Peddling dangerous drugs to faltering countries has made many a developing nation great. The British sold opium to the Chinese at gunpoint. The American colonies got the British hooked on tobacco. And now Mexico floods the U.S. with the drug du jour. Philip Caputo’s novel Some Rise by Sin concerns one battle in the so-called “war on drugs,” down Mexico way.

Its main character could have walked out of Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. Riordan is an American missionary priest tending to the flock of a place called San Patricio. He likes his tipple, drives a Harley and reads Marcus Aurelius. He is also acrophobic in a country where drug cartels are liable to toss people off cliffs. Joining Riordan in San Patricio are two American lovers, Pamela and Lisette. Pamela is a bipolar artist on various medications; Lisette a doctor. Both seem even more out of place in Mexico than Riordan, who gets into trouble when a hired assassin admits her crime during confession. Riordan must consider breaking his vows of confidentiality. In another nod to Greene, he dwells on the “problem of evil,” viz. how a benevolent Creator allows malevolence.

Caputo does not bog down in theology. His novel is one of action, recalling nothing so much as “Breaking Bad.” But Some Rise by Sin does offer the occasional insight. Caputo points out that the surge in Mexican immigration to the U.S. resulted from NAFTA; the treaty flooded Mexico with cheap American produce, displacing Mexicans from their farms. And Caputo seems aware of the irony that Riordan, in the crosshairs of the drug war, is a fan of tequila and Ambien.

The overall lesson of the novel is a powerful one: Economics trumps morality in shaping the fate of nations.

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce the inspiration behind the title of Rakesh Satyal’s second novel, No One Can Pronounce My Name. Having grown up with a name that can be a tongue twister for white Americans, Satyal understands the bewilderment and frustration of his Indian-American characters all too well. Drawing on his own experiences in Middle America, Satyal follows up his award-winning debut, Blue Boy, with an extraordinarily compassionate work of fiction.

Taking readers into the suburbs of Ohio, Satyal chooses an otherwise unremarkable setting to tell a story that is anything but. He introduces us to Harit, a middle-aged bachelor who ineptly works in a department store by day and dresses up in his deceased sister’s sari at night. We also meet Ranjana, a stifled mother who secretly reads romantic thrillers and dreams of publishing her own stories while worrying her husband is having an affair. Finally, there is Prashant, a Princeton student who is struggling with unrequited longing for an Indian classmate, not to mention his desire to switch his major from chemistry to English literature, but he fears disappointing his parents.

At first, these three strangers’ stories are separate, united only by the common thread of their mutual isolation. Geography, race and culture alienate them from the people around them, but even worse, it has estranged them from their own selves. However, their paths gradually intersect, resulting in relationships that force them to throw open the shutters on their sheltered lives and hearts.

Ambitious in scope, No One Can Pronounce My Name dares to tackle life’s biggest questions, irrespective of nationality. Through a successful blend of pathos and humor, Satyal bravely explores themes of intimacy, identity and sexuality, asking his characters—and his readers—to closely examine the inalienable qualities that make us all human. With emotionally charged prose, he masterfully depicts the modern-day immigrant experience in a manner that is both deeply personal and universally relatable, transforming the foreign into the familiar.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Rakesh Satyal for No One Can Pronounce My Name.

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

Neanderthal kills bison. Neanderthal eats bison. Bear eats bison carcass. Birds clean carcass. Worms spread carcass remains. Rain washes remains into river. Algae grows, fed by decomposing bison. River fish eats algae. All life is connected.

Girl knows this cycle well. One of the last Neanderthals, Girl understands that every step of a hunt affects not only her family but also the animals that surround them. They, too, are animals, and they have respect for their role in the cycle.

In the present day, archaeologist Rosamund Gale believes Neanderthals recognized their interconnectivity, but the scientific world isn’t buying into her ideas. It’s a thrilling moment, then, when Rose uncovers Neanderthal and human skeletons lying side by side. They’re positioned as though the two died staring into one another’s eyes.

Modern humans cling to the idea that Neanderthals were a lesser species, and that’s why Homo sapiens prevailed. Rose is convinced her discovery not only places the two in the same time period, but also suggests Neanderthals even interacted with humans.

In The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron expertly intertwines Girl’s and Rose’s stories. Though they are separated by 40,000 years and exist in almost wholly separate worlds, the women are bonded. They face their bodies’ sexual maturation and capability to create life. They’re challenged by the expectations and limitations of being a woman in their respective times. In turn, Cameron challenges the reader to consider his or her own existence. This is an engaging tale that celebrates the search for life’s meaning and its quotidian nature.

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

Fredrik Backman’s heralded debut novel, A Man Called Ove, was a surprise bestseller that rose steadily in worldwide sales after its initial rejection by all but one publisher. Beartown is Backman’s fourth novel, the tale of the eponymous village on the edge of a forest—probably in Backman’s native Sweden—where ice hockey is the favored sport. Actually, it’s the only sport. Hockey is what keeps this small, declining community alive, especially this year, when the junior team is headed for the national semifinals.

The team revolves around Kevin, its 17-year-old star who got his first hockey stick when he was 3. He’s surrounded by a loyal band of teammates, each of whom would do anything for their captain. Backman deftly portrays how all of Beartown is invested in the future of the hockey club, and this loyalty is reflected in the lives of the general manager and the club’s coaches.

Peter is the GM, an ex-professional player who returned to Beartown with his wife, Kira, and their two children after a brief NHL career in Canada. Sune, his childhood mentor and now the A-team coach, is about to be fired and replaced by the younger, highly competitive coach of the illustrious junior team—and as the novel opens, the club’s board is asking Peter to break the news to his friend.

This is the first hint of a schism, many years in the making, between the townsfolk: those who believe hockey’s purpose is to teach its players lifelong values, and those who view the club as the key to the town’s very survival.

This quiet, deceptively simple story suddenly implodes when Peter’s 15-year-old daughter, Maya, is raped. She said/he said arguments cause rifts between young and old, newcomers and old-timers—even between members of the same family. Backman traces the impact of this one violent act, not just on Maya and her family, but on all the inhabitants of Beartown­, and the lingering effects often ignored in the all-too-similar accounts of sexual violence we read in the news almost daily, wherever we live.

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

In Sara Baume’s second novel, A Line Made by Walking, we meet Frankie on the cusp of turning 26, seemingly posed for a conventional coming-of-age story—until she’s unable to swallow, hear or pull herself up off the old carpet.

Frankie, determined if nothing else, hopes to regain her footing and find some artistic inspiration by moving into her grandma’s vacant house in the Irish countryside. Solitary among the green pastures, roaming cows and plenty of dead wild things, Frankie reflects on her life and takes stock of exactly why happiness has eluded her so far.

Throughout her reverie, readers meet Frankie at different ages and phases of life, always surrounded by the loving company of family, friends and a creative community. And in each scenario, she is hopelessly incapable of dwelling in that comfort and that sense of belonging. Artists often hold a divergent view of the same world we share, and Baume takes full advantage of this ethos, using Frankie’s reflections and wavering mental health as a way to keep us guessing whether her perpetual suffering and experiments are a form of art in itself.

There is no denying that A Line Made by Walking is full of sadness and pain, but with captivating writing, a vivid rural landscape and frequent references to famous works of art, Baume creates a layered experience that leaves the reader nurtured and restored. For artists and lovers of art, this will be an extra-special treat.

RELATED CONTENT: Read a Q&A with Sara Baume for A Line Made by Walking.

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

Bernhard Schlink is best known for his internationally successful novel The Reader (1997), and he returns to the themes of passion and loss in The Woman on the Stairs, about a German lawyer who stumbles onto a nude painting of a woman for whom he once risked his career and who then mysteriously disappeared from his life.

When the nameless protagonist is in Sydney working on a case, he comes across a familiar painting in a local museum. Decades earlier, as a young lawyer in Frankfurt, he became entangled in an affair involving an artist, a woman named Irene and her art collector husband, who commissioned the aforementioned painting of the unfaithful Irene. Hired to mediate a series of conflicts involving damage and restoration of the canvas, the lawyer fell in love with Irene, who in turn convinced him to help her steal the painting, promising she would run away with him if they were successful. The day he helped her was the last day he saw her.

The lawyer is able to locate Irene with the help of a local detective. Living in a remote area outside of Sydney, Irene is now leading a quiet life, assisting her elderly neighbors and growing her own food. It also becomes apparent that she is quite ill. Irene’s life of passion forces the lawyer to come to terms with his own losses and to understand that many of his choices were merely reactions to the coldness that he experienced as a child.

Schlink, a professor of law in both Germany and the United States, writes with lawyerly precision, and his protagonist’s midlife search for meaning is thought-provoking and surprisingly tender, though some of the characters never fully come to life. The Woman on the Stairs will appeal to readers as an exploration of the moral ambiguities of blame and guilt and the ethical issues of ownership.

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