Two stories made especially big waves in adult fiction in 2003, and both were surprises: the bestselling muscle of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and the decision by the National Book Foundation to grant a lifetime achievement award to veteran novelist Stephen King (whose earlier announcement that he would cease publishing novels also raised eyebrows).
Many veteran popular authors besides Brown and King offered the u nexpected. Mitch Albom turned to fiction with The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Hyperion). John Grisham released King of Torts (Doubleday), a legal thriller in which the hero and villain are the same man, plus a stealth novella, Bleachers (Doubleday), while James Patterson produced a medieval adventure tale (The Jester) as well as two sequels to previous bestsellers. Dean Koontz wrote perhaps his best novel ever, Odd Thomas (Bantam), and Nora Roberts and her pseudonym J.D. Robb finally collaborated, on Remember When (Putnam). Peter Straub dissolved the customary barriers between genre and literary work with his shortest novel in years, lost boy lost girl (Random).
Literary fiction saw stellar titles by big names from the old guard—Peter Carey, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich and others—as well as standouts from newer stars like Jonathan Lethem, Chuck Palahniuk and Ken Kalfus, among others. But newcomers shone, too: Monica Ali's Brick Lane (Scribner) was nominated for the Man Booker and the Guardian First Book awards; Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Doubleday) was a quirky winner; and John Haskell's I Am Not Jackson Pollack (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) was a brilliant story collection not nearly enough people read. Two important translations of classics made news, of Proust's Swann's Way (Viking) and Don Quixote (Ecco).
The Five People You Meet in HeavenMitch Albom (Hyperion)
Simply told, sentimental and profoundly true, this contemporary American fable explores the afterlife of an amusement park maintenance man.
Ten Little IndiansSherman Alexie (Grove)
Further exploring what it means to be an Indian culturally, politically and personally, Alexie produces another slam-dunk collection, his storytelling exuberant and supremely confident.
Brick LaneMonica Ali (Scribner)
A young Bangladeshi bride navigates the scrappy, multicultural maze of East End London in this penetrating debut.
Oryx and CrakeMargaret Atwood (Doubleday)
Atwood goes back to the future in this dystopian novel, brilliantly imagining the consequences of runaway social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change.
ShipwreckLouis Begley (Knopf)
The moral disintegration of an author consumed by lust is the narrative frame of Begley's novel, which also reflects incisively on the nature of the creative process.
Any Human Heart: The Intimate Journals of Logan MountstuartWilliam Boyd (Knopf)
Boyd's flawed yet immensely appealing protagonist is one of his most distinctive creations, and this novel—rich, sophisticated, often hilarious and disarming—is a landmark in the writer's career.
Drop CityT.C. Boyle (Viking)
This may be the definitive novel of the hippie era. In chronicling the travails of a commune, Boyle leavens his cynical insight with genuine sweetness and brings back the Age of Aquarius in all its squalor and innocence.
The Da Vinci CodeDan Brown (Doubleday)
The bestselling fiction title of 2003 is also one of the most intriguing, an exciting thriller that deals with ideas in a way that speaks to millions of readers.
Bangkok 8John Burdett (Knopf)
Part mystery, part thriller and part exploration of Thai attitudes toward sex, this accomplished first novel delivers both entertainment and depth.
My Life As a FakePeter Carey (Knopf)
Double Booker winner Carey produces another tour de force—a mix of literary detective story and murderous nightmare with a positively Graham Greene—ish relish in the seamy side of the tropics.
PersuaderLee Child (Delacorte)
Jack Reacher is one of the most memorable heroes in contemporary thrillerdom, and his brainy, brutal narration makes this series entry—set on an isolated, heavily guarded Maine estate—a sizzling entertainment.
American WomanSusan Choi (HarperCollins)
Choi gives great, grainy psychological depth and texture to her fictionalized account of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, brilliantly capturing the claustrophobic nature of underground political life in the 1970s.
Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes, trans. by Edith Grossman (Ecco)
Grossman's translation is admirably readable and consistent. Against the odds, she gives us an honest, robust and freshly revelatory Quixote for our times.
The Master Butchers Singing ClubLouise Erdrich (HarperCollins)
A German butcher emigrates to North Dakota and becomes entangled with a female performer in a traveling vaudeville act in this lush, sweeping novel, as rich and resonant as any Erdrich has written.
Isle of PalmsDorothea Benton Frank (Berkley)
This hardcover debut by the author of the popular Lowcountry novels is nonstop Dixie fun (honey, you think you've got a dysfunctional family).
Hell at the BreechTom Franklin (Morrow)
This powerful, riveting novel by Edgar Award—winning Franklin is based on a real-life feud in the 1890s between poor, mostly white Alabama sharecroppers and the land-owing gentry.
The King of TortsJohn Grisham (Doubleday)
Grisham continues to push the boundaries of the legal thriller, producing his most unusual entry yet—a powerful, gripping morality story whose hero and villain are identical.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeMark Haddon (Doubleday)
Haddon's unusual, ironic debut was a surprise hit here and abroad with its story of an autistic 15-year-old narrator who sets out to solve the mystery of the death of a neighbor's poodle.
I Am Not Jackson PollockJohn Haskell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Fact or fiction, art or life? Haskell's stories reveal artists and celebrities in beautifully imagined moments of vulnerability in an unsettling and unforgettable debut collection.
The Great FireShirley Hazzard (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Set in post-WWII Japan, this first novel from Hazzard in two decades is a magnificent achievement, written in burnished prose and exploring themes of loss and dislocation.
The UnprofessionalsJulie Hecht (Random)
At once provocative and insular, Hecht's debut novel—the chronicle of an unusual friendship—invites readers back inside the head of the protagonist of her cultishly popular short story collection Do the Windows Open?
The Mammoth CheeseSheri Holman (Atlantic Monthly)
Set in the jittery, postboom present, this inventive, offbeat novel weaves a deft consideration of America history and political ideals into an exuberantly eccentric tale of smalltown Virginia life.
What I LovedSiri Hustvedt (Holt)
The ardent exchange of ideas underlies all manner of passionate action in Hustvedt's breakout third novel, a dark tale of two intertwined New York families.
The Known WorldEdward P. Jones (Amistad)
In this powerful, prodigiously imagined debut novel, Jones explores an oft-neglected chapter of American history, the world of blacks who owned blacks in the antebellum South.
The Commissariat of EnlightenmentKen Kalfus (Ecco)
Kalfus's signature mix of carefully researched history, subtle social commentary and leaping, imaginative storytelling is on display in this debut novel set in Russia around the turn of the 19th century.
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the CallaStephen King (Donald M. Grant/Scribner)
The quest continues to save all worlds from Chaos and the Crimson King in this exciting fifth installment in the Dark Tower series; the enormity of King's ever-expanding universe continues to inspire awe.
Odd ThomasDean Koontz (Bantam)
A fry cook in a small California town talks to ghosts in this electrifying thriller. Koontz is working at his pinnacle, grappling with the nature of evil, the grip of fate and the power of love.
Shutter IslandDennis Lehane (Morrow)
As stunning as Mystic River, this suspense novel set in a prison/hospital for the criminally insane features spot-on dialogue, mysteries within mysteries and a shocking, aesthetically perfect ending.
The Fortress of SolitudeJonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
Scary, funny and seriously surreal, this novel about a white boy growing up in a black Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1970s confirms Lethem's status as the poet of Brooklyn and of motherless boys.
War TornJohn Marks (Riverhead)
In this wrenching, romantic second novel, an American journalist working in Berlin plunges into a Balkan free-fire zone to rescue the Bosnian woman he loves.
Liars and SaintsMaile Meloy (Scribner)
Meloy's eagerly awaited first novel lives up to expectations with its dazzling account of a Catholic family's life over five decades.
LoveToni Morrison (Knopf)
Morrison's gorgeous, stately eighth novel revolves around a legendary hotel owner and the women in his family over whom he holds sway.
A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies: StoriesJohn Murray (HarperCollins)
In one of the most vibrant and enthusiastically received story debuts this year, Murray pushes his characters—doctors, scientists and others drawn to precise order and logic—to political and geographic extremes in search of a sense of purpose.
The Voyage of the DestinyRobert Nye (Arcade)
In his wry, inimitable style, Nye delves into the mind, heart and soul of Sir Walter Raleigh as the Elizabethan adventurer embarks on his final voyage.
DiaryChuck Palahniuk (Doubleday)
Palahniuk eschews his blighted urban settings for a resort island, but his baroque flights of imagination are instantly recognizable and his meditations on the artistic process make this one of his most memorable works.
ConclaveRoberto Pazzi, trans. by Oonagh Stransky (Steerforth Italia)
As clever as Calvino's work and funnier, this sophisticated novel by Italian poet and novelist Pazzi tells how a gathering of cardinals at Vatican City is disrupted by a rodent infestation of biblical proportions.
Soul CircusGeorge Pelecanos (Little, Brown)
Pelecanos continues to build his fan base, and his 11th novel is one of his best yet, with characters to remember, dialogue that rocks, a kinetic tableau of the D.C. underworld and, most of all, a conscience.
Swann's Way: A New TranslationMarcel Proust, trans. by Lydia Davis (Viking)
More literal and less elaborate than previous translations, this sharp new rendition of the first volume of Proust's classic In Search of Lost Time is a triumph.
WaxwingsJonathan Raban (Pantheon)
A Hungarian-born British expatriate settled in dot-com—frenzied Seattle is the protagonist of this wry, inspired paean to an immigrant nation by travel writer and novelist Raban.
Remember WhenNora Roberts and J.D. Robb (Putnam)
Roberts and her most popular pseudonym team up to offer a sparkling tale of sensuality and suspense set between present-day Maryland and New York City in the year 2059.
MortalsNorman Rush (Knopf)
The frustrations of this sprawling, long-awaited second novel—its protagonist a Milton scholar and undercover CIA agent in Botswana—are outweighed by its intimate melding of political reality and domestic tragicomedy.
A Ship Made of PaperScott Spencer (Ecco)
Spencer has made his reputation as a master of the love story, and this tale about the intersection of two couples in a Hudson Valley village is one of his best.
lost boy lost girlPeter Straub (Random)
Straub's 16th novel, his shortest in decades, reaffirms the author's standing as the most literate and, with his occasional coauthor Stephen King, most persuasive of contemporary novelists of the dark fantastic.
OrchardLarry Watson (Random)
Watson surpasses himself in this sixth novel, an uncompromising, perfectly calibrated double portrait of two couples—an orchard keeper and an artist and their respective wives—in rural Wisconsin in the 1950s.
The Song of the KingsBarry Unsworth (Doubleday/Talese)
Myth is given sharp contemporary resonance in this audacious, subversive novel set in 1260 B.C., with Odysseus playing the role of a villainous leader who cynically manipulates his cohorts.
FannyEdmund White (Ecco)
White triumphantly returns to form with this witty historical teaser, a novel wrapped inside a "memoir" of utopian feminist Fanny Wright by Mrs. Frances Trollope, caustic observer of 19th-century America.
Winner of the National Book AwardJincy Willett (St. Martin's/Dunne)
Willett's novel—a brilliant black comedy starring twins with antithetical dispositions—was in the works for years, and finally saw print after a push from David Sedaris.
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