in at her home in which she is forced to defend herself from an assassin, Marie Mitchell decides to document her life for the benefit of her children in case she is one day killed. So begins Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel, American Spy, which chronicles the life of a black woman recruited to the CIA during the height of the Cold War.

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Every society has a founding myth that they tell themselves to explain why they came to be and what they value. The same is true for families, and it is certainly true of the Deyalsinghs of Trinidad in Claire Adam’s excellent debut novel. The overarching myth of this family—which includes Clyde, Joy and their twin sons, Peter and Paul, all descended from Indian immigrants—is that studious Peter is the golden child. Paul, born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, is a “little retarded.” In such families—and such societies—the myth is so all-encompassing that they believe that without it they will crumble. And they’re willing to sacrifice a great deal to keep it.

The tragedy is that Paul is not “retarded” at all. He’s dyslexic and may be on the spectrum, but he’s also perceptive, observant, brave and even bold. But even though his family loves him, those qualities don’t matter much.

One night, Paul runs away after an argument with his father. That scene opens the book, and the rest of the novel describes what led up to the day when Paul went missing in the bush and what happens after.

Adam was born in Trinidad and has a razor-sharp understanding of its society. If you’ve been to the Caribbean, you’ve seen a house like the Deyalsinghs’: low to the ground, faced with cinder blocks or stucco, with a roof of corrugated metal or tile, protected—imperfectly—by grates painted a lovely pastel color. Adam allows us to share in Joy’s resignation when the water pressure in the tiny house goes out, to know what it feels like to slosh through a monsoon and to imagine food that ranges from traditional rotis, curries and melongene choka to packets of Chee Zees. The author shows how American culture has infiltrated the island nation, from Kentucky Fried Chicken joints to movies and TV. And then there are the Deyalsinghs themselves, their neighbors and their somewhat nutty extended family. They are good and generous people—but the Deyalsinghs, especially Clyde, believe what they believe, and they’re sticking to it.

Golden Child is one of those uncommon debut novels that makes you eager to see what its author does next.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Every society has a founding myth that they tell themselves to explain why they came to be and what they value. The same is true for families, and it is certainly true of the Deyalsinghs of Trinidad in Claire Adam’s excellent debut novel.

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BookPage starred review, February 2019

Valeria Luiselli’s fourth novel takes readers on a contemplative road trip from New York City to the American Southwest. A blended family of four—parents and their two children, a boy, 10, and a girl, 5—is relocating so the father can research Apache history for a new project. The mother is going on the thin hope of locating the daughters of a friend, two young girls who attempted to cross the border from Mexico in search of asylum. But both parents know the marriage is winding down, and the mother and her daughter will return to the city after the summer is over.

As they wend their way through the Appalachians, across Oklahoma and into the desert, the father tells stories of the Apaches’ civilization and its eventual exile and defeat, while the mother frets over the fates of migrant children and dreads her separation from the boy in the back seat. During the drive, the children read books and learn all the words to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” seemingly ignorant of their parents’ burdens.

Lost Children Archive isn’t a stream-of-consciousness story, but it reads almost like a memory. It unfolds in short, vignettelike scenes and takes you deep into the head space of its narrators. The first half, told by the mother, is meandering, the current-day journey interspersed with sketches from her earlier life and scenes from a book called Elegies, which tells the stories of migrant children. In the second half, told through the boy’s eyes, the stakes become higher and the action ramps up. Luiselli is a deliberate yet imaginative writer, and her work as an advocate for asylum-seekers informs the novel’s skillful blend of family story and issue-driven themes.

The characters join a long line of people forced to face separation and relocation to unfamiliar territory, their current situation an echo of so many others, from enslaved Africans to Apaches and today’s child refugees. These echoes will remain in the mind of the reader as well.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Valeria Luiselli for Lost Children Archive.

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Valeria Luiselli’s fourth novel takes readers on a contemplative road trip from New York City to the American Southwest.

Elsey once had a strong sense of self. She was an artist, an American expat in Ireland whose paintings drew acclaim. But she’s now lost in marriage, motherhood and alcohol. Elsey moved from Ireland to China to settle in with Lukas, the Danish DJ she met at a rave. Two children later, Elsey knows who is supposed to take precedence in her life—and it’s no longer herself. When Lukas suggests Elsey participate in a weeklong yoga retreat in the mountains, Elsey sees it as an ultimatum. If she doesn’t take this time away, their marriage will unravel. So she accepts.

The retreat is a challenge. Elsey struggles to be vulnerable during the regular Talking Circles, and her mind is constantly focused on drinking—or not drinking. Elsey thinks, “I had two small girls. I would stop drinking. I know this is what Lukas thought. But drinking doesn’t work like that, and my need for it was stronger than I realized.”

Throughout the retreat, Elsey reflects on her sense of self and the people around her. They become touchstones of sorts, pointing Elsey back to herself. One of the women, Mei, is also wrestling with a marriage that isn’t what she’d hoped. “I want to be the heroine of my story. And you, too, Elsey. You, too, be the heroine,” Mei says. “Not the victim. Understand? Because the heroine is the one who owns the story.”

Susan Conley’s Elsey Come Home is a quiet, contemplative portrait of a woman searching for herself in the midst of the mundane.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Elsey once had a strong sense of self. She was an artist, an American expat in Ireland whose paintings drew acclaim. But she’s now lost in marriage, motherhood and alcohol. Elsey moved from Ireland to China to settle in with Lukas, the Danish DJ she met at a rave. Two children later, Elsey knows who is supposed to take precedence in her life—and it’s no longer herself. When Lukas suggests Elsey participate in a weeklong yoga retreat in the mountains, Elsey sees it as an ultimatum. If she doesn’t take this time away, their marriage will unravel. So she accepts.

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BookPage Top Pick in Fiction, January 2019

The 30-year bond between two couples is irrevocably broken when one of the friends abruptly dies in Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day. This well-drawn and absorbing character study bears all the hallmarks of Hadley’s best work: It’s perceptive, intelligent and written with astonishing emotional depth.

Serious but artistic Christine and dreamy, sensuous Lydia have been friends since school. During college, Lydia nursed an unrequited crush on their married French teacher, Alexandr, and Christine began a romance with his friend Zachary. Over the years, the relationships slowly shifted, and the women reallocated their affections without any apparent bitterness or jealousies. Lydia and Zachary eventually married and had a daughter; shortly after, Alex and Christine did the same. The two couples remained active in each other’s lives, socializing, traveling together and eventually working together when Christine began to show her art in Zachary’s gallery. Even their daughters became good friends.

But Zachary’s sudden death from a massive heart attack disturbs the equilibrium. At first, the remaining three are committed to providing comfort and solace for each other. Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine, and Alex goes to Glasgow to bring Lydia and Zachary’s daughter home from college. But without Zachary to stabilize the quartet, old grievances rise up and unhealed wounds are opened. For Christine, Zachary’s death means that she can no longer find a reason to make art. She locks the door to her studio and grows quietly resentful of her husband and best friend. On the other hand, Lydia finds new strength, deciding to be more involved in the business of the gallery and her departed husband’s family trust.

As in Hadley’s earlier novels (The Past and Clever Girl), sexual desire proves an overwhelming force that shapes decisions and actions, but Late in the Day is also about the remaking of an artist and the emergence of self, even in middle age. A master of interpersonal dynamics, Hadley captures the complexity of loss, grief and friendship with a clarity of vision that brings the natural and material worlds into sharp focus.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Tessa Hadley for Late in the Day.

The 30-year bond between two couples is irrevocably broken when one of the friends abruptly dies in Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day. This well-drawn and absorbing character study bears all the hallmarks of Hadley’s best work: It’s perceptive, intelligent and written with astonishing emotional depth.

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