This week: the first great novel of 2016, plus Bill Bryson's latest.
The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson (Doubleday) - Bryson returns to his adopted country of Britain to revisit some of his favorite sites in this followup to his bestselling Notes from a Small Island, published in 1996. He discovers that some of these places, like Dorset, a coastal city Bryson describes as "rolling perfection," remain relatively unchanged, while others have changed for better or worse. He reports that Manchester, a city he took to task in his earlier effort, has improved, though many of his compliments are backhanded. As usual, he scatters an entertaining mix of wacky anecdotes and factoids (e.g., during an eight-week period in 2009, four people in Britain were fatally trampled by cows) throughout, but his enduring mix of wonder and irascibility is what carries readers through his travels. His wry observations and self-deprecating humor keep him from coming off as a bitter cynic, and his lyrical way with words keeps the pages turning.
Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press) - Buruma (Year Zero: A History of 1945) delivers a moving, intimate portrait of his grandparents, Bernard and Winifred “Win” Schlesinger (the parents of film director John Schlesinger, of Midnight Cowboy fame), through a close reading of their correspondence from 1915 to 1945. In a fluid, novelistic narrative, Buruma not only captures a remarkable marriage, but also a particular segment of English society—assimilated, upper-middle-class Jews. He shows his grandparents as “outsiders who were insiders too,” whose enthusiastic embrace of English culture, if seemingly excessive at times, reflected gratitude that England, unlike their parents’ birthplace of Germany, didn’t betray its Jewish citizens. The excerpted letters depict Bernard and Win during their first courtship, interrupted by his service in France in WWI; during her days at Cambridge and his at Oxford; and during their later separation during WWII, when Win saw how life carried on as usual in London even as England’s fate “was being decided in the skies,” and Bernard, an Army doctor, witnessed the Empire’s waning days in India.
The Radiant Road by Katherine Catmull (Dutton) - Clare Macleod learns that she is the guardian of a gate between worlds in this numinous fantasy from Catmull (Summer and Bird). When Clare was small, before her mother died, her family lived in an ancient stone house in modern Ireland with a living yew tree in it. After years of aimless grief, Clare and her father return to the house, and Clare finds that the tree has a door. On the other side of the door is a boy named Finn, who isn’t exactly human, and both Finn and the doors are threatened by a vicious enemy. Catmull’s take on fairies uses conventional elements in original ways, building a stunningly atmospheric, gorgeously complicated dream of a book. Genuinely frightening and eerie moments are drawn as masterfully as the joyous, glowing, peculiar images that populate Catmull’s version of a world inexorably linked to, yet separate from, our own.
The Goblin's Puzzle by Andrew Chilton, illus. by Jensine Eckwall (Knopf) - Debut author Chilton combines the unpredictability of a Monty Python skit with traces of the Brothers Grimm as he zigzags among the stories of an unnamed young slave, who escapes his master and soon becomes tied to a mischievous goblin; Plain Alice, the daughter of a sage desperate to follow in her father’s footsteps; and Princess Alice, slated to rule West Stanhope if she can elude both a dragon and marriage to the treacherous Duke Geoffrey. The characters, hailing from the Middle Eastern–inspired High Albemarle and the medievalesque Middlebury, learn that only logic and bravery will thwart dangerous foes, such as a princess-eating ogre, as they make their way from the dragon’s lair to Princess Alice’s home. Threaded between daring adventures and rhetorical arguments is the unnamed boy’s dilemma over his fate.
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (FSG) - The first great novel of 2016, Greenwell’s debut relays the story of an unnamed American college professor, living and teaching in Bulgaria, who develops a sexual relationship with a nomadic male prostitute named Mitko. Initially meeting in public bathroom stalls at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, the pair shift their dates to the professor’s apartment and eventually decide to travel to Varna, Mitko’s hometown on the Black Sea, for a brief respite. However, Mitko’s violent side leaves Greenwell’s protagonist afraid for his own safety. The two part ways, and years pass before Mitko, ravaged by time and homelessness, reenters the professor’s life. Now in a committed long-distance relationship, the instructor battles his erotic yearning and faces increasing discomfort around his former lover, suspecting the prostitute’s acts of kindness and care are nothing more than a lure for financial support. The book breaks up the adult protagonist’s story with a long middle section devoted to exploring the professor’s difficult childhood, as well as his first love, and it is here that the man’s struggles—sexual and emotional—come alive. Greenwell’s novel is a brave and articulate psychological exploration of lust and desire.
Real Tigers by Mick Herron (Soho Crime) - The disgraced spies at MI5’s Slough House must try to save one of their own in CWA Gold Dagger Award–winner Herron’s outstanding third thriller featuring uncouth Jackson Lamb and crew (after 2013’s Dead Lions). When one of these “slow horses,” Catherine Standish, doesn’t show up for work, her colleagues don’t initially worry until they’re contacted by kidnappers who say that they’ll only guarantee Standish’s return in exchange for information stored on a secret government computer, which happens to be in MI5’s headquarters in London’s Regent’s Park. River Cartwright, the hero of 2010’s Slow Horses, tries to infiltrate the main office, not an easy task, especially since the agency ripples with internal strife as the new home secretary, Peter Judd, butts heads with the Intelligence Service chief, Dame Ingrid Tearney. Soon the lines between spies, slow horses, and private mercenaries blur dangerously.
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (S&S/Simon Pulse) - Henry Denton's life is in tatters—he was abandoned by his father; his boyfriend, Jesse, hanged himself; and he is regularly abducted by aliens who have put Earth's very fate in his hands. The 16-year-old, nicknamed "Space Boy" by his tormentors, is self-destructing until he finds a friend in new kid Diego and an ally in Jesse's former pal Audrey. In a style reminiscent of Slaughterhouse-Five, Hutchinson (The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley) intersperses Henry's experience aboard the "slugger" spaceship with his trials on Earth, where he's "a punch line at school, a ghost at home." The extraterrestrial scenes are less the makings of a SF novel than a metaphor for Henry's isolation and alienation from his family and peers, including a gang of bullies who brutally assault him in a shower and then publicly shame him. Hutchinson has crafted an unflinching portrait of the pain and confusion of young love and loss, thoughtfully exploring topics like dementia, abuse, sexuality, and suicide as they entwine with the messy work of growing up.
The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship by Paul Lisicky (Graywolf) - In this fluid, tender memoir of love and loss, novelist Lisicky (Famous Builder) chronicles the two longest relationships of his life: his deep friendship with the writer Denise Gess and his 15-year romance with a renowned poet, here referred to only as M. Written in nonlinear bursts that recall the way memories flit in and out of consciousness, Lisicky brings readers back to the early 1980s, when he was closeted and working as a teaching assistant. He was awed by Gess and her ability to command her students’ attention. She would go on to write well-regarded novels such as Good Deeds. The pair shared everything, but also felt inevitable competition when the balance of success shifted between them. Lisicky weaves in his reactions to natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with Gess’s decline from cancer and the slow crumbling of his relationship with his husband. At the core of the triad formed by Lisicky and his two literary loves is a devotion to language and its ability to heal and harm. The bond he shared with Gess, though completely platonic, was as intimate as any marriage, and his musings on the ever-fluid nature of friendships, how they ebb and flow over years and surmount hurdles great and small, is breathtaking and heartbreaking.
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body by Jo Marchant (Crown) - British science writer Marchant (Decoding the Heavens) explores the possibilities of psychology-based approaches to improving physical well-being in this open-minded, evidence-based account. She connects readers with practitioners who are meticulously demonstrating real physiological and perceptual effects of psychotherapeutic treatments, particularly for problems for which traditional medical solutions are unavailable or problematic. Despite the incompatibility of these practices with the scientific gold standard of double-blind testing, Marchant does her best to identify the science underlying them and cite repeatedly demonstrated results. Going beyond the placebo effect, Marchant looks at successes with “honest placebos,” physiological operant conditioning, hypnosis, virtual reality, meditation, and continuous compassionate care in providing real relief in pain reduction, improved physical outcomes, and patient satisfaction. The idea of the brain as “central governor” offers a possible framework for improving functional disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, and depression by recalibrating the relationship between mind and body.
The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie (Penguin Press) - A marriage proposal opens this offbeat and winning novel by New Yorker contributor and author McKenzie (Stop That Girl). Thirty-year-old Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, “independent behaviorist... and freelance self,” has only known Paul Vreeland, a 34-year-old neurologist, for three months. This might explain Veblen’s feeling of trouble, “as if rushing toward a disaster,” when she says yes to his marriage proposal. Veblen, a Palo Alto resident, is named for Thorstein Veblen, an economist from the beginning of the 20th century, popularly known for coining the term conspicuous consumption; our heroine Veblen shares some of his concerns and critiques about modern capitalism. Paul, who is finding his footing as a scientist of note and growing ambition (his device for treating traumatic brain injury is fast-tracked by a powerful pharmaceutical company), is anxious to cast off his hippie upbringing and live a life with all the traditional hallmarks of success. We learn the differences between these two at the same time as they do, meeting their eccentric and dysfunctional families for the first time (including Veblen’s mother, Melanie, a narcissist to end all narcissists), and seeing how they respond to situations that grow increasingly out of their control. McKenzie’s funny, lively, addictive novel is sure to be a standout.
Catching the Sky: Two Brothers, One Family, and Our Dream to Fly by Colten Moore, with Keith O'Brien (Atria/37 Ink) - The “Infamous Moore Brothers”—as Colten and Caleb Moore were known on the extreme sports circuit—established themselves as daredevil all-terrain vehicle (ATV) racers and thrill riders before taking ESPN’s 2010 X Games by storm on snowmobiles. They grew up poor on the dusty prairie of the Texas panhandle, far away from the snow-covered plains of the upper Midwest (where snowmobiling originated), but they eventually pushed the boundaries of mankind, machine, and gravity. In January 2013, their captivating narrative took a tragic turn when Caleb, 25, became the first competitor to die at the X Games, due to an unsuccessful backflip attempt. The accident devastated Colten, two years his brother’s junior. He sank into depression before deciding to ride again, going on to win gold (and a personal redemption) at the 2014 X Games. Colten and journalist O’Brien (Outside Shot) vividly chronicle the Moore brothers’ rise to fame, their switch from ATVs to snowmobiles, the rewards and challenges of their profession, and the dangers of their chosen sport. An early contender for one of 2016’s top sports books.
A Song for the Brokenhearted by William Shaw (LB/Mulholland) - Set in 1969, British author Shaw’s superb conclusion to his crime trilogy (following 2015’s The Kings of London) finds the recently wounded Det. Sgt. Cathal “Paddy” Breen convalescing at the family farm of his former police partner, Helen Tozer, in Devon. Breen, eager to get back to police work, agrees, unofficially, to look into the murder of Helen’s 16-year-old sister, Alexandra, which occurred almost five years earlier, when it’s discovered that Alexandra had an affair with a wealthy—and married—peer of the realm. Helen and Breen uncover a plot that leads to Africa during the Kenya Emergency, a real event that involved the torture and murder of those suspected of being part of the Mau Mau uprising. Shaw picks up multiple plot threads, expertly weaving them into a complex story that explores the darkest parts of the human psyche and the erosion of one man’s humanity, while balancing the delicate and awkwardly sweet relationship between the traditional Breen and decidedly untraditional Helen, as well as her relationship with her still grieving parents.
