Triptych

Time travel, aliens, and the politics of sexuality combine with tragic violence in Frey's deeply satisfying debut. Aliens seeking refuge from their broken planet find it on peaceful Earth. Gwen Pierson and Basil Grey work for the U.N., helping the aliens to integrate. When alien Kalp joins their team, they learn that Kalp's people mate in threes, and soon the trio become the first human%E2%80%93alien marriage. Violent protests and assassinations threaten to unravel the fragile trust between the refugees and their human hosts, so Gwen and Basil follow the assassins%E2%80%94back in time to the 1980s, where Gwen's parents are still adjusting to raising newborn Gwennie. The near paradox is appropriately disorienting, but the story is so well-grounded in the characters that it never once loses its course. Frey tells the story from varying points of view in distinct voices, imagining a world at once completely alien and utterly human. (May)