This week: the book that changed America, and an early candidate for the best graphic biography of 2017.
City of Saints & Thieves
Tina has been living on the streets of (the fictional) Sangui City in Kenya since her mother’s murder at the home of Roland Greyhill, her mother’s employer and the father of Tina’s half-sister, Kiki. Recruited by the Goondas, a gang of orphans and street kids, Tina is the only girl trained to become a foot soldier. As she learns skills to become an accomplished thief, she lives by a series of rules, including “Rule 3: thieves don’t have friends” and “Rule 15: a rule from my mother: run.” As Tina gets closer to exacting revenge for her mother’s death, she discovers that she may not have all the facts. Debut author Anderson, a former aid worker, deftly addresses issues in the region in this fast-paced thriller, highlighting the struggles of refugees in war-torn eastern Congo and the human rights violations that women in particular face. Using a smattering of Swahili, Sheng (street slang), and French, Anderson adeptly uses language to bring Tina’s world to life as she carefully traces her heroine’s history to reveal a shocking truth.
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
In this “financial recapitulation of black bodies and souls,” Berry, associate professor of history and African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, examines how slaveholders ascribed pecuniary worth to women, men, and children. Slavery took many forms across the antebellum U.S., but all enslaved people experienced their reduction to the status of chattel, bought and sold at their owner’s will. Yet surprisingly little scholarship has examined the monetary value of these individuals, whose worth increased from infancy through adolescence, peaking at the height of their productive and reproductive capacities, and declining steadily to the point where the elderly were considered nearly valueless. Upon their deaths, they might regain some financial significance, as the bodies of many were sold to medical schools for purposes of dissection. Crucially, Berry also delves into the annals of slave communities to explore the emotional strategies by which the enslaved resisted their reduction to an “exchangeable commodity,” centering their lives on spiritual beliefs that defined the soul, rather than the body, as the true location of their individuality. Berry’s groundbreaking work in the historiography of American slavery deserves a wide readership beyond academia.
The Trapped Girl
In Dugoni’s outstanding fourth Tracy Crosswhite mystery (after 2016’s In the Clearing), the Seattle homicide detective investigates the death of Andrea Strickland, a young woman whose body a fisherman finds in a crab pot raised from the sea. Andrea, who was reported missing after a treacherous mountain hike, was already presumed to be dead. The victim’s husband is the prime suspect and the beneficiary of a sizable life insurance policy. As the plot twists and turns, Tracy is struck by the similarities between her own life and Andrea’s: both suffered family tragedies and rigidly structured their lives to compensate for the loss. For Tracy, solving the case is personal—but on a different level than the murder of her sister years before. In less deft hands this tale wouldn’t hold water, but Dugoni presents his victim’s life in discrete pieces, each revealing a bit more about Andrea and her struggle to find happiness. Tracy’s quest to uncover the truth leads her into life-altering peril in this exceptional installment.
This Is How It Always Is
Frankel's third novel is about the large, rambunctious Walsh-Adams family. While Penn writes his "DN" (damn novel) and spins fractured fairy tales from the family's ramshackle farmhouse in Madison, Wis., Rosie works as an emergency physician. Four sons have made the happily married couple exhausted and wanting a daughter; alas, their fifth is another boy. Extraordinarily verbal little Claude is quirky and clever, traits that run in the family, and at age three says, "I want to be a girl." Claude is the focus, but Frankel captures the older brothers' boyish grossness. She also fleshes out his two eldest brothers, who worry about Claude's safety when Rosie and Penn agree that Claude can be Poppy at school. But coming out further isolates this unique child. Encouragement from a therapist and an accepting grandma can go just so far; Poppy only blossoms after the Walsh-Adamses move to progressive Seattle and keep her trans status private, although what is good for Poppy is increasingly difficult on her brothers. The story takes a darker turn when she is outed; Rosie and her youngest must find their footing while Penn stays at home with the other kids. Frankel's (The Atlas of Love) slightly askew voice, exemplified by Rosie and Penn's nontraditional gender roles, keeps the narrative sharp and surprising. This is a wonderfully contradictory story—heartwarming and generous, yet written with a wry sensibility.
The Book That Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation
In this inventive work, which weaves two powerful events into a vibrant tapestry of antebellum intellectual life, Fuller (From Battlefields Rising), professor of English at the University of Tulsa, beautifully describes how the engagement by a group of Transcendentalists with Darwin’s newly published On the Origin of Species deepened their commitment to the antislavery movement. Still reeling from abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Transcendentalists (and Brown supporters) Franklin Sanborn, Charles Loring Brace, Bronson Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau quickly devoured Darwin’s book and recommended it to others. All people were biologically related, Darwin’s work hinted, which Transcendentalists interpreted as a repudiation of the belief that “African-American slaves were a separate, inferior species.” Fuller shares the Transcendentalists’ knack for clearly presenting complex ideas. He nimbly traverses the details of the scientific debate between Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz and Asa Gray over the theories of polygenism and evolution. There’s a glimpse of Louisa May Alcott, inspired by Darwin’s book to write a daring story of interracial love. Elegant writing and an unusual approach to interpreting the time period make this a must-read for everyone interested in Civil War–era history.
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan
Gilligan makes a stellar U.S. debut with this wistful and lyrical multigenerational tale linking the struggles of two immigrant Jewish families in Dublin with an Irish Catholic woman’s complicated relationship with her Jewish lover. The book is narrated by the three central characters: Ruth, who emigrates with her family from Lithuania in 1901 and winds up in Cork; Shem, struck mute after discovering his adored mother’s shocking secret, and then institutionalized in 1958; and Aisling, a journalist expat in London in 2011 who must decide whether to convert to Judaism to marry boyfriend Noah. These characters long for acceptance and freedom within the rigid strictures of culture and religion. Gilligan weaves a mesmerizing blend of plot and character while exploring themes of assimilation and displacement, suggesting what binds us all is storytelling; a book on Jewish conversion links Aisling and Sham, while Ruth, as a midwife, reprises her aspiring playwright father’s “forgotten ideas” and “all the little Irish snippets” of her youth.
Allegedly
Mary Addison, a black 15-year-old from Brooklyn, has been locked up in “baby jail” for six years, after allegedly killing a three-month-old white child. Now living in a group home, Mary is bright, quiet, and well behaved, which makes her the target of the more aggressive girls in the home. Her one escape is volunteering at a nursing home and having secret assignations with Ted, a fellow volunteer also living in a group home. When Mary becomes pregnant and faces losing custody of the baby, she comes forward with a startling confession: she didn’t kill Alyssa. Threaded with media accounts of Alyssa’s killing and police interviews with the nine-year-old Mary, Jackson’s debut is reminiscent of the popular true crime podcasts Serial and Criminal: the characters are complex, the situation unsettling, and the line between right and wrong hopelessly blurred. It’s also intensely relevant, addressing race, age, and mental illness within the criminal justice system. Well conceived and executed, this is an absorbing and exceptional first novel.
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
Acclaimed journalist Kinzer (The Brothers) spotlights the domestic discord and clamor over America’s imperial ventures at the dawn of the 20th century. After a century of continental expansion, the U.S. encountered the opportunity to expand overseas by capturing Spanish colonial possessions and other territories and peoples within its reach. The nation plunged into arguably “the farthest-reaching debate” in its history with political and intellectual giants contesting “the imperial idea” to determine America’s place in the world and in history. Expansionists proclaimed benevolent intent and a civilizing mission while touting the economic benefits of conquest; anti-imperialists recalled America’s anticolonial origins and condemned imperialist violence and brutality. The former largely triumphed, as the U.S. soon controlled Cuba and annexed Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines in a swift series of subjugations. In Kinzer’s gripping narrative, the egotistical Theodore Roosevelt emerges in his aggressively hypermasculine fashion as the most outspoken expansionist, while Mark Twain embarks on the “least-known phase of his career” to resist the violent drive toward empire. Kinzer ably conveys the passion and ferment of this brief period, situating this grand debate in the context of U.S. foreign policy history and convincingly arguing that the imperial/anti-imperial dichotomy remains a dominant feature of the American psyche.
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game
Friends since meeting in a casual soccer game, novelist, poet, and translator Ekelund (Malmo Dockers, Report!) and bestselling novelist Knausgaard (My Struggle) have very different opinions about how the beautiful game should be played. Knausgaard believes in “Protestant football,” where “efficiency, graft, pain, and suffering” win games. Ekelund prefers the “Dionysian” jogo bonito style of Brazil. In this fantastic book of correspondence covering the 2014 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, the two writers send reports back and forth (sometimes several times a day) analyzing and contextualizing the ups and downs of the sensational tournament, but also spinning off on tangents about the events of their daily lives, the state of global politics, and the relationship between writing and soccer; nothing is off the table in their free-wheeling, deeply personal letters. As the book progresses, readers can see Knausgaard and Ekelund learning from each other, realizing new desires and prejudices, reevaluating former positions, repositioning themselves. The discourse is so open, so productive and thoughtful, that when readers reach the final letter, from Ekelund, sadness takes over.
The Signal Flame
National Book Award–finalist Krivák continues in the tradition of his debut (The Sojourn) with this bleak but breathtaking second novel. The book opens with the death of the family patriarch, Jozef Vinich, who leaves his sprawling farm in Pennsylvania’s rural Endless Mountains to his daughter, Hannah, and oldest grandson, Bo. While Bo runs the roughing mill, Hannah tends the chickens, and the two await the return of Bo’s brother, Sam, who is reported MIA in Vietnam. Told in three parts stretching from Easter to Christmas Eve 1972, the narrative soon picks up steam with the addition of Ruth, Sam’s pregnant fiancée, and the daughter of the man responsible for killing Hannah’s husband in a hunting mishap. By the third section, more backstory has been revealed—Ruth’s ancestors’ ties to Vinich’s land, Sam’s reasons for enlisting, Hannah’s long-held grudge against Ruth’s father—adding texture and depth to the family’s already rich history. Devastating accidents befall these characters and the heartache they endure is palpable. But there’s love, too. This family saga is quiet at its core, but it’s Krivák’s gorgeous prose and deep grasp of the relationship between longing and loss that make the book such a stunner.
Paris Spring
Fans of John le Carré and Len Deighton will welcome Naughtie's superior spy thriller, a prequel to 2014's The Madness of July. The characters' struggles between personal and public responsibilities play out against a background rarely used in espionage fiction—the growing unrest in Paris in April 1968. The city is "on the brink of an eruption," as an author's note explains, after Charles de Gaulle's government proves to be unprepared for France's "cauldron of youthful anti-establishment unrest." British operative Will Flemyng, who appeared in the previous book as a government minister, is approached by a German man calling himself Kristof, who quickly gets Will's attention by promising to reveal something very interesting about Will's younger brother, Abel. Kristof's suggestion that Abel is working against the West puts Will in a tough place, as he tries to do his duty to both his country and his kin. Will's juggling act becomes trickier after the body of an American reporter, Grace Quincey, turns up in the Père Lachaise cemetery. Naughtie draws on his experience as a political correspondent for the Washington Post and Britain's the Guardian to make the story's dramatic developments plausible.
The Abominable Mr. Seabrook
Comprising 10 years of painstaking research, this graphic biography details the life of obscure writer, occultist, traveler, and bondage fanatic William Seabrook, perhaps best known for his book Asylum, an account of his hospitalization. Telling Seabrook’s story with his characteristic thick line work, Ollmann wades into the bizarre corners of his subject’s life, from the connection he formed as a child to his grandmother’s mysticism, to his inability to find happiness in his various vocations, to his crazy adventures, penchant for tying up women, and serial alcoholism. Previously known for his autobiographical work Mid-Life, Ollmann skillfully captures Seabrook’s ardent desire to experience life and write about it even as he’s killing himself with drink. Seabrook is just the sort of character that Ollmann is so good at rendering: a complicated, misunderstood, and underappreciated mess of a person whose life was fascinating and whose appetites were, quite literally, as strange as they come. As both a narrative and a story in pictures, this is an early candidate for the year’s best graphic biography.
A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life
Novelist and essayist Waldman (Bad Mother)—mother of four, married to another high-profile writer (Michael Chabon)—worked as a federal public defender and taught at prestigious law schools. After struggling with mood swings and bouts of depression, Waldman becomes a “self-study psychedelic researcher,” taking small doses of LSD on repeating three-day cycles and discovers plenty to exonerate the illicit substance. It’s a major departure for the author of novels and a mystery series, and though the book’s subtitle broadcasts the happy ending, the hows and whys of her journey are the great payoffs. Waldman structures the book as a diary of her microdosing protocol, but each entry is a launchpad for topics on which she speaks frankly and knowledgeably. Her journal tackles drug policy, her days as an attorney, parenting, writing, and marriage maintenance. It’s a highly engaging combination of research and self-discovery, laced with some endearingly honest comic moments. She is exactly the sort of sensible, middle-aged, switched-on, spontaneous woman whom any reader would enjoy taking a trip with. Waldman, by her own account, is firmly in control when it comes to controlled substances: she doesn’t want to feel out of it; she just wants to get on with it.
The Murderer’s Ape
Sally Jones is a top-notch engineer, excels at chess, and exceeds expectations at every turn—that she is a gorilla may be the least interesting thing about her. Working aboard a cargo ship, the Hudson Queen, with her dear friend Chief, Sally Jones is content and safe, but when a job goes awry, Chief lands in prison for murder and only Sally Jones knows he is innocent. Determined to clear his name, the indomitable gorilla forges unexpected friendships, travels countless miles, and barely survives death on numerous occasions. Meticulous black-and-white character illustrations introduce key players at the novel’s start, and spot illustrations adorn the heading of each chapter, offer tempting glimpses of what awaits. Originally published in Sweden and ostensibly typed out by the gorilla on a typewriter, Wegelius’s story is a thrilling adventure, but it’s Sally Jones’s devotion to her friends and poignant observations that set it apart (“Poor Chief,” she thinks after his arrest. “The accident wasn’t his fault, but he would never forgive himself, I knew that”). Prepare to meet the remarkable Sally Jones; you won’t soon forget her.
