Lynn (the Grecian Women series) frames this vibrant retelling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone as “the story of a mother’s loss.” After Demeter is raped by her brother Zeus, she gives birth to twins Core and Iacchus. While Iacchus emulates his father’s violence, Core becomes the center of her mother’s world. Zeus again devastates Demeter by killing her mortal lover, Iaison, with a lightning bolt, prompting Demeter to take Core from Olympus to her home on Earth. There, Demeter allows Core to roam freely, leading to her abduction by the love-starved Hades, who’d misinterpreted Core’s friendliness to him during a brief encounter centuries earlier. Lynn impresses with her ability to make her divine characters come across both as impossibly powerful and deeply vulnerable, portraying Demeter’s anguish at the loss of Core, who renames herself Persephone in the underworld, and Core’s despair over being separated from the open air and greenery she’d reveled in. This stands out from the pack of feminist takes on Greek mythology. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

This superb work of autofiction from Xi (1937–2022), which was originally published in 1992, melds an account of the author’s breast cancer with a reflection on the subjective nature of translation. While showering one day, Xi discovers a lump in her breast, which she initially takes to be a hive, though she’s soon diagnosed with breast cancer. She checks into the hospital for a mastectomy, and while awaiting the procedure, she compares three translations of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary—two in English and one in Chinese—and is struck by their varying interpretations of the novel. In Xi’s hands, the act of translation becomes a metaphor for the work of doctors and vice versa, as she considers that even though doctors are experts at interpreting the body’s signals, they don’t always reach the same conclusions as to diagnoses or treatments (“Dare I say that it is impossible to have a single, absolute translation, whether now or in the future?”). These insights inform Xi’s own misreading of her body and her consideration of the different types of treatment available—she compares the “benevolent” plant-based Chinese medicine to the “slaughterhouse” of Western surgeries, the latter of which she embraces as her best hope for survival. Xi’s matter-of-fact prose and in-depth analysis are deeply satisfying. This is a must. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Thompson debuts with the moody and moving chronicle of a complicated friendship between two young men. In the first sentence, the reader learns from Theron, the 30-something narrator, that his friend Jake recently died in a car accident. Theron then rewinds to 2004, when he’s 15 and he follows his father from Los Angeles to New Hampshire after his parents split. He gets a job at the local hardware store, where Jake, who’s two years older, is the manager. Their meeting is a “sea change” for Theron, who feels a “spike of desire” for Jake as they smoke weed and bond over their love of Metallica. From there, Theron’s obsession with Jake propels the nonlinear narrative as it touches down at different points in their timeline—there’s heartache when Jake bails on plans to visit him in Los Angeles in 2009, and excitement when they finally reunite in New York City a few years later, where Theron has recently graduated from NYU and is in an on-and-off relationship with his girlfriend. Thompson skillfully captures Theron’s vulnerability, especially when the two men finally act on their mutual attraction and later when Theron deals with the impact of Jake’s death. This marks Thompson as a writer to watch. Agent: Duvall Osteen, UTA. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Heglar’s spirited debut novel layers a story of climate change activism in 2014 Mississippi with a parallel narrative of the 1950s civil rights movement. Corrine, a 20-year-old Oberlin undergrad from historic Port Gibson, Miss., is unnerved by scientists’ predictions of global catastrophe due to climate change. After Corrine’s older brother, Cameron, dies in an accident aboard an oil tanker on the Mississippi River, she grows disenchanted with campus climate demonstrations and wishes she could do something meaningful to honor his memory. A direct action would risk upsetting her grandmother, Cora, who’s not only grieving her grandson’s death but also nursing wounds from her girlhood, when she was at the center of protests over the integration of the Nashville Public School System. When Cora learns Corrine is plotting to trespass on a bridge and mount a protest banner, memories of death threats, school bombings, and hostile classmates come flooding back. Though the characters are underdeveloped, Heglar writes intriguingly of the long trail of injustice faced by subsequent generations of Americans. Readers of message-driven fiction will appreciate this. (May)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

In Ward’s engrossing latest (after The Lifeguards), three American sisters confront their family’s complicated dynamics on the eve of the youngest’s second wedding. Miami school librarian Sylvie Peacock has been on her own since her husband died 10 years earlier, but when she meets wealthy Englishman Simon Rampling on an app for book lovers, she’s charmed by his kindness and passion for bird photography, and swept off her feet by stories of his family castle in northern England. Though part of her feels like she’s betraying her late husband, she accepts his marriage proposal after a mere three months of dating. Her glamorous oldest sister, Cleo, learns shortly before traveling to England for the wedding that Simon derived his wealth from a divorce, and itches to tell Sylvie the truth. Another narrative thread involves middle sister Emma, who’s risked her own family’s well-being by sinking their savings into a pyramid scheme. Much drama ensues at Simon’s castle when the sisters converge along with their narcissistic mother, Donna. Ward’s character work is top-notch, conveying Cleo’s savior complex and Donna’s negative impact on her children. This is a cut above the standard for women’s fiction. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

The insightful latest from Kamali (The Stationary Shop) chronicles the decades-long friendship of two Iranian women whose lives are upended by their country’s political upheaval. After seven-year-old Ellie’s father dies from tuberculosis in 1950, she and her mother are forced to move to a smaller apartment in one of Tehran’s poorer neighborhoods. At her new school, Ellie befriends a spirited classmate named Homa. Several years later, Ellie’s mother remarries and they move to a better neighborhood, causing the girls to lose touch. Ellie later attends a prestigious high school and is mortified when Homa, who she now views as uncouth, becomes her classmate and greets her in front of her new friends (“Homa was my past. My two worlds were not supposed to collide”). They eventually rekindle their friendship, but are once again divided when Homa is imprisoned for protesting the shah in 1963. Later sections follow a married Ellie in 1981 New York City, where she receives a desperate letter sent by Homa from Tehran. Though there’s not much of a plot, Kamali sustains the reader’s interest by exploring the contrasts and sustained connection between the two central characters. This will resonate with fans of women’s fiction. Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Assoc. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Originally published in 2008, this penetrating novel from Lim (Search History) follows divorced couple Jim Fog and Sarah Car as they venture unsteadily on separate paths. In the novel’s first part, the chapters are alternately titled “Mr. Fog” and “Ms. Car,” and convey resonant observations in short, impressionistic paragraphs (“Clear, empty days like this, one after another”). In the second part, which marks a shift to longer paragraphs and more substantive action, Jim moves in with a woman named Judy, who surprises him by suggesting an open relationship. No matter how much distance they put between each other, Jim and Sarah remain linked via their mutual friend Frank, whom Sarah half-heartedly pursues romantically. After she’s been divorced for three years, Sarah toys in the novel’s third and final section with the idea of traveling, though she doesn’t know where she’d go. Her newfound resolve suggests progress, though Lim’s subtly ironic narration calls that into question (“That day’s hope proved to be deceptive... nothing changed”). Lim’s fans will be happy to see this distinctive early work back in print. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Min’s assured debut, told in reverse chronology, follows a wealthy Shanghai family from 2040 to 2014. Real estate investor Leo Yang stays behind in Shanghai as his wife, Eko, travels with their two oldest daughters, Yumi and Yoko, to the U.S. When Yoko confesses her pregnancy to Eko, the two secretly reroute to Paris for an abortion, which is now illegal in America. One year earlier, their youngest daughter, Kiko, works as an escort, and in 2034, Leo, who has episodes of “manic paranoia” fueled by apocalyptic fears, forces the family to practice survival skills on a farm outside town. Other episodes depict a 2028 princess party for Kiko, and Leo’s tentative start at building his fortune in 2014, the year he and Eko marry. Though the main characters are somewhat underdeveloped, Min casts a sharper eye on the family’s employees, especially their nanny, who must come to terms with the fact that the bond she feels with the children is not mutual. Though the disparate threads don’t quite cohere, they credibly reflect the messiness of family. Min is a writer worth keeping tabs on. Agent: Stephanie Delman, Trellis Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

A Vietnamese woman becomes an amateur sleuth after her mother’s accidental death in the intriguing latest from Thuân (Chinatown). The unnamed 30-year-old narrator, a single mother, teaches Vietnamese language classes in Paris and is occasionally mistaken for her mixed-race son’s nanny. After her mother dies in a mysterious accident at her brother’s house in Saigon, she returns to Vietnam for the funeral. There, she finds an old notebook of her mother’s containing a yellowed photo of a Parisian man named Paul Polotsky. Soon after, she learns from another man that her mother knew Polotsky when she was a political prisoner during the Vietnam War. That information dredges up memories of a fight she remembers her parents having about her mother’s mysteriously quick release from prison. Back in Paris, the narrator searches for Polotsky, hoping to uncover the truth of her mother’s past. Thuân draws ingeniously on the pacing and tropes of detective fiction to craft a layered tale of family secrets. Readers will be rapt. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

A professional video poker player gets caught in a downward spiral in Iacovelli’s caustic debut. The unnamed narrator makes daily trips from his home on the Nevada-Arizona border to Las Vegas, where he’s on a two-week losing streak. His depression is exacerbated by the recent death of his hero, golfer Arnold Palmer, and he worries his previous winnings have given him the “illusion of meaning.” A widower on his second marriage, he struggles to connect with his 15-year-old son, Tim, an elite youth soccer player. After Tim declines to accompany the narrator on a road trip to Palm Springs, where he wants to place flowers at the site of Palmer’s victory in the 1973 U.S. Open, the narrator stays home and polishes his guns. Then his wife takes Tim to Italy for a soccer tryout, and the narrator hires a Vegas escort named Sophia. From there, the plot veers toward a grim climax, as the narrator hatches a sinister plan. Iacovelli imbues the narrator’s rants with an uncompromising precision; to him, Burberry perfume smells like “rotten fruit tossed in a blender with noxious chemicals.” It’s hard to look away from this disturbing character study. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink