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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.
FictionHistorical Fiction

Night Watch

Review by Harvey Freedenberg

Jayne Anne Phillips transitioned from highly praised short stories to novels in 1984, and several years have stretched between each new work. But that’s only part of what makes Night Watch such a meaningful literary event. Tracing an arc from catastrophic damage and loss to recovery through the Civil War and its aftermath, Phillips marries a timeless emotional quality and utterly contemporary sensibility to create a satisfying work in her first novel in a decade.

Much of the story is told in the observant but occasionally naive voice of ConaLee, a 12-year-old girl born in the first year of the war in the mountainous territory of West Virginia. She’s the offspring of a couple who migrated north from a plantation in South Carolina’s Low Country in the company of a compassionate “woods doctor” named Dearbhla, whom the girl thinks of as her “granny neighbor.” When the novel opens in 1874, ConaLee and her mother are being deposited at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (a real institution) by a former Confederate soldier ConaLee has come to know as “Papa,” even though he has been physically and psychologically abusing her mother.

More than a decade earlier, ConaLee’s real father had also shed his identity to enlist in the Union Army as a sharpshooter. After he was grievously wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864, he spent months at a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, recovering from his injuries. He eventually healed physically, though with all memory of his former life erased. The novel devotes most of its attention to ConaLee’s mother’s return to sanity through the innovative methods implemented at the hospital by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, while the fate of her husband remains a lingering mystery.

How Phillips knits these two main threads together won’t be revealed here, because the novel features a healthy number of complications that bring the story to its resolution and will delight fans of plot-driven fiction. Phillips is also a sensuous writer, and the novel features numerous examples of captivating depictions of unspoiled nature. One of the most vivid scenes is a description of the sharpshooter’s last experience of combat that captures both the terror and exhilaration of war. Night Watch is escapist in the best sense of the word, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the experience of a distant era and identify deeply with the struggles of the people who lived through it.

Night Watch is escapist in the best sense of the word, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the experience of a distant era and identify deeply with the struggles of the people who lived through it.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The Golden Gate

Review by Alice Cary

You’ve got to hand it to Amy Chua. The Yale law school professor made a name for herself with her much-discussed 2011 parenting book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and now she’s written The Golden Gate, a jampacked historical mystery set in San Francisco in 1944. Detective Al Sullivan happens to be at the Claremont Hotel on the night that someone tries to kill wealthy presidential candidate Walter Wilkinson not once, but twice. The second time, the attempt is successful, and the high-profile murder leads Sullivan down a rabbit hole of an investigation that gives Chua ample opportunities to explore midcentury San Francisco, especially the many social and economic injustices of the era. 

Suspicion for Wilkinson’s murder largely falls on the three granddaughters of wealthy socialite Genevieve Bainbridge, shifting from one to the other and back again. One of them, Isabella, was part of another Claremont Hotel tragedy in 1930. When she was 6, her older sister, Iris, was found dead in the laundry chute after a game of hide-and-seek, and as Sullivan delves into the case, he suspects there may be links between that tragedy and Wilkinson’s murder. This aspect of the case as well as the Bainbridge characters are intriguing, although Chua’s repeated returns to Genevieve’s deposition regarding Wilkinson’s murder slow down the novel’s momentum.

Narrator Sullivan is a likable guide as well as a savvy investigator whose background gives him a unique perspective on the intersections of race, class and power that the case brings to light. His given name is Alejo Gutiérrez—he’s half Mexican, half Jewish American—and years ago, his father was forcefully “repatriated” to Mexico. He’s also caring for his 11-year-old niece Miriam, whose mother seems to have disappeared, and their relationship provides a snappy side plot.

Along the way, readers are briefly introduced to a variety of historical figures, including Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, architect Julia Morgan, Margaret “Mom” Chung (the first female Chinese American doctor in the United States) and Berkeley police chief August Vollmer, called “the father of modern policing.” The Golden Gate is an overly sprawling novel, but readers will be both entertained and enriched by its historical details

Readers will be entertained and enriched by Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua’s debut historical mystery, The Golden Gate.
FictionHistorical Fiction

North Woods

Review by Alden Mudge

Many are the delights and wonders of Daniel Mason’s North Woods, a novel so lush with stories and moods that it defies adequate description.

The story begins when a young couple are driven from their Puritan colony—him for reputedly consorting with heathens, and her to escape marriage to a minister twice her age—to a wild, idyllic place in the north woods. Then we shift to a vivid captivity tale, in which a young mother and her child are kidnapped from their village by Native American raiders and deposited by their captors into the care of an old woman living in an ancient hut in the north woods; eventually, soldiers arrive with ideas other than rescue. Next there is a memoir by one Charles Osgood, a veteran of the French and Indian War, worrisomely obsessed with finding and propagating the perfect apple. Osgood dies fighting on the loyalist side of the American Revolution and leaves his orchards to his twin daughters, Alice and Mary. Divided by jealousy and bound by love and guilt, they bring destruction to the orchards and his flocks.

Later a slave hunter stalks an escapee on her way to Canada. A 19th-century painter writes revelatory letters to his beloved and famous novelist friend. The sensual, alluring charlatan Madame Rossi arrives to conduct a seance. Included amid these stories are verses, riddles, ballads and even an erotic tale of the elm bark beetle. The inhabitants, owners, visitors, ghosts and the very forest itself transform over time. On it goes, in love and madness, to the present day.

North Woods is a love poem to the human and natural history of Western Massachusetts. One of the novel’s enticements is the exuberant descriptions of evolving nature. Another is discerning the relationships among the succession of occupants here in the north woods. Most brilliant of all is the novel’s daring storytelling, through which its tales come spectacularly to life. They are wise, profound, chilling, carnal and funny. North Woods is an amazing and deeply pleasurable tour de force.

North Woods is a love poem to the human and natural history of Western Massachusetts, full of tales that come spectacularly to life through Daniel Mason’s daring storytelling.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Oh, Olive!

Review by Jill Lorenzini

“Oh, Olive!” is something Olive hears a lot. Born to somber shape-painting artists, Olive stands out due to her colorful creations and exuberant personality. Olive has no qualms about painting on anything—or anyone—and doggedly paints how SHE wants to paint, refusing to create the stolid shapes requested by her parents and teachers. Will the rest of the world ever see the genius she knows she possesses? Perfect for classrooms, art rooms and bedtime, Oh, Olive! is a charming reminder to paint what is in your heart, because it takes all kinds of artists to make the world a more beautiful place.

Author and illustrator Lian Cho emulates her own protagonist by creating artwork that effortlessly conveys the story on its own. Oh, Olive! begins with an orderly little black-and-white town, rife with bustling details. It is perfectly amiable, perfectly pleasant . . . perfectly dull. Enter Olive and her flamboyant colors. One can sense Cho’s own glee in creating Olive’s work, which cannot be contained to Olive’s canvas. It speckles and spatters and erupts from the monotone backdrop in stunning fashion. Cho’s art throughout is clever and humorous, keeping the reader’s eye bouncing from scene to scene. Cho captures Olive’s resolute personality, from messy toddler finger painting to child artist curating shows for her stuffed animals. Keen-eyed readers will also notice the ever-present triangles, circles and squares reflected in the designs of the town and the characters themselves. The facial expressions of the townsfolk and especially Olive’s parents are hilarious.

Cho wisely keeps the narration straightforward, with a very subtle undercurrent of Olive’s subversion peeking through. There are many things to admire about this creative picture book: What particularly stands out is how Olive never wavers in her determination or enthusiasm. She keeps painting, knowing the world needs artists like her. For children who have ever felt like they don’t quite match up or fit in, Oh, Olive! will encourage them to paint on like Olive, because everyone has something special to give.

Perfect for classrooms, art rooms and bedtime, Oh, Olive! is a charming reminder to paint what is in your heart, because it takes all kinds of artists to make the world a more beautiful place.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

The Last Devil to Die

Review by Jamie Orsini

Richard Osman tackles more than murder in The Last Devil to Die, his emotional latest installment of the Thursday Murder Club series.

The sleuthing pensioners of the Thursday Murder Club—Elizabeth, a former MI5 agent; Joyce, a retired nurse; Ibrahim, a psychiatrist; and Ron, a longtime union leader—are ready to enjoy a quiet Christmas season when they learn that a friend of theirs has been murdered. Antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma helped the group unravel their last mystery; now, he’s been shot execution-style after receiving a suspicious package. The gang quickly launches an investigation, headquartered at their Coopers Chase Retirement Village. DCI Chris Hudson, PC Donna De Freitas and Bogdan Jankowsi return to help the Thursday Murder Club as they interview drug dealers, art fraudsters and professors while trying to figure out who killed Kuldesh and why.

The Last Devil to Die offers more than the tightly plotted mystery that readers have come to expect from Osman’s work. Elizabeth, who usually spearheads the pensioners’ investigations, takes a step back in this novel to spend time with her husband, Stephen, while they grapple with his progressing dementia. Rather than focusing on the life and death stakes of a murder investigation, Elizabeth and Stephen’s story is a meditation on love and grief. Osman delivers some of the most poetic and emotionally resonant writing of the series with their storyline.

Elizabeth’s absence means that Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron step into new investigative roles, with delightful results. Their humor and lighthearted banter carry the novel through the deadly investigation to its satisfying conclusion. And happily, it seems another Coopers Chase resident is joining the group. Bob Whittaker, aka Computer Bob, doesn’t seem fazed by his new friends’ dangerous interests—a sure sign he’ll fit right in with the brave, meddlesome Thursday Murder Club.

The Last Devil to Die is equal parts well-plotted mystery, scintillating repartee and deep reflection on what it means to love and live.

The Last Devil to Die is equal parts well-plotted mystery, scintillating repartee and deep reflection on what it means to love and live.
FictionSpeculative FictionLiterary Fiction

People Collide

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

Isle McElroy’s second novel, People Collide, is a body-swapping, Kafkaesque story that explores gender, identity and how well we can know one another.

On a fall afternoon, Eli arrives at his wife Elizabeth’s classroom at the end of the school day and can’t understand why Elizabeth’s boss is suddenly calling him Elizabeth. Slowly, Eli comes to understand that he is somehow inhabiting Elizabeth’s body, even as his memories and thoughts remain his own. And, just as mysterious, he discovers that Elizabeth has disappeared.

Both Eli and Elizabeth are writers, though Elizabeth is the more ambitious, accomplished one—and she’s been awarded a teaching fellowship in Bulgaria. Eli has tagged along for a year of expat life, adjusting to their too-small studio apartment and the moody southern Bulgarian city, and trying to write. So even before “The Incident,” as he calls it, Eli and Elizabeth are unsettled, foreigners in a foreign place. As Eli copes with this strange new reality and struggles to credibly inhabit Elizabeth’s body, he searches for his lost wife. Misunderstandings abound; their handful of friends, along with Eli’s mother and Elizabeth’s parents, all think that Eli has abandoned Elizabeth, though it’s Elizabeth (in Eli’s body) who has left.

People Collide asks questions about gender, desire, marriage and family dynamics as it offers mysteries for Eli to solve. Where has Elizabeth gone? Is she still in Europe? And is she, in fact, in Eli’s body, as he is in hers? And if Eli-as-Elizabeth finds Elizabeth-as-Eli, what happens then? It’s not a spoiler to say that Eli does find Elizabeth, and McElroy’s language in describing the couple’s encounters is inventive and sometimes funny.

Later sections of the novel move into Elizabeth’s point of view, and then into the perspective of Johanna, Elizabeth’s mother, who sees 28-year-old Elizabeth and Eli as not-quite-adults. These late sections are quite moving, as Eli and Elizabeth slowly come to a changed understanding of themselves, one another and their parents. People Collide is a distinctive and atmospheric novel.

People Collide is an inventive and atmospheric body-swapping novel that raises questions about gender, desire, marriage and family dynamics.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Remember Us

Review by Alice Cary

Remember Us packs an understated but powerful punch. National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical coming-of-age novel is set in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1970s, when people called Bushwick “the Matchbox” because so many houses and buildings were burning down—some purposely set on fire by their own landlords in hopes of collecting insurance money. Although Remember Us is fiction, Woodson notes in an afterword that the novel is inspired by her own childhood: “We knew people who had lost their homes to fire, and my family worried about our own house going up in flames.”

For 12-year-old narrator Sage, who dreams of becoming the first woman player in the NBA, seventh grade is “the year when, one by one, the buildings on Palmetto melted into a mass of rock and ash and crumbled plaster.” It’s also the year that she befriends Freddy, who shares her love of basketball.

Sage’s deep sense of nostalgia intertwines with a palpable fear of those fires, which act as a metaphor for Sage’s recognition that her body and her world are changing: The present is constantly turning into the “once was.” Sage and her mother live in the boyhood home of Sage’s late father, who belonged to the Vulcan Society (a fraternity of Black firemen) and died in a fire. Although Sage hardly remembers him, she cherishes using his basketball. “He, too, was a part of the once was,” she muses. “And soon I’d be part of the once was of Bushwick, of my block, of the park and the hundreds of basketball games I’d played there.”

Remember Us has the feel of a new classic, ageless in its universal themes while wonderfully rendering a specific time and place. The pure magic of this novel is that Woodson somehow makes readers feel as though they are experiencing these moments of growing up along with Sage. Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball—among quiet, reflective scenes while responding to Sage’s weighty fears with reassurance about the permeance of loving memories.

Jacqueline Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball—among quiet, reflective scenes while responding to her protagonist’s weighty fears with reassurance about the permeance of loving memories.
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.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Scroll

Review by Jill Lorenzini

Grandpa is teaching Lulu and her dog, Dumpling, the art of drawing ancient Chinese characters. But when Grandpa dozes off, Lulu draws the character for door—which becomes a real portal to a fantastic adventure. It’s a good thing Lulu paid close attention to Grandpa’s lessons, because she is going to need her new skills to save the day. Written and illustrated by Hui Li, Scroll is a beautifully drawn, cleverly told tale of bravery and wit.

Artistically, Scroll is one of the most unique books on shelves today. Li uses a combination of multiple media on watercolor paper to create a soft, washed and welcoming backdrop. Lulu’s bright red overalls stand out against the muted environment of Lulu and Grandpa’s home, which is calm but full of detail. When Lulu and Dumpling go through the door into a magical village, Li’s art shifts from simply charming to mesmerizing. The village and its boats, houses, fish, nets and people are full of life and personality. But what makes the art truly remarkable is that each one is stunningly wrought from ancient Chinese characters. Little red boxes across the top of each page explain each character used, but this key is hardly needed since Li incorporates them in ways that make it easy to understand their meanings. Li’s style culminates in a dangerous battle scene that is one of the most unique and stunning bits of picture book art this reviewer has ever seen.

The narration is carried by simple and forthright dialogue as Lulu talks herself through each challenge, which helps the reader feel like part of the journey. Both the front and back matter give an intriguing peek into the rich history of Chinese language and culture, but ultimately, Li’s story is accessible even without any prior knowledge.

Scroll is deceptively modest, starting with its cover, which depicts a writing lesson that blossoms into one of the most unique stories of the year—one that is as educational as it is entertaining. As Lulu discovers, wonders await those who take a chance and dive in.

A writing lesson in Scroll blossoms into a magical adventure with ancient Chinese characters in one of the most unique stories of the year—one that is as educational as it is entertaining.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Starling House

Review by Alice Cary

Ever since I was a kid, I have loved reading books featuring a haunted house with a creepy resident; a feisty, determined heroine; and strange goings-on that gradually turn scary. But rarely, if ever, have I read a haunted house book that features such gorgeous prose as Alix E. Harrow’s latest novel, Starling House. Early on, Harrow describes how 26-year-old narrator Opal McCoy has been dreaming of the titular house since she was a child: “I often wake up with the taste of river water and blood in my mouth, broken glass in my hair, a scream drowning in my chest. But that morning, the first one after I set foot on Starling land, there’s nothing but a deep quiet inside me, like the dead air between radio stations.” 

Opal works hard at Tractor Supply Company to try to save enough money to send her younger brother, Jasper, to a fancy boarding school. Their mother died a mysterious death, their father has never been in the picture and they live in a dingy motel room in the dying town of Eden, Kentucky. Opal is desperate to escape Eden, which offers nothing much besides two Dollar Generals and a strip-mined stretch of riverbank, thanks to the operations of nearby Gravely Power. 

The big, churning wheels of this lusciously plotted book begin to quickly turn when Opal takes a job cleaning for Starling House’s current owner, a reclusive young man named Arthur Starling. Opal finds herself increasingly intrigued by Arthur despite his odd ways and off-putting looks. But Gravely Power representative Elizabeth Baine, in hopes of obtaining the mineral rights to Arthur’s land, demands that Opal spy on Arthur and his residence, threatening Jasper’s future if she declines.

Alix E. Harrow had never written about her home state—until she left it.

Harrow invents a rich backstory for Starling House, making clever use of footnotes and even a fake Wikipedia page for 19th-century author Eleanor Starling, who married into the family and wrote and illustrated an unsettling children’s book, which may have been the source of Opal’s Starling House nightmares. Opal uncovers many different versions of the same stories about the house and its inhabitants, past and present, and the truth is hard to sort out. “The Gravelys are either victims or villains; Eleanor Starling is either a wicked woman or a desperate girl. Eden is either cursed, or merely getting its comeuppance,” she concludes.

Excellent social commentary unfolds in the matchup between feisty, sarcastic Opal and the greedy power company. Harrow has tons of fun along the way, noting in Eleanor Starling’s Wikipedia page, for instance, that “director Guillermo del Toro has praised E. Starling’s work, and thanked her for teaching him that ‘the purpose of fantasy is not to make the world prettier, but to lay it bare.’ ” Alix Harrow does just that in Starling House, a riveting fantasy overflowing with ideas and energy that clears away the cobwebs of corporate power and neglect.

Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House is a riveting Southern gothic fantasy with gorgeous prose and excellent social commentary.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Sword Catcher

Review by Ralph Harris

In addition to being Crown Prince Conor of Castellane’s lifelong, loyal friend, Kellian “Kel” Saren is his Sword Catcher, a bodyguard and body double. He trained to intercept, protect and, ultimately, die for Conor’s safety. Lin Caster is a young physician and a member of the Ashkar people, a minority group that possesses a rare magical ability called gematry. The practice of embedding spells in talismans or objects, gematry is considered the weakest of the elder magics, but it is the only one still in existence.

Bestselling YA author Cassandra Clare spends a large amount of Sword Catcher, the first book in a fantasy trilogy and her first work for adults, building out the city-state of Castellane while Kel and Lin shed their naivete and expand their worldviews. Kel begins to see that Castellane has secrets which even he is not privy to. And Lin, having fought to be the only female physician among the Ashkari, discovers a stone of secret, magical history that could be the key to curing her terminally ill friend. Throughout the story, Kel and Lin’s paths rarely cross; their stories run parallel but for a few chance twists of fate.

How a bookseller helped inspire Cassandra Clare’s adult debut.

Kel is the himbo best friend everyone wants in their life and can’t hope to deserve. He is irrefutably loyal to Conor and always wants to do what is right. While a well-trained fighter, Kel is not quite bright enough to consider the consequences of every action he or Conor makes. This lack of awareness could have made Kel obnoxious, but instead he’s endearing, like a friend who still needs to learn how to change a tire.

Lin on the other hand, is brash and bullheaded, burning bridges faster than she can build them. Orphaned as a child and abandoned by her grandfather, Lin has had to fight for everything, learning medicine with significantly less resources than her male peers within the Ashkari or the malbushim (the Ashkari word for “outsider”) doctors in Castellane. Like Kel, Lin has an understandable but extremely narrow perspective: She does not immediately recognize imminent danger to one of her clients, and accepts invitations from curious people in terrifying carriages. (Kel does this as well; apparently “stranger danger” is not a commonly taught concept in Castellane.) However, also like Kel, Lin’s adolescent perspective is amusing rather than grating.

Sword Catcher is a fun, light story for fantasy fans looking to dip into a new world. Clare fills the pages with fascinating details about Castellane’s magic, politics and dangerous secrets, and pulls off several excellent twists. However, few of these setups lead to satisfying payoffs: Sword Catcher is very much the first part of a larger story, and contains almost no complete arcs within its pages. Readers looking for closed narrative loops should look elsewhere, but all others will enjoy the entertaining characters and setting of Clare’s series starter.

In her first novel for adults, Cassandra Clare introduces readers to a city-state filled with magic and secrets.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

The Burning of the World

Review by Alden Mudge

When the Great Fire burst forth on the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871, Chicago had only been incorporated for 34 years. But it was already an economic powerhouse and its population had reached 300,000, more than half of them immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany. The city’s elite—people like merchandiser Marshall Field, “a thin, trim, unfailingly dapper man,” and timber baron and railroad executive William Butler Ogden—hailed from the eastern establishment and were leery of immigrants and fearful of common people holding political power.

The Burning of the World: The Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul, Scott W. Berg’s fascinating account of the disastrous fire, is detailed and often thrilling. In so many ways, the devastation could have been avoided but for a compounding of errors: a signal sending firefighters to the wrong location, firefighters exhausted and unprepared because of a large fire the day before and more. Berg describes the firefighting technologies of the day and the poor neighborhoods, shops and lumber yards that fueled the fire. Through brilliant miniature biographies of many involved—Field, newspaper editor and future mayor Joseph Medill, Army General Phil Sheridan, city alderman Charles C.P. Holden—he gives us a feel for the history and culture being consumed by the flames and the seeds of conflict that will flower after the flames are extinguished.

Berg, it turns out, is just as interested in the political firestorm that followed. In his telling, the Chicago business elite seized the opportunity to wrest control of the city from a popularly elected alderman. In an election immediately after the fire, a “reform” group tried to institute measures that harmed workers. They sought to enforce a ban on alcohol sales on Sundays, the only day off for most laborers. They took control of the flood of donations pouring into the city and doled out assistance only to people who could prove their moral worth. They tried to force everyone to rebuild in brick instead of wood, a sensible-seeming measure, except that such homes were well beyond the means of many.

In the following election, the elite-backed reformers were booted and the system of Chicago neighborhood politics was born. The Burning of the World is an absorbing story, and Berg, clearly a lover of rowdy Chicago, tells it well.

The Burning of the World is an absorbing Windy City history, and Scott W. Berg, clearly a lover of rowdy Chicago, tells it well.

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