BookPage October 2019 by BookPage

BookPage

OCTOBER 2019

cover story

meet the author

Augusten Burroughs 12

The secret he thought he’d never reveal

features Spectrum of spooky

Eight great Halloween reads

Maaza Mengiste

Uncovering Ethiopia’s warrior women

Sherlock Holmes

The monstrous feminine

Women sink their claws into horror

Ruta Sepetys

Stepping into the shadows of history

All year-round

Picture books to celebrate the seasons

Erin Williams Meet the author-illustrator of Commute

Liz Climo Meet the author-illustrator of Please Don’t Eat Me

17 21 31

Fiction Nonfiction Young Adult Children’s ON SAL NOWE

columns 4 4 5 6 6 8 9 10 11

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Romance Lifestyles Well Read Audio Whodunit Cozies The Hold List Book Clubs

HERE WE ARE American Dreams, American Nightmares A Memoir by Aarti Namdev Shahani

Cover image © Duda Vasilii/Shutterstock.com

PRESIDENT & FOUNDER Michael A. Zibart

PRODUCTION MANAGER Penny Childress

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Elizabeth Grace Herbert

MARKETING MANAGER Mary Claire Zibart

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Trisha Ping

ADVERTISING OPERATIONS Sada Stipe

DEPUTY EDITOR Cat Acree ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christy Lynch ASSOCIATE EDITOR Stephanie Appell ASSISTANT EDITOR Savanna Walker

SUBSCRIPTIONS Katherine Klockenkemper CONTROLLER Sharon Kozy CHILDREN’S BOOKS Allison Hammond CONTRIBUTOR Roger Bishop EDITORIAL INTERN Prince Bush

What if it were visiting your father at Rikers?

reviews 27

Two fiendishly clever continuations

Where did you go after school? Sports practice? Music lessons? A friend’s house?

EDITORIAL POLICY BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate and select for review the best books published in a variety of categories. BookPage is editorially independent; only books we highly recommend are featured.

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“A heartbreaking, hilarious and tender love letter to the millions of people who have made their way across lands and oceans to try and find a new life in America.” ~ Guy Raz, Co-Creator of How I Built This, Wow in the World, and Ted Radio Hour

readbookpage bookpage A DIVISION OF MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS

B O O K P A G E • 2 1 4 3 B E L C O U R T AV E N U E • N A S H V I L L E , T N 3 7 2 1 2 • B O O K P A G E . C O M

sci-fi & fantasy

by chris pickens

romance

by christie ridgway

H Ninth House In Leigh Bardugo’s instantly gripping new fantasy, Ninth House (Flatiron, $27.99, 9781250313072), Alex Stern can see ghosts. This ability makes her perfectly suited to monitor Yale’s underground societies, which perform occult rituals under cover of darkness. When a ritual goes wrong and Alex senses the ghosts of Yale becoming restless, she must race to find out the sinister reasons why. The world of this book is so consistent and enveloping that pages seem to rush by. Bardugo, a veteran of the fantasy space with her Grishaverse series, never lets the narrative become overtaken by the lore, and she includes plenty of winking callouts to the horrors of modern collegiate experiences. Creepy and thrilling, this one deserves a place on your fall reading list.

Steel Crow Saga Expansive yet personal, Paul Krueger’s Steel Crow Saga (Del Rey, $27, 9780593128220) starts with a bang and never slows down. A soldier seeking vengeance, a prince looking for home, a detective with a secret and a thief wanting redemption unite to face an abominable evil. Saga’s magic system centers on animal familiars that can be summoned to fight alongside characters—think Pokémon meets The Golden Compass, with plenty of original and frightening twists along the way. While the influence of colonial Asian history is clear, it adds to the world building rather than taking the reader out of the action. Krueger deftly gives each character their own point of view without losing sight of the novel’s central theme: We’re stronger together than we are alone.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

H Once a Spy Love and danger breathtakingly intertwine in Once a Spy (Zebra, $7.99, 9781420148107) by Mary Jo Putney. Following Napoleon’s abdication, world-weary soldier Simon Duval resigns from the British army and tracks down his second cousin’s widow, Suzanne. Feeling an instant connection, Simon suggests a marriage of companionship. Simon and Suzanne are mature characters who have experienced the world and its tragedies, making their growing romance both moving and sweet. When danger threatens their lives, readers will root for this couple and their hard-won wisdom and open hearts. Putney’s depiction of the days surrounding the Battle of Waterloo is thrilling and adds just the right amount of historical detail to this superlative romance.

Faker Debut author Sarah Smith pens a fresh and charming take on enemies-to-lovers in Faker (Berkley, $16, 9781984805423). Emmie Echavarre tries to maintain a tough persona at work, including keeping a stoic expression around her co-worker Tate Rasmussen. As much as she finds him physically appealing, he excels at annoying her from his office across the hall. But all that changes when an accident gives Tate the opportunity to show Emmie who he really is— and sparks of a different sort fly between them. Told in Emmie’s energetic voice, this romance depicts all the complexity and awkwardness of getting to know another person. Emmie and Tate must fight off misunderstandings and past hurts to truly become a couple. This egalitarian office romance feels both contemporary and classic (and the steamy love scenes give it an extra edge).

The Orchid Throne

Sometimes a book just flat-out charms you— How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (DAW, $26, 9780756415297) by K. Eason is one such book. Rory is a singular woman, anointed with blessings from 13 fairies and destined to rule the interplanetary government. In a clever twist, one of the blessings gives Rory the ability to hear the truth when someone is lying. These lies and truths offer funny contrasts on the page, and lead to some wonderfully surprising moments. When Rory discovers a sinister conspiracy at the same time she is engaged to a prince from another planet, she must rely on all of her blessings to save the day. Eason’s heroine is a whirlwind, a one-woman battering ram whose tenacity is exciting and funny. This is the first in a series, and I anticipate many more pages of Rory confounding expectations (and anyone she meets).

An enchanting world awaits in The Orchid Throne (St. Martin’s, $7.99, 9781250194312) by Jeffe Kennedy. It’s the story of Euthalia, queen of Calanthe, who has bought her people’s independence by promising to marry a brutal emperor. But that promise is threatened when the rebel King of the Slaves, Conrí, arrives to tell Euthalia about her part in a fateful prophecy. With detailed world building and an intriguing cast of characters—especially a warrior woman and an enigmatic and amusing wizard—this captivating story will have readers holding their breath while Lia and Con come to terms with a partnership that neither expected. This is a fantasy romance with an exciting and entertaining blend of politics, swashbuckling and sensual fire.

Chris Pickens is a Nashville-based fantasy and sci-fi superfan who loves channeling his enthusiasm into reviews of the best new books the genre has to offer.

Christie Ridgway is a lifelong romance reader and a published romance novelist of over 60 books.

lifestyles

by susannah felts

H You Suck at

Cooking

I had just perused several stunning cookbooks, replete with jaw-dropping dishes that made me both hungry and in want of a nap, when I picked up You Suck at Cooking (Clarkson Potter, $19.99, 9780525576556) and saw recipes like “Toasted Walnut Cauliflower Stuff” and “Broccoli Cheddar Quiche Cupcake Muffin-Type Things.” This book is the antidote to precious food culture, and it’s the first cookbook to ever make me repeatedly LOL. The (anonymous) author turns the expected on its head in a voice that’s perhaps best described as Super Mock Textbook. In the “Things You Might Need” section, for example: “There are many heat sources to choose from, each more dangerous than the next. . . . Make sure you choose the heat source that is just dangerous enough for you.” Thing is, the recipes herein could become anyone’s favorite go-tos. Don’t dare miss the section on sandwiches.

Cozy up with NEW PAPERBACKS from PERENNIAL

“A quiet, luminous story of a woman piecing her soul together in the aftermath of war, heartbreaking and uplifting on every page.” — Kate Quinn, bestselling author of The Alice Network

Embrace Your Weird Someone once told me I reminded her of the actor Felicia Day. I didn’t know who Day was at the time, but now I’m glad to see she’s written a book called Embrace Your Weird (Gallery, $17, 9781982113223), a concept I can fully get behind. Building on the success of her previous title, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Day returns with a creativity guide that positively vibrates with her bubbly comedic sensibility. If you are exclamation point- or ALL CAPS-averse, this is not the book for YOU! But she isn’t wrong when she writes, “Playfulness is the root of all creation.” Her book delights in manifesting that idea, with the help of cute illustrations, meme jokes and many parenthetical asides.

“Brilliantly captures both the price

of profound change and how it can pave the way not only for future generations, but also for a radiant, unexpected expansion of the heart.” — O: The Oprah Magazine, 15 Best Books of 2018

“Wonderful… completely transporting.”

— Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe

Shared Living Our journey into the wilds of adulting begins with Emily Hutchinson’s Shared Living (Thames & Hudson, $29.95, 9780500501436), which takes features of the best modern interior design books—Q&As with stylish folks around the globe, tip lists, gorgeous photography on matte stock—and applies them to spaces shared by two or more people. Communal living, after all, is on the uptick these days, with home ownership ever further out of reach. A number of lofts and open floor plans are featured here, with ideas for breaking up the space and balancing housemates’ varying styles. It’s fun to examine how these individuals bring their cherished and whimsical objects together in ways that work, and this would make a great gift for someone signing their first lease with a roomie.

Susannah Felts is a Nashville-based writer and co-founder of The Porch, a literary arts organization. She enjoys anything paper-related and, increasingly, plant-related.

“The perfect winter heart-warmer.”

— Cathy Kelly, bestselling author of Between Sisters and Secrets of a Happy Marriage

Discover Great Authors, Exclusive Offers, And More At HC.com @harperperennial

well read | by robert weibezahl

The makings of a dystopian masterwork An award-winning Orwell biographer shares the story behind the origins, publication and legacy of his masterpiece. Nineteen Eighty-Four became an instant bestseller when it was published 70 years ago at the beginning of the Cold War, and it has remained a perennial favorite, selling an estimated 40 million copies worldwide. Its title, of course, has become synonymous with totalitarianism, political doublespeak and the loss of individual rights and freedoms. In the weeks following the 2017 presidential inauguration, sales of the book rose an estimated 950% in the U.S.—yet it is perhaps singular among books in that its dystopian warnings have been embraced and exploited by both the left and the right. The fascinating origins and complex legacy of this enduring masterwork are chronicled in an arresting new book, On Nineteen Eighty-Four (Abrams, $26, 9781419738005), by Whitbread Award-winning biographer D.J. Taylor. Dividing the narrative into three sections—before, during and after—Taylor first considers the man, born Eric Blair in British- occupied India, who reinvented himself as George Orwell, a progressive journalist and novelist who struggled for book sales. He also struggled with poor health and, by the time he was writing the book that became Nineteen Eighty-Four in the mid-1940s, was wracked with the debilitating symptoms of tuberculosis. After the death of his wife, he took his very young son to live on Jura, a remote island in

the Hebrides, where the weather was hardly conducive to curing an insidious lung disease. Many days he could not get out of bed, much less write. But he pushed on for months and years, eventually producing a manuscript that expressed his terrifying vision of a possible future, in some ways recognizable as postwar London. As Taylor recounts the harrowing details of Orwell’s physical decline, he contemplates how his state of mind, in the end, may have shaped that vision. Seven months after the book was published, Orwell died, missing the chance to enjoy the financial prosperity that eluded him for his whole life. The book, however, did not die. On the contrary, it quickly took on a life of its own, and in the latter part of his engaging account, Taylor considers the ways Nineteen Eighty-Four has been interpreted (often misinterpreted) and has influenced our culture. He points to “the novel’s versatility, its continuing relevance to a world that Orwell had no way of foreseeing. As time moved on, then so did the prism through which critics—and ordinary readers—tended to regard it.” As we navigate our own often Orwellian reality of autocracy, political discontent and crafted truths, Taylor ponders what the great writer might have made of “alternative facts” and those who embrace them. The answer, he suggests, is not a simple one.

Robert Weibezahl is a publishing industry veteran, playwright and novelist. Each month, he takes an in-depth look at a recent book of literary significance.

audio

by anna zeitlin

H Trick Mirror Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (Random House Audio, 10 hours), a book of nine original essays from New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino, makes for great listening. She finds a personal angle to big topics within our modern culture, such as in “The I in the Internet” when Tolentino takes the listener through her personal history with the internet (which will be familiar to anyone who browsed the web in the 1990s and early 2000s), traces it to the modern day and reveals how it has shaped our realities. She draws connections between radical political movements and the way popular websites encourage us to turn inward. She comes to a stark conclusion about the way we allow ourselves to be used by corporations. In another essay, she reflects on her experience as a reality TV star and provides insight into the medium. Tolentino narrates the essays herself, which emphasizes her sharp wit and adds an intimacy to the more personal stories.

Never Have I Ever In Never Have I Ever (HarperAudio, 13 hours), Amy’s blissful, suburban Florida life is turned upside down when new neighbor Roux shows up at her book club and turns the discussion toward everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets. Roux earns a living through blackmail, and Amy gets tangled up in something far beyond a party game. This is a fun thriller grounded in textured relationships that include a controlling best friend and a quirky teenage stepdaughter. I kept thinking I knew where the story was going, but there were twists upon twists I truly could not see coming. Author Joshilyn Jackson does a pitch-perfect job narrating her own novel. The Alabama-born writer gets the pretend-nice, passive-aggressive, classically Southern voice just right.

Going Dutch All the characters in James Gregor’s debut novel are horrible people, but I couldn’t help but root for them. Richard is a Ph.D. candidate struggling with writer’s block. His classmate Anne helps him by doing his work for him, buying him fancy meals and paying for taxis. In return, she expects a romantic relationship, and he is happy to oblige—despite being gay. It all comes to a head when things get serious between Richard and a former online fling. He is forced to choose between the handsome lawyer, who’s definitely husband material (even if he’s a little too into Ayn Rand), and the woman who holds the key to his academic success. Going Dutch (Simon & Schuster Audio, 9.5 hours) pokes fun at online dating, New York intellectuals, money and manners. Narrator Michael David Axtell infuses Richard’s inner monologues with wry humor, making his observations even more biting.

Anna Zeitlin is an art curator and hat maker who fills her hours with a steady stream of audiobooks.

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whodunit

by bruce tierney Bomber’s Moon

Although Archer Mayor’s latest novel, Bomber’s Moon (Minotaur, $27.99, 9781250113306), is considered part of the Joe Gunther series, Gunther himself plays a comparatively minor role. The serious investigative work is left to two of the Vermont-based cop’s well-regarded acquaintances: private investigator Sally Kravitz and photographer/reporter Rachel Reiling. The crime is most unusual. A thief has been breaking into the homes of people who are away but stealing nothing. Instead, he adds spyware to his victims’ communication devices and then waits to see how he can profit from it. But he is not the first person to pursue such an endeavor in this small Vermont town. Kravitz’s own father followed a similar path back in the day (and perhaps still does). He is well aware of this new interloper into the “family trade” and displays more than a little admiration for his successor’s skills—until the new guy gets murdered. The leads, scant though they are, seem to center on a high-priced private school, and before things resolve, there will be significant financial improprieties, more than a bit of class warfare and an increasing body count. The nicely paced Bomber’s Moon is replete with well-developed characters and relationships, with the unusual bonus of oddly likable villains.

Land of Wolves Many of you will be familiar with Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire via television rather than books, but as is often the case, the books have nuance and detail that are difficult to replicate on screen. In Craig Johnson’s latest Longmire novel, Land of Wolves (Viking, $28, 9780525522508), the stalwart lawman is back in Wyoming after a south-of-the-border hunting expedition. In the nearby Bighorn Mountains, a wolf has apparently killed a sheep, which doesn’t seem especially unusual in the Wild West. However, tensions ratchet up considerably when the shepherd is found hanged, his dangling feet savaged by a wild animal, most likely the aforementioned wolf. Johnson uses this as a jumping-off point for broad-ranging discussions about wolves, the history of sheep ranching, the use of open rangelands and other social and ecological issues of the contemporary West. But there is no hint of a textbook in Johnson’s voice. Instead, it’s rather like hearing a modern Old West story told by a favorite uncle, one who fills in the little details that bring immediacy and life to a suspenseful narrative.

What Rose Forgot Nevada Barr, bestselling author of the Anna Pigeon series, pens a superlative standalone chiller with What Rose Forgot (Minotaur, $28.99, 9781250207135). Right from the outset, it appears that Rose has forgotten quite a lot. First, she awakens in a forest, clueless about how she got there. The next time she wakes up, she is in a home for elderly dementia patients, still somewhat clueless although with the nagging suspicion that she does not belong there. So she secretly stops taking her meds. This is not immediately life-changing in and of itself, but it does serve to solidify Rose’s belief that she does not belong in a dementia ward. After making good on her escape, Rose joins forces with her late husband’s 13-year-old granddaughter, who possesses remarkable skills that help cover her step-grandma’s tracks. The longer Rose stays off the medications, the more she becomes convinced that someone (or ones) are out to get her. But is Rose just paranoid? What if she’s not? What Rose Forgot capitalizes on the resourcefulness of a pair of quite clever women and an equally clever pair of teens, all dedicated to stymieing some particularly unpleasant members of the opposing team. When a mystery features a 68-year-old protagonist, one could be forgiven for assuming that said mystery will fall into the cozy subgenre. What Rose Forgot is anything but.

H Heaven, My Home Attica Locke’s atmospheric thriller Heaven, My Home (Mulholland, $27, 9780316363402) takes place in the northeastern Texas town of Jefferson, a once-prosperous trading center fallen on hard times (“the city square was like a courtesan who’d found Jesus”). Texas Ranger Darren Matthews investigates the disappearance of a 9-year-old boy who didn’t return from a solo boating adventure on nearby Caddo Lake. The missing boy is the son of Aryan Brotherhood leader Bill King, a convicted and incarcerated murderer. Jefferson was one of the first settlements composed primarily of freed slaves, in addition to a band of Native Americans who successfully dodged the wholesale relocation of tribes to Oklahoma during the U.S. westward expansion. The town is now home to their descendants. Add those aforementioned white supremacists into the mix, and the town becomes a veritable powder keg awaiting a spark—such as a black landowner whose animosity toward his bigoted tenants is well documented, and who is the last person to have seen the missing boy. Few suspense novelists display a better grip of political and racial divides than Attica Locke, and she spins a hell of a good story as well, introducing characters and locales you will want to visit again and again.

Bruce Tierney lives outside Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he bicycles through the rice paddies daily and reviews the best in mystery and suspense every month.

cozies

by heather seggel

H Word to the Wise A mystery set in a library just feels right. Jenn McKinlay’s newest Library Lover’s Mystery, Word to the Wise (Berkley, $26, 9780593100035), lets the comfort of a familiar location set up a truly creepy premise. Library director Lindsey Norris is busy with her job and happily planning her wedding. The attention of a patron who is new in town seems odd but innocuous, but it quickly becomes clear that Aaron Grady is a stalker. The more Lindsey learns about Aaron, the more she begins to doubt her own gut; she knows something feels wrong, but is she overreacting? When his body is found on library property, the killing appears to have been set up to incriminate Sully, Lindsey’s fiancé. To clear Sully’s name, she’ll have to dig into Aaron’s past, bringing herself into the killer’s orbit. McKinlay lets the first third of the story breathe, effectively ramping up the tension. Once Aaron is out of the picture, the pace picks up as the search for the killer intensifies, and the conclusion is a wild ride indeed.

Late Checkout Halloween in Salem is a bit like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Chaos reigns, and the streets are a mess, but everyone has a good time. Late Checkout (Kensington, $7.99, 9781496714626) finds Lee Barrett losing hours at her TV news gig just as things get busy for the holiday. She volunteers at the library to pass the time and almost immediately finds a dead body in the stacks. It’s a big scoop, and with the help of her Aunt Ibby, Lee begins to research the victim. There are interesting forays into the work of running a small TV station and appearances by Lee’s charming and possibly clairvoyant cat. Author Carol J. Perry juggles these details with finesse and moves the plot toward a creepy conclusion that adds a few shivers to this cozy.

The Season’s Best

Cozies!

HOLIDAY

Three cozy mystery authors join forces for the perfect Christmas collection featuring their beloved series sleuths.

Can teddy bear shop manager and amateur sleuth Sasha Silverman unwrap this case of who killed her town’s mayor before Christmas? An unstoppable trio of bestselling cozy authors team up for the yummiest holiday treat of the year—a special Christmas collection of three delectable mysteries.

A Golden Grave In Erin Lindsey’s A Golden Grave (Minotaur, $28.99, 9781250620927), Rose Gallagher should have the world on a string. She’s a Pinkerton agent working with a gorgeous partner—a far cry from her old life as a housekeeper—but that change in status has tested old friendships, and Rose still can’t pass for a society dame. A plot to assassinate New York City mayoral candidate Theodore Roosevelt keeps her hopping among ballrooms, political mixers and Nikola Tesla’s lab, where Mark Twain wisecracks while watching for the next fireball to appear. Lindsey balances history, a budding romance, a dash of paranormal activity and surprising humor. (A scene involving the as-yet-unveiled Statue of Liberty is surreal and hilarious.) In the language of its time, this is a corker.

Heather Seggel is a longtime bookseller, reviewer and occasional library technician in Ukiah, California.

Get two Lucy Stone mysteries: New Year’s Eve Murder and Christmas Carol Murder together in one festive volume for the very first time! Available Everywhere Books Are Sold

ensingtonCozies.com

feature | the hold list

Pumpkin spice latte literature It’s the time of year when pumpkin spice suddenly flavors everything. But what if autumn were distilled into a book? The mixture of crispness and warmth, the thrill of possibility, the bittersweetness of change—these books are pure pumpkin spice.

The Art of Fielding

I Remember Nothing

By Chad Harbach

By Nora Ephron

Lake Michigan on a cool morning, a well-worn copy of Moby-Dick, a lazily draped scarf worn to a beloved college class—this is pumpkin spice latte territory. Chad Harbach’s debut novel is a philosopher’s playhouse, a literature student’s carnival and a baseball fan’s last hurrah of the season. It’s the story of shortstop star Henry Skrimshander and the many intellectuals in his orbit at Wisconsin’s small Westish College. Cute literary jokes abound (Henry’s last name is an obvious nod to Melville and scrimshaw), and meandering passages are capably balanced by thrilling baseball scenes. There’s angst and romance as well—always best in autumn—and a cheeky sense of humor that looks so good with your fading summer tan. —Cat, Deputy Editor

First of all, what’s more autumnal than the words of Nora Ephron? (Think “bouquets of newly sharpened pencils.”) But I love this collection in particular because it’s the last book Ephron published before she died. Every time I read I Remember Nothing, I cherish it more urgently because I know I’m approaching the end of her expansive but finite body of work. (Oh, for a thousand more charming observations about seer sucker napkins!) I think this makes it a perfect book for fall, which is the season for lapping up every drop of beauty we can before it’s gone. Poignantly, the last essay in the book is a list called “What I Will Miss,” and it includes: fall, a walk in the park, the idea of a walk in the park and pie. —Christy, Associate Editor

Possession By A.S. Byatt This supremely meta, deeply romantic bestseller is a lot. But its dual narratives—a doomed romance between Victorian poets and the modern-day scholars who stumble upon their story—offer some sublimely cozy pleasures for a very specific type of book nerd. If your ideal autumn involves prowling through Victorian letters while a storm rages outside, taking baths in crumbling old manor houses and sighing over love thwarted and love gained, Possession is the book for you. And for those who miss school (but not its over-caffeination and assigned reading), A.S. Byatt’s awe-inspiring creation of not only the work of two poets but also the modern scholarly commentary surrounding them will scratch that essay-writing, argument-crafting itch— sans the all-nighter. —Savanna, Assistant Editor

Calling a Wolf a Wolf

An Enchantment of Ravens

By Kaveh Akbar

By Margaret Rogerson

Scalding, flavorful and unapologetic, this poetry collection invites readers to scrutinize its speaker’s struggle with alcoholism, desire and mental obstruction. The reader is welcomed into madness, ardor, misery and silence, but this is not our madness, our sadness or our experiences. We may not have experienced alcoholism, but we are allowed to smell the same odors, hear the cacophony of a bar and call out to the speaker’s hope. This collection taught me that poetry is never about the reader but is ultimately an act of generosity. I thank this book for the warmth it gave me, for I needed a comforting drink to withstand the multiclimatic world. Ultimately, I found myself warm enough—and secure enough—to ditch my cup. —Prince, Editorial Intern

If your perfect walk through autumnal woods—fallen leaves in fiery hues crunching beneath your boots, the scents of mist-damp soil and October’s chill filtering through the air—comes with the sense that something is hiding behind every tree, waiting just ahead at every crook in your path, something not sinister but curious about your strange mortal ways, then may I suggest settling down with An Enchantment of Ravens once your latte has chased your chill away? Full of tricksy fairies, a delicious slow-burn romance and plenty of wit and literal Whimsy (the name of the village where Margaret Rogerson’s characters live), it reads the way autumn feels, deep down in your bones. —Stephanie, Associate Editor

Each month, BookPage staff share special reading lists—our personal favorites, old and new.

book clubs

by julie hale

H All You Can

Ever Know

In her stirring memoir, All You Can Ever Know (Catapult, $16.95, 9781948226370), Nicole Chung hopes to find the Korean birth parents who gave her up for adoption. Chung was raised by a white family in small-town Oregon, and in this beautifully crafted book she recounts her struggle to fit in as an Asian American. After graduating from college, she decides to investigate her past and possibly contact her biological parents. On the cusp of becoming a mother herself, she hears from her biological sister Cindy, who tells her the disturbing truth about their complex past. Already aware that she was a premature baby and that she has two sisters, Chung learns her birth parents claimed she had died. Chung touches on timeless themes of family and identity while crafting a fascinating narrative sure to spark lively book club discussions.

BOOK CLUB READS FOR FORSPRING FALL RIBBONS OF SCARLET by Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, Heather Webb, Sophie Perinot, and E. Knight

“The French Revolution comes alive through the eyes of six diverse and complex women, in the skilled hands of these amazing authors.” —MARTHA HALL KELLY, New York Times bestselling author

NO JUDGMENTS by Meg Cabot

“The ever-delightful Cabot charms in her latest, which is equal parts sweet and steamy. Animal lovers unite— this one’s for you.” —BOOKLIST

Gone So Long by Andre Dubus III Norton, $16.95, 9780393357370 As he nears the end of his life, Daniel Ahearn hopes to be reunited with Susan, his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen since the long-ago night when—driven by jealousy—he murdered her mother. Dubus presents an electrifying portrait of a broken family in this unforgettable novel.

Everything’s Trash, but It’s Okay by Phoebe Robinson

INVISIBLE AS AIR by Zoe Fishman

“This is a book about people, flawed but striving, broken but hopeful. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down.” —JOSHILYN JACKSON, New York Times bestselling author

Plume, $16, 9780525534167 Bold, insightful and funny, Robinson’s terrific essays offer fresh perspectives on feminism, body image and the dating world.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah St. Martin’s Griffin, $17.99, 9781250229533 Ernt Allbright; his wife, Cora; and their 13-year-old daughter, Leni, are initially enamored of their new surroundings and resilient neighbors in rural Alaska. But when Ernt becomes increasingly violent, the Allbrights find themselves in danger of losing everything.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver Harper Perennial, $17.99, 9780062684738 The fortunes of the intellectual Knox clan decline after work opportunities dry up. Rewind to the 1870s, and science teacher Thatcher Greenwood also experiences setbacks due to his progressive ideas. Kingsolver’s compassionate rendering of everyday people struggling to gain purchase in a changing world is sure to resonate with readers.

A BookPage reviewer since 2003, Julie Hale selects the best new paperback releases for book clubs every month.

LIES IN WHITE DRESSES by Sofia Grant

“Immersive characters bond during a greatly unknown and intriguing slice of American history. It’s a novel that is so hard to put down.” —KAREN HARPER, New York Times bestselling author

t @Morrow_PB

t @bookclubgirl

f William Morrow I Book Club Girl

A CHARMED LIFE

Beloved memoirist Augusten Burroughs finally writes about the one thing he thought he’d never confess. Careful observers will note that something is missing from the cover of Augusten Burroughs’ new memoir, Toil & Trouble, in which he reveals his biggest secret yet: He is a witch. What is on the cover: graceful, charcoal-gray ombre loops and swirls that wend their way behind and through acid green and stark white lettering. The undulating background and crisp type artfully combine into a visual that’s wholly intriguing, a bit unsettling and a touch electrifying, hinting at what readers will find inside. But the cover doesn’t inform in the ways you might expect. There’s no “#1 New York Times bestselling author” banner, nor a mention of Burroughs’ best-known book (later adapted into a film), 2002’s Running With Scissors. Rather, the author told BookPage in a call to his Connecticut home, “My only direction was, on the cover, just take off ‘#1 bestselling,’ take off every book I’ve ever written.” (Toil & Trouble is his 10th.) He explains, “This is not a book for people who have read and loved my previous books—although it is! But really, this is for people who feel like they’re the only ones [who are witches], because I literally feel like the only one. I’ve felt like a freak my whole life because I’m a witch, a thing that doesn’t exist that absolutely exists.” He adds, “I know from experience that if I feel this way, and I’m one, there are others that feel the same way who will hopefully find themselves in this book.”

What does Burroughs mean by witch, exactly? Well, he’s not the black hat-wearing, broomstick-riding, cauldron-stirring cackler the word so often conjures up. Think less Halloween, more Hogwarts—except, instead of having loads of similarly gifted classmates and teachers with whom to practice the craft, Burroughs discussed his abilities only with his mother and select relatives who were witches themselves. Burroughs first learned of his witch-hood when he was 9 years old, he explains in Toil & Trouble. One day his school bus ride home was filled with anxiety and distress; he was certain something terrible had happened to his grandmother. It turned out she’d been in a car accident, which he had sensed because, his mother said, he was the latest in a long family line of witches. This revelation was, he wrote, “simultaneously the most confusing and the most comforting thing anyone had ever said to me.” Burroughs’ mother taught him to understand his unusual abilities and to keep them hidden. When she became overwhelmed by mental illness and sent him to live with another family (a stage of his life he chronicled in Running With Scissors), he no longer had anyone to talk to about this aspect of himself. It became a secret he kept from everyone, including his husband, until he wrote Toil & Trouble, an experience that was itself more of a bursting forth than a planned endeavor. He recalls, “Our Great Dane had horrible invasive surgery, and the vet said he couldn’t move [during his recovery], so we had to bring a foam mattress into the living room . . . and make a giant playpen.” The dog,

cover story | augusten burroughs Otis, stayed still if Burroughs was there watching him, so the author hunkered down with his laptop— and the words started pouring out. “I destroyed my laptop, I broke the keyboard, it just exploded out of me—like it or not, there it was!” he says. He adds that his husband, Christopher, who is also Burroughs’ longtime agent, “didn’t have any idea what I was doing. As far as he knew, I was writing a thriller. I gave it to him, and he was like, wow.” Wow, indeed. Not only was Burroughs’ typing ferocious enough to destroy his laptop, it also gave him tendinitis in his shoulder for about six months afterward. But with the damage, and with the freedom of declaring this is all of me, came relief. He acknowledges that this might seem surprising to those who’ve read his previous work. “After writing so many memoirs, journalists would ask me if there’s anything in my life I haven’t written about, since I’ve written about stuff people would be embarrassed by, like sexual abuse, alcoholism, addiction,” Burroughs says. “But I always felt like, no, there’s nothing about myself I wouldn’t write about—except, obviously, the one thing I’m never going to write about! It was so off the table, I didn’t even realize I wasn’t replying accurately.” Not least because, he says, “I get it, I really do. . . . ‘Oh my god, now he’s a witch!’ I wouldn’t believe it either, except I do.” However, those early years under his mother’s tutelage weren’t characterized by dissonance. He knew what he experienced, so it wasn’t strange to him that his mother or aunt practiced witchcraft in addition to their scholarly pursuits. “My mother’s approach to witchcraft was not about spells, cloaks and herbs so much as, look, we possess neuroanatomy people haven’t found yet,” he says. “We have the ability to influence matter in ways that seem impossible and that would be called laughable and not taken seriously.” There is the occasional spell in Toil & Trouble, particularly during Burroughs’ efforts to get Christopher to see the upsides of moving from New York City to the Connecticut countryside. These finely crafted snippets of poetry do help his goals come to fruition, but the author says spells aren’t a necessity. “Magic is about specificity, about needing to know exactly what needs to happen, and writing can be a way to shape that,” he says. But this shouldn’t be confused with mere wishing: “You do want to achieve an outcome, but you don’t achieve it through wanting. You achieve it through an incredibly disciplined and crafted and powerful focus in the mind.” The men and their dogs ultimately did move to Connecticut, where they encountered neighbors whom Burroughs describes with a mix of acerbic wit and genuine

warmth, from a foul-mouthed and highly skilled contractor to an aggressively odd opera singer. There’s also a realtor named Maura who takes Burroughs on some truly astonishing house tours (keep an eye out for the phrase “cake abattoir”) and is a witch, too. Majestic old trees loom over the couple’s new house in a way that sets Burroughs’ senses tingling, even as they prompt a deeper look at the eternal push-pull between humans and nature. The author also muses on things ranging from illness and addiction to gardening and tattoos, as well as the 1960s TV show “Bewitched.” Woven throughout these topics—sometimes densely, sometimes more loosely—are Burroughs’ reflections on what being a witch has meant to him, from the teachings passed down via his ancestors to how he lives his life as a witch every day. Of course, it remains to be seen what life will be like for Burroughs, now that he’s put Toil & Trouble out into the world and his being a witch is no longer hidden. “My husband says witchcraft needs a new name and a new PR agent. People immediately think of bat wings being boiled,” he says. Then he clarifies, “All those words . . . like ‘eye of newt,’ are just words for different herbs.” He adds, “The thing we call ‘witchcraft’ is really a sense and an ability that probably a lot of people have, who would never say they believe in witchcraft—yet, through the sheer power of focus, they have achieved things that would seemingly be impossible. . . . It’s time to come out of the closet and be legitimized, because it’s not some fringe weirdo thing. It’s not actually supernatural, it’s hypernatural . . . the fundamental nature of the universe.” Ultimately, though, Burroughs knows readers will come to their own conclusions. “Either I’m completely lying, or life is a little bit more complicated than we think it is.” —Linda M. Castellitto

“I've felt like a freak my whole life because I'm a witch, a thing that doesn't exist that absolutely exists.”

Toil & Trouble St. Martin’s, $27.99 9781250019950

Memoir

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An eight-legged monster

Get ready for a feast of frights, from gaslight romance to cosmic horror. But beware: The books get scarier from left to right! The Widow of Rose House Diana Biller makes no bones about the fact that Edith Wharton—the best American ghost-story writer of them all—inspired every aspect of her debut novel, The Widow of Rose House (St. Martin’s Griffin, $16.99, 9781250297853). Even the (putatively) haunted house at the heart of the story is based on Wharton’s stately mansion. And best of all, Biller mirrors Wharton’s genius for revealing the emotional gold lying beneath the Gilded Age, which motivates the novel’s massive romantic turmoil. After years of abuse by an evil (and now deceased) husband, Alva Webster hopes to make a new start in the fashionable community of Hyde Park, New York. It’s 1875, a liminal moment in American history, when the dawn of the age of electricity coincides with a mania for psychic research. These paradoxical currents merge in the heart of scientist Samuel Moore, who wants to understand nature’s deepest secrets, however much darkness it takes to bring them to light. He asks Alva to let him investigate her troubled house—but the investigation goes much further than that.

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts Romance takes a contemporary turn in Kate Racculia’s wonderful new novel, set in present-

day Boston. The title—Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts (HMH, $26, 9780358023937)—captures both the book’s dynamic spirit and its delightful ambiguity. Does heroine Tuesday Mooney really talk to ghosts? Is the ghost in question her childhood friend Abby, who disappeared when they were both 16, taken one night from the ocean wharf where she and Tuesday used to hang out together? That’s the awful shadow that hangs over Tuesday’s life, the memory that keeps her from true friendship and true love. But fate has other things in store, arriving in the form of an elderly, eccentric billionaire who establishes a treasure hunt in the terms of his will. It turns out that Tuesday is the one person holding all the pieces of the puzzle, which she puts together with her deliciously campy friend Dex, her precocious teenage neighbor Dorry and the secretive Archie Arches, the key to the old man’s riddles and (naturally) the person made in heaven for Tuesday. As it turns out, the treasure hunt is a bid for these characters’ very souls. Abby’s ghost has something to say about it, too— something much more than “Boo!”

The Saturday Night Ghost Club In our next novel, horror is outdone by hominess. Even the setting of Craig Davidson’s The Saturday Night Ghost Club (Penguin, $16, 9780143133933) is too picturesque to be allowed: Niagara Falls in the idyllic 1980s, a place so nostalgically beautiful that nothing bad should happen there (but of course, it does). Jake is a 12-year-old boy who, along

with two new summer friends, gets caught up in the magical world of his Uncle Calvin, a lovable kook who not only tells the kids ghost stories but also shows them the ghosts. One hidden card after another appears from Calvin’s sleeve, until only the ace remains—the death card, the one that holds Calvin’s own secret, which even he doesn’t realize. If you like darkness poured out like molasses from a bucket, you’ll love this novel.

Last Ones Left Alive Sarah Davis-Goff has given us a zombie novel with a Celtic twist. Remember how the folks in Riverdance used to clomp around on stage with their arms held down and motionless? In her debut novel, Last Ones Left Alive (Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250235220), it finally makes sense: Those creepy dancers were heralding an apocalypse of the ravenous undead, whose arms have already been bitten off. Irish zombies are called skrake, and our teenage heroine, Orpen, spends her life on a little Irish island hoping never to encounter one. But she, her Mam and their formidable friend Maeve cannot evade the menace forever. Davis- Goff’s painstaking account of the courage and resourcefulness of these three women dominates the first part of the book, but their solitary ordeal preludes a much grander unfolding of female empowerment, in which they must join forces with the banshees, a company of women who set out to defeat the skrake—and other monstrous beings—and give humanity another chance.

of Halloween horror

Imaginary Friend YA author Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) makes his adult fiction debut with Imaginary Friend (Grand Central, $30, 9781538731338). Assuming its length (720 pages!) doesn’t scare you off before you even crack the cover, I’ll keep my review short, so you can get started. Chbosky’s chutzpah is to reimagine the Christian story of the Madonna and Child as a horror story. Kate Reese (like Alva Webster in The Widow of Rose House) is escaping an abusive man, hoping for a fresh start with her son, Christopher, in a little Pennsylvania town called Mill Grove. But Christopher gets lost in the woods and comes back changed, haunted by a voice in his head that threatens and commands him to do strange things (or else). This “imaginary friend” cannot stay imaginary for long (well, OK, for around 500 pages). The voice’s threats turn into a horrible reality, a battle between good and evil, with Mill Grove as Armageddon.

Suicide Woods Benjamin Percy’s awareness of his own craft— the terms of which are generously set forth in Thrill Me, his book of essays on the art of fiction—is apparent throughout his new collection of short stories, Suicide Woods (Graywolf, $16, 9781644450062). Each tale is a creaking door, hinging on a high concept or an uncanny hook, nicely derivative of weird masters such as Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Aickman. In every case, the gears of Percy’s plots make an audible noise, grinding his characters’ bodies and spir-

feature | spectrum of spooky

its (or both) into inevitable carnage. In these unrelenting tales, it can be taken for granted that the worst will always happen—that suicidal patients will ironically be terrorized and undone by their larger fear of death; that the apparition of a “mud man” in a fellow’s yard will turn his life into, well, mud; that a trip to the forbidding wilderness of Alaska will—naturally—forbid all joy, hope and life. The virtue of this collection lies in its super-refined telling, thanks to Percy’s efforts to break through the barriers between genre fiction and literature, by hell and high water (and ice and mud and whatnot).

Full Throttle Joe Hill’s attitude toward the craft of writing could not be more different from Benjamin Percy’s. Hill eats genre fiction like junk food, chewing up the whole disreputable tradition of horror into a new, unique pulp and spitting it out with massively entertaining mastery. He comes by this skill honestly: I mean, gosh, if your dad is Stephen King and your mom is Tabitha King, you’re as good as doomed (read: saved). For us fans, good fortune is dealt in spades in Full Throttle (William Morrow, $27.99, 9780062200679), Hill’s latest collection of stories. Framing a baker’s dozen of tales are Hill’s beautiful essay of appreciation for his parents at the front and story notes at the back, the kind that horror geeks like me drool over, just because they’re so wonderfully self-indulgent. Best of all are the inclusion of two stories Hill co-authored with his father, whose famous

love of motorcycles and road trips gone wrong have corrupted his son just right, making these the best tales in the collection.

A Cosmology of Monsters The seven books reviewed so far go bobbing for scares, each nibbling at terrors real or imagined, each splendidly diverting in its own way. But Shaun Hamill’s A Cosmology of Monsters (Pantheon, $26.95, 9781524747671) bites horror to its core. The most influential horror writer of the 20th century is H.P. Lovecraft, whose works offer a vision of the universe as a place of irredeemable misery and meaninglessness. Our lives are ultimately in the merciless hands (and tentacles) of a pantheon of unimaginably terrifying creatures who inhabit the nether regions of the planet. The only problems are 1) Lovecraft is a notoriously overwrought prose stylist, and 2) he despised people—not just individual persons but everybody, including himself. A magnificent tribute to Lovecraft’s vexing achievement, A Cosmology of Monsters redeems both of the master’s flaws. Hamill’s heart-stopping debut novel features exceptionally graceful language and a set of characters we come to worry about, take delight in, grieve for and love. Saturated with endless wonder and horrific consequences, it’s the story of a family marked for special attention by Lovecraft’s Old Ones. How much loss can a good person endure? Lovecraft never cared to ask the question. Hamill cares very much, all the way to the tragic last act. —Michael Alec Rose

interview | maaza mengiste

Breaking apart the myths of war Maaza Mengiste pushes against what is told and what is remembered. Four years into the nine-year marathon that ized that if Italy had its propaganda would result in The Shadow King, Ethiopian- machine, then I also had to accept American novelist Maaza Mengiste’s stunning the fact that Ethiopia had its mysecond novel about the 1935 Italian Fascist inthologies about this war. I realized vasion of Ethiopia, the author hit a wall. I needed to break apart the myths “I had published a novel, so when I started and legends and propaganda and this one, I thought I knew how to write a novlook deeper.” el,” she says wryly during a call to her home That deep dive revealed the often in Queens, New York. Mengiste came to the hidden but undeniable role of EthiUnited States as a child after Ethiopia’s brutal opian women in the conflict. From 1970s-era revolution toppled Emperor Haile that realization Mengiste develSelassie, experiences that formed the founoped her central character, Hirut, dation of her first novel, Beneath the Lion’s a young, often abused servant Gaze. Mengiste is now a professor in the MFA girl who displays a shrewd toughprogram at Queens College in New York and ness and rises to become a leader. is married to a fellow writer/professor. After Mengiste also felt free to invent the four years of frustration writing the new book, character of “the shadow king,” a Mengiste says she really had “to relearn the poor man with enough physical craft in order to do this.” resemblance to Emperor Selassie, One of the problems with her first draft, she who had gone into exile, that he could be cultisays now, is that it was too closely tied to the vated and trained to inspire Ethiopian fighters. facts of the war in Ethiopia. For those who don’t “In Ethiopian culture, the emperor is always know, Italy believed it had been denied its fair in the front line. Always. But past leaders also share of African colonies after World War I and, had a doppelganger, somebody who looked using a border incident as pretext, invaded like them on the battlefield to inspire morale Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia) in 1934 and and serve as a decoy,” Mengiste explains. briefly annexed it. She quickly adds, “Part of Mengiste’s early draft my concern in this book was “was completely atto center the story on peotached to the historical ple who are often not written facts and the historical about in history—the farmers, data. Everything that I the peasants, the servants who wrote was absolutely don’t have the social standaccurate, and the book ing to make them newsworthat emerged was dry, thy—because the stories that and it was boring, and get remembered are so often the characters were about people who are already wooden, and I was famous or noteworthy.” completely defeated by Freeing herself from being what I had done.” factually scrupulous also alAnother trap for lowed Mengiste to be advenher was the Ethiopiturous with the form of this an mythology about novel. Yes, there are standard their ultimate victochapters, but there are also ry in this war. “As a descriptions of photographs child, you hear these (one of the Italian characters stories of heroism. in the novel is a morally comThe Shadow King These men were poorpromised photographer forced Norton, $26.95, 9780393083569 ly equipped with old to document the Italian army’s guns, charging a very horrific atrocities); “interHistorical Fiction highly weaponized Euludes,” which describe Haile ropean army and winSelassie in exile in Britain; and ning. While doing research, I started thinking a chorus that comments on the activities of about the myths and legends of war, and I realthe novel’s characters. The result is an epic

novel reminiscent of the great Greek tragedies. At Queens College, Mengiste often teaches a course on the literature of conflict, and the class always begins by reading a Greek tragedy. “I love the Greek tragedies,” she says. “I don’t know how many times I’ve read [the story of] Agamemnon and the Iliad. . . . I wanted to have the chorus because I was thinking that the way history is told is not the way that it unfolded. The chorus was a way to push against what is told and remembered.” Mengiste also looked to the Iliad for inspiration in writing her incredibly gripping battle scenes. “I would read those battle scenes and not be able to breathe because there was just so much momentum in the prose. It gave me a great sense of the movement of battle, and I wanted to emulate that the best I could. It was fun. I really let the voice go free during battle.” Asked what she is most proud of in The Shadow King, Mengiste points to “the freedom I gave myself. I’m really proud of the structure of the book. People will either like it or hate it, but I was willing to take the risk because I wanted to push myself as a writer—not just as a thinker but as a writer. Some of my favorite writers are those who break form. I wanted to see if I could do that under their tutelage. I’m really proud of being able to combine the stories of the Ethiopians and the Italians, to force questions about both of them, about loyalty, about racism, about being subjugated by the very people who should be protecting you. These were the questions I wanted to bring forward.” —Alden Mudge

reviews | fiction

H Olive, Again By Elizabeth Strout

Family Saga Elizabeth Strout, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge (2008), says she thought she was done with Olive—until her beloved character “just appeared” to her again. And how grateful Strout’s readers will be that she did. In 13 interlocking stories set in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine, Olive travels through old age in her own inimitable style. She’s called an “old bag” by more than a few townsfolk, but she is loved by those who have, over the years, come to appreciate her honesty and complete lack of pretense. In one story, Olive shares her fear of dying with Cindy, who cared for Olive’s late husband, Henry, and who may be dying of cancer herself. Olive reminds her that Cindy’s husband

H The Testaments By Margaret Atwood

Dystopian Fiction Is it possible to compose a satisfying sequel to a novel that’s become a modern classic? That’s a challenge in itself, but the difficulty goes up exponentially if said novel has also been turned into a blockbuster TV series. In her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), which outlined a near future in which women’s freedom had been completely curtailed, celebrated Canadian writer Margaret Atwood leaps these hurdles with Olympian ease. The Testaments (Nan A. Talese, $28.95, 9780385543781) is a crowd-pleasing page turner. Atwood leans in to the attractions of both her original novel, with its Scheherazade-style narration, and the TV series, with its resistance-minded heroine. The Testaments is told in the first person by three narrators, allowing for a more panoramic

and sons, as well as Olive, will be “just a few steps behind” her if she does die. A few years after Henry’s death, Olive befriends widower Jack Kennison. Each has a child who doesn’t really like them, and both are lonely. They marry—to the dismay of Olive’s son, Christopher—and go on to enjoy eight years together. Olive lives through some health scares, first totaling her car after confusing the accelerator with the break, then suffering a heart attack in her hairdresser’s driveway. When Olive is assigned round-the-clock nurse’s aides—the story “Heart” poignantly portrays Olive’s growing dread of being alone—two of

view of Gilead than the cloistered Handmaid Offred could provide. The voice that flows with the most relish from Atwood’s pen, and that will be the most familiar to readers, is the Machiavellian Aunt Lydia. In Gilead’s patriarchal society, which categorizes women according to their function (Handmaids, for example, exist solely to bear children), Aunts are responsible for enforcing these roles. As a privileged member of an oppressed class, Aunt Lydia makes every decision with maintaining her status in mind. The other two narrators are young women: one raised within Gilead’s walls by a powerful Commander and his wife, and the other raised in Canada as the child of Mayday resistance operatives. As their stories unfold, it becomes clear that the power to bring Gilead down may be in their hands. If a book must be groundbreaking to be a true classic, The Testaments can’t be ranked alongside its predecessor. Today, the divide between genre and literary fiction is more porous, and dystopian fiction is an established genre—in large part thanks to novels like The Handmaid’s Tale. But just as The Handmaid’s Tale was a response to the backlash against the women’s movements of the 1970s, The Testaments is equally of its time, drawing from contemporary politics in ways that resonate. Atwood remains a keen chronicler of power and the way status (or lack thereof) affects how it is leveraged, and

the aides are especially kind to her. One is the daughter of a Somali refugee, the other is a Trump supporter, and Olive surprises herself by befriending them both. Finally, after a fall at age 86, Olive moves into the Maple Tree Apartments for assisted living, where she has few friends but forges a bond with Isabelle from Strout’s first novel, Amy and Isabelle. They check on each other at 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., just to make sure they’re still alive and haven’t collapsed in the shower. Strout possesses an uncanny ability to focus on ordinary moments in her characters’ lives, bringing them to life with compassion and humor. Her characters could be our own friends or family, and readers can easily relate to their stories of love, damaged relationships, aging, loss and loneliness. Each phase of Olive’s life touches on a memory, real or imagined. Olive, Again (Random House, $27, 9780812996548) is a remarkable collection on its own but will be especially enjoyed by those who loved Olive Kitteridge. It’s a book to immerse oneself in and to share. —Deborah Donovan

seeing her explore that issue in Gilead once again is a pleasure. —Trisha Ping

H The Topeka School By Ben Lerner

Literary Fiction Late in The Topeka School (FSG, $27, 9780374277789), Ben Lerner’s brilliant new novel, a character asks, “How do you rid yourself of a voice, keep it from becoming part of yours?” Voice is one of the central themes of this ingenious work that also serves as a commentary on the current political climate. One of the book’s three narrators is Adam Gordon, the protagonist of Lerner’s debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station. When Adam was 8, he suffered a concussion that left him with migraines so severe that his speech

reviews | fiction became slurred. Now, in the late 1990s, Adam is a Kansas high school senior and a fierce debater who has taken part in national tournaments. Adam’s story makes clear that communication as well as voice—how people communicate or don’t, from debaters to therapists to anti-gay Reverend Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church—are as integral to the story as Adam and his parents, Jonathan and Jane Gordon, psychologists at an institute called the Foundation. Jane is the author of a bestselling book that some women have told her saved their marriage. Because of its success, Jane has received abusive phone calls from men, especially after her “Oprah” appearance, as well as harassment from Phelps and his crowd. Jonathan, meanwhile, struggles with his wife’s success and with his own fidelity. He left his first wife after he met Jane, and now with Jane’s career on the rise, he begins to have feelings for Sima, another Foundation psychologist, who is also Jane’s best friend. In the midst of these stories is that of Darren Eberheart, Adam’s classmate, who has committed a violent act that will have ramifications for the people around him. The importance of speech in the novel lets Lerner comment on the state of politics, from glancing references to some people’s inability to decode irrational arguments to more direct critiques, as when he writes of a legendary debater at Adam’s school whose right-wing Kansas governorship would become “an important model for the Trump administration.” “How do you keep other voices from becoming yours?” is a key question of our time, or, for that matter, any era. The Topeka School provides no clear answers, but it memorably demonstrates how hard it can be to recognize insidious utterances for what they are. —Michael Magras

H The World That We Knew By Alice Hoffman

Historical Fiction Alice Hoffman is a brilliant weaver of magic and the mundane, as many of her novels have proven over the years. In her hands, a story we think we know, from

a time we think we’ve extracted every possible detail, can become a soulful new voyage into the heart of the human condition. With her latest novel, The World That We Knew (Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 9781501137570), Hoffman travels to a hidden world built amid the horrors of the Holocaust and brings forth a spellbinding tale of love, loss and what it means to endure. Hoffman’s story begins in 1941 in Berlin, where a young Jewish mother, Hanni, knows that she must find a way to smuggle her daughter, Lea, out of the city before the Nazis take notice of her. To do this, she turns to a rabbi for mystical help, only to discover that his daughter, Ettie, is more willing to help Lea through magical means. Ettie, working from knowledge she’s gained through observing her father, crafts a golem they call Ava to guide and protect Lea. Thus begins an unlikely and harrowing journey through France, where Ettie finds a new purpose, Lea finds her soul mate and Ava finds that she’s much more than a single-minded creation.

In her breathtaking new novel set during World War II, Alice Hoffman finds light in a dimming world. In beautifully precise prose, Hoffman chronicles the experiences of these characters and those whose lives they touch along the way. Throughout the next three years of the war, each woman tries to survive while also pursuing her own process of self-discovery. Though Nazi-occupied France is an endlessly compelling place to many readers, Hoffman never takes her historical setting for granted. Rather than leaving us to lean on what we think we know, she weaves a fully realized vision of the hidden parts of history, chronicling the stories of people who slipped through the cracks on their way to freedom and the emotional toll that freedom took. Page by page, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, The World That We Knew presents a breathtaking, deeply emotional odyssey through the shadows of a dimming world while never failing to convince us that there is light somewhere at the end of it all. This book feels destined to become a high point in an already stellar career. —Matthew Jackson Visit BookPage.com to read a Q&A with Alice Hoffman.

H The Water Dancer By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Historical Fiction Hiram was born into “tasking”—what Ta-Nehisi Coates calls slavery in this beautiful, wrenching novel—but he has always stood slightly apart from the other people who are “Tasked” on the Virginian estate called Lockless. The son of an enslaved woman named Rose, Hiram learned early in life that his father was the Lockless master, Howell Walker. Although Hiram worked in the apple orchards and the main house, he had something the other Tasked would never dream of: lessons from the Walker family tutor. But the lessons were no gift. Howell Walker’s plan was to prepare Hiram to spend his life caring for his older half-brother, Maynard, the charmless, dull heir to Lockless. A naturally smart child, Hiram subdued his thirst for knowledge. “I knew what happened to coloreds who were too curious about the world beyond Virginia,” he says. Driving Maynard home one night from the horse races, Hiram is thinking of nothing but his “desire for an escape from Maynard and the doom of his mastery. And then it came.” Hiram doesn’t know why a strange mist comes up off the river or why the bridge falls away, revealing his long-gone mother dancing. He later learns this is Conduction, the rare ability to transport oneself on the power of memories. It’s a prized skill that recruiters on the Underground Railroad hope Hiram will put to use for their cause. They move him to Philadelphia, where he is shocked to see for the first time people of all colors mingling freely. He works to harness his gift of Conduction, while still feeling the pull of his people who have been sold and scattered throughout the South. The Water Dancer (One World, $28, 9780399590597) confronts our bitter history and its violence and ugliness, which still resonate generations later. Coates’ fierce, thought-provoking essays on race composed We Were Eight Years in Power and the National Book Award winner Between the World and Me. Here he weaves a clear-eyed story that has elements of magic but is grounded in a profoundly simple truth: A person’s humanity

feature | sherlock holmes is tied to their freedom. “Breathing,” Hiram says. “I just dream of breathing.” —Amy Scribner

The Giver of Stars By Jojo Moyes

Historical Fiction Ill-suited to the stultifying environment and prospects of England, Alice jumps at the chance to escape to America by marrying Bennet, the wealthy, handsome son of a coal-mine owner. However, soon after arriving in Bennet’s small town in Depression-era Kentucky, Alice realizes that problems in her marriage, a controlling father-in-law and small-town gossip are equally suffocating. When Eleanor Roosevelt creates a mobile library system as part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, Alice volunteers to become one of the librarians on horseback to escape her father-in-law’s house. As a librarian, Alice joins four others: unconventional Margery, who lives by her own rules; boisterous Beth, who has eight brothers; Izzy, the library organizer’s pampered daughter, who wears a leg brace and has a beautiful voice; and Sophia, a black woman who risks backlash to work for the mobile library, in violation of the state’s segregation laws. Together, these women and their horses face hardship and danger to bring books and information to the poverty-stricken backwoods of Kentucky. In return, they find companionship and fulfillment. The library’s future is threatened, however, when Margery and Alice step too far outside the accepted norms of society, angering the powerful patriarchy of the town. Jojo Moyes, bestselling author of Me Before You, has written a wonderful novel based on the real-life Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky. Moyes’ research is evident, as her writing completely immerses readers in the world of a small, Depression-era coal-mining town—the class structure, the ignorance and the violence, as well as the overwhelming beauty of the surroundings and the strength of character required to survive. Moyes has

The game is afoot! Two of the world’s greatest minds—the Holmes brothers—are pitted against a serial killer and an international conspiracy in two thrilling new releases. Fans of both the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his older brother, Mycroft, will be more than pleased with these offerings from basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and author/screenwriter Nicholas Meyer. Abdul-Jabbar, in his third venture with screenwriter Anna Waterhouse, presents another adventure from the Holmes brothers’ early years with Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (Titan, $25.99, 9781785659300). The 19-year-old Sherlock deems his time at Downing College as “insufferable,” so he is happily distracted by the apparent randomness of a series of crimes across Great Britain dubbed the 411 killings. There are no discernible commonalities among the victims; only a note from the killer ties the crimes together. Meanwhile Mycroft, alongside his friend and confidant Cyrus Douglas, is embroiled in a quest to find the missing fiancé of the woman he loves. As in their first adventure, Mycroft and Sherlock, the Holmes brothers spend much of this latest novel following the clues in their separate cases before coming together. Both storylines are equally fascinating as Abdul- Jabbar and Waterhouse capture the flavor of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian London and his characters to a tee. Readers may yearn for the brothers Holmes to be united even sooner so their brilliant minds can spar with one another, but it’s a satisfying adventure nonetheless. Sadly, Mycroft only plays a minor (albeit important) role in Meyer’s The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (Minotaur, $25.99, 9781250228956), but it’s enough to set Sher-

lock and his dutiful companion, Dr. John H. Watson, on a suspenseful cross-country race to debunk a global conspiracy. While Sherlock is still in his teens in The Empty Birdcage, the detective has just turned 50 as Meyer’s latest adventure starts. In 1905, Mycroft encourages the intrepid duo to launch an investigation into the discovery of a manuscript (and actual historical hoax) known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The papers purportedly represent the minutes of a secret council advocating nothing less than complete world domination on behalf of Jews. Holmes’ mission: Determine who drafted the papers and expose them as a hoax. The quest takes Holmes and Watson from Baker Street to Paris, and then to Russia aboard the fabled Orient Express. The danger and mystery intensify with each turn of the page, as unsavory characters dog their every step. Even Holmes’ beloved Stradivarius violin isn’t safe. Though Holmes ultimately manages to identify the man who falsified the papers and coerces him to confess, the mere publication of the papers will fuel the conspiracy for decades to come. Meyer may be best known for his screenwriting and directing duties on three Star Trek films, but he is no stranger to Holmes pastiches either, as he previously “discovered” unpublished Watson manuscripts in the form of his novels The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer. Meyer’s familiarity with Doyle’s characters clearly works to his advantage, as he packs an abundance of suspense, intrigue and Holmesian flavor into this latest tale. —G. Robert Frazier

reviews | fiction written unforgettable characters who come alive on the page. All five women, but especially Alice and Margery, are written with such depth that readers may wish they, too, could join this tight circle of remarkable women. A heartwarming page turner, The Giver of Stars (Pamela Dorman, $28, 9780399562488) is certain to be Moyes’ next bestseller and should not be missed. —Annie Peters

H The Dutch House Family Saga The Dutch House (Harper, $27.99, 9780062963673) confirms what we’ve always known: Ann Patchett doesn’t write a bad book. Though the settings may differ (Bel Canto took place in South America, Commonwealth in Southern California and elsewhere), each of Patchett’s books tells a compelling, vivid and imaginative story while offering a deep meditation on human nature. The titular mansion is located in the Elkins Park section of Philadelphia. It was once owned by the VanHoebeeks, whose imposing portraits are still hanging on the walls when an aspiring real estate developer buys it after World War II. He brings with him his two children—Danny, 3, and Maeve, 7—and his wife, Elna. The house, which has fallen into disrepair, comes complete with furniture and a servant, Fluffy. Elna is horrified by the extravagance of the property and her husband’s wealth, which he’d been keeping a secret. She starts to disappear, first sporadically, then permanently. Left with their emotionally detached father, the children find that things can only get worse. In true fairy-tale fashion, a wicked stepmother and her own kids move in. Danny (the narrator) and Maeve are displaced from their home when their father suddenly dies and leaves them both almost penniless. An unshakable bond forms between the brother and sister as they survive and strive, pining for their lost home and enraged by the woman who took it from them. Along the way, Patchett’s knack for aging her characters over many decades serves the

mothers and daughters—one a vignette, the other a ghost story, both with a depth that far outweighs their brevity, something that can be truthfully said for each of these stories. —Lauren Bufferd

Watershed By Mark Barr

H Grand Union By Zadie Smith

Short Stories

By Ann Patchett

story well. The Dutch House is a vast, almost preternatural property, and the characters who have, at one point or another, inhabited it are at the heart of this absorbing tale. It’s fitting and inevitable that the home eventually beckons them back. —Jeff Vasishta

Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Marlon Brando are driving out of Manhattan after a terrorist attack. What sounds like the opening of an urban myth is actually the zany plotline of “Escape from New York,” one of 19 tales in Zadie Smith’s first collection of short stories, Grand Union (Penguin Press, $27, 9780525558996). These masterful tales impress, engage and occasionally infuriate as Smith brings her dazzling wit and acute sensitivity to bear. These stories are ready to grapple with the complex times we live in. If anything serves this collection best, it’s the humor that runs through the stories like a lazy river. All genres are Smith’s to play with, from fables to science fiction to a realistic conversation between two friends. Even the few weaker efforts still brim with ideas and intelligence. No subjects are off-limits, from an older trans woman shopping for shapewear in “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets” to a young mother remembering her sexual escapades in college in “Sentimental Education.” Smith uses the third-person plural to fine effect in one of the collection’s best, the parable “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” which explores global politics without ever mentioning a politician or country by name. Smith has explored the complexities of families and friendships in an urban setting over the course of five award-winning novels. Those themes are reflected in the delightful “Words and Music,” in which the surviving sister of an elderly pair of siblings sits in a Harlem apartment, reminiscing about the music that shaped her life, and in “For the King,” in which two old friends catch up over a decadent Parisian meal. Grand Union is bookended by two stories of

Historical Fiction Observant travelers along Tennessee’s highways may notice roadside signs denoting watersheds across the state. These are regions where water from streams, rivers and lakes provide power, recreation and clean, safe drinking water. The creation of one such watershed is the pivotal backdrop of Mark Barr’s powerful debut novel, appropriately titled Watershed (Hub City, $26, 9781938235597). In a rural Tennessee community in 1937, contractors from across the country have converged to construct a federal dam that will help bring electric power and prosperity to the post-Depression-era community. Into this setting comes one such contractor, Nathan McReaken, an engineer hiding a dark secret from his past. Nathan joins the crew at the dam on a probationary period and quickly learns that loyalty, hard work and diligence are no guarantee of continued employment when there are so many others begging for work. Nathan takes up residence in a boarding house, where he encounters Claire, a local housewife escaping her abusive husband, Travis, who also works at the dam. On her own for the first time, Claire takes on an assistant role to a power company salesman, going door to door to get people signed up for electric service. As Nathan’s past catches up with him and Claire’s relationships with men reach a boiling point, their stories intersect in suspenseful, heartfelt fashion. Watershed is the second title in the Cold Mountain Fund Book series, a collaboration between Hub City Press and National Book Award-winning author Charles Frazier. But more than that, it’s an eloquently written story of two people and their ambitions, yearnings and passions amid a key historical period. —G. Robert Frazier

reviews | nonfiction

H Make It Scream, Make It Burn By Leslie Jamison

Essays A tattoo that runs up the arm of acclaimed essayist Leslie Jamison reads Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto, or “I am human. Nothing human is alien to me.” Her new collection, Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, $28, 9780316259637), puts her tattoo to the test. Jamison investigates outsiders: people who obsessively identify with a whale known as 52 Blue, people who believe their children have been reincarnated, people who linger in the online world of Second Life. She takes her subjects seriously, but she also finds herself at a loss to relate. Sometimes connection is impossible. Of her interaction with someone who doesn’t speak English, she writes, “Nothing that is human is alien to me,

Poisoner in Chief By Stephen Kinzer

Biography Sidney Gottlieb was an odd fit for the CIA in 1951. Among the Company’s aristocratic Ivy Leaguers, he was a left-wing scientist and the Bronx-born son of Jewish immigrants. But he and CIA chief Allen Dulles had at least one thing in common: Each had been born with deformed feet, though Dulles’ condition was less serious. Did that shared remembrance of early physical struggle form a bond? Whatever the reason, Dulles hired Gottlieb, and so began his astonishing career of killing, torture and lies. The outlines of Gottlieb’s CIA tenure, as head of the MK-ULTRA mind-control research project and director of the spy-tools department, are well known. But renowned journalist Stephen Kinzer’s new biography of Gottlieb, Poisoner in Chief (Holt, $30, 9781250140432), is still shocking in its vivid detail.

I would have told him, except I couldn’t, because some things are alien to me, like the Sinhalese language.” Beyond the limits of relatability, she also explores the weightiness of one person trying to document the life of another. In my favorite essay, she traces the unraveling of Walker Evans and James Agee’s trip to the South, which they completed on Fortune magazine’s dime in 1936 and which resulted in the widely acclaimed Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941. Her astute

Throughout the 1950s, under Gottlieb’s imaginative leadership, MK-ULTRA experimented with LSD and other dangerous drugs on unwitting or coerced subjects—mental patients, prisoners and just plain old everyday folks. Many were left mentally disabled for life; some were even killed. One fellow CIA scientist was likely thrown out of a window when he was deemed unreliable. And it was all done in a completely fruitless search for the ability to “brainwash” human minds. Nothing worked—ever. In this masterful book, Kinzer demonstrates that the “research” done by Gottlieb’s team was as horrifically unethical as anything done by Nazi doctors later tried for war crimes. And yet, as Kinzer carefully documents, Gottlieb was a “nice guy” who loved his family and lived a proto-hippie lifestyle in rural Virginia. He spent his post-CIA years quietly, as a speech therapist who treated children—when he wasn’t destroying documents or stonewalling congressional committees. During the years of investigations and lawsuits that began in the 1970s, Gottlieb never publicly repented; indeed, he believed himself to be a true patriot who had fought a justified war against communism. Kinzer’s chilling book reveals what can happen when morality is jettisoned in the name of national security— then and now. —Anne Bartlett

analysis of the differences between the draft of the magazine article and the published book blew me away. She deepens her exploration of this theme in subsequent essays, detailing her own journalistic romp to a foreign land and the difficulties of trying to write about what she saw there, and also the way that feminists such as photographer Annie Appel have obsessively returned to their subjects to try and resist the limits of witnessing. Appel has documented herself alongside her Mexican subjects and has, over time, allowed her story to become intertwined with theirs. The perils of representation weigh on many people, certainly, but perhaps especially on artists. Jamison’s title Make It Scream comes from a review of Agee’s famous book by poet William Carlos Williams. For Williams, it is the duty of the artist to make life scream and smolder—to show the urgency that underlies and interconnects our lives. Nothing human is alien to me. For her readers’ sakes, I hope Jamison will keep pursuing this ideal. —Kelly Blewett

H How We Fight for Our Lives By Saeed Jones

Memoir In How We Fight for Our Lives (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781501132735), award-winning poet Saeed Jones (Prelude to Bruise) weaves a series of stinging, memorable vignettes into a powerful coming-of-age memoir. This intimate book, which details his experiences growing up black and gay in the American South, is a required and distinctly singular read. Through flowing metaphors and dialogue, rich language and deeply personal family stories, we learn about Jones’ struggle for his identity—why he built a suit of invisible armor to protect himself when no one else would. Jones writes, “If America was going to hate me for being black and gay, then I might as well make a weapon out of myself.” Almost every passage feels like a fresh, raw wound, ready to leave a scar.

reviews | nonfiction Each vignette represents a different stage in Jones’ blossoming life, and together they create a kaleidoscope of the difficulties that can stem from hiding oneself from the world. We travel with him as the child of a single mother in Lewisville, Texas, to his strained teenage relationship with his religious grandmother in Memphis, Tennessee, to destructive sexual experiences with friends, lovers and strangers, to his life in college and beyond, where he has yet to accept himself as a full person, rather than as a performer who needs to be interesting enough to entertain a crowd. Jones recognizes his desire to wear a mask early on, but it’s difficult to remove the mask once he has the chance. Jones knows that accepting himself in a racist and homophobic world is an act of radical selflove, and this devastating memoir illustrates why such an act is worth the long struggle. —Sarojini Seupersad

H A Polar Affair By Lloyd Spencer Davis

Nature The polar explorations of the 19th and 20th centuries are well-chronicled journeys to both the North and South poles, strewn with well-known names such as Shackleton, Peary, Scott, Nansen and Amundsen. Less well known is the first, albeit reluctant, penguin biologist, a British physician named Gregory Murray Levick who accompanied Robert F. Scott on his doomed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1912. This was a man who knew little about—and had even less interest in— studying penguins, preferring instead to eat them whenever necessary (which was often the case). Yet according to his modern-day counterpart, fellow penguin biologist and author Lloyd Spencer Davis, the rather odd Levick would inspire Davis’ own career choice decades later. In Davis’ enthralling account, A Polar Affair: Antarctica’s Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins (Pegasus, $29.95, 9781643131252), he grows to respect and admire Levick, afflicted though Levick was with the rigid Victorian values that put him uncomfortably at odds with the promiscuous Adélie penguins.

Levick, in fact, was so ambivalent about reporting what he observed in the subcolonies of breeding penguins—the “bawdy behavior of these ‘hooligans’ ”—that he pasted paper over certain passages in his journal, as if he were embarrassed by what he saw. His assumptions about those “prim and proper, monogamous little creatures that mate for life” were dashed. As for the explorers themselves, Davis quickly adds, “Sexual misdemeanors in the polar regions are not, it would seem, the province of Adélie penguins alone.” The valiant explorers and their many lovers, as Davis writes it, were no strangers to amorous discoveries. Shackleton, for example, “is probably more penguin than he is a man of his word when it comes to marital fidelity.” With treacherous ice floes entrapping ships, invisible crevasses that became deathtraps, scurvy, frostbite and much, much more, Davis’ Antarctica is a vividly described, unforgiving world of ice and wind—where, by the way, freezing, starving men had to eat their dogs and ponies, and on Sundays gathered for Bible readings and hymns. But not all the dangers were weather-induced. Scott’s wife, Katherine, wrote and exhorted him to die, if necessary, to achieve his goal. Beaten to the pole by Amundsen and doomed by his many mistakes, Scott succumbed to the elements, his frozen body still clutching her letter. Somehow, Davis serves it all up with wit and a wry, irrepressible sense of humor, while imparting everything there is to know about penguins. —Priscilla Kipp Visit BookPage.com to read Lloyd Spencer Davis' most interesting penguin facts.

Crusaders By Dan Jones

Medieval History Dan Jones, author of The Templars, returns to dazzle readers with a fascinating look at the Crusades. And lest you hesitate because events that took place a thousand years ago appear irrelevant, rest assured: This is no dry, boring tome. Entering the world of Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for

the Holy Lands (Viking, $30, 9780525428312) is a bit like plunging into the political machinations of the fight for the Iron Throne of Westeros, only in this case all the players and events are real. Like “Game of Thrones,” this epic tale is peopled with a large cast. Helpfully, Jones begins with a chart of major characters (17 pages’ worth). The book also boasts several maps, copious source notes, lists of major rulers in the appendix and, of course, an extensive bibliography. In other words, even neophytes will feel well armed to appreciate the journey. And what a journey (or rather journeys) it is. The book is organized into three parts, with the first section devoted to the personalities and events that birthed the crusader movement from the 1060s forward; the second takes place in the 12th century and focuses on crusader states in Syria and Palestine; and the third covers the events that precipitated the Second and Third Crusades in 1144 and 1187. Jones’ focus on human characters and his strength as a storyteller are what make Crusaders a success. Vivid descriptions and the use of primary source quotes help readers span the centuries. The book begins, for instance, with a colorful scene between a Norman count reacting to advice from his courtiers: “Count Roger of Sicily lifted his leg and farted. ‘By the truth of my religion,’ he exclaimed, ‘there is more use in that than in what you have to say!’ ” In a thought-provoking epilogue, Jones brings his narrative into the present day. For while the Crusades are part of history, violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims continue to shadow the 21st century. “The Crusades are over,” Jones notes in a final thought. “But as long as there are crusaders—real or imaginary—in the world, the war goes on and on.” —Deborah Hopkinson

Fair Play By Eve Rodsky

Relationships Eve Rodsky makes the bold assertion that she’s “changing society one marriage at a time.” Is she a renowned family therapist? A world-famous researcher into the dynamics of marriage? No. She’s a Harvard-

reviews | nonfiction educated lawyer and mom of three who got sick and tired of nagging her husband to pitch in around the house. Rodsky talked to hundreds of couples to get to the heart of why, in 2019, women still bear the brunt of invisible work—things like scheduling teacher conferences and providing middle-of-the-night comfort to kids. And then some women fall into the trap of nagging and criticizing their partners for not doing things exactly as they would. It’s a no-win situation for everyone involved. “We expect women to work like they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work,” Rodsky writes. She would know. After a stint at J.P. Morgan, Rodsky launched her own business advising charitable foundations, all while bringing three humans into the world. She writes lovingly of her husband, Seth, who “made efforts to extend a hand, but ultimately retreated because ‘I can’t do anything right.’ ” It was in an effort to preserve her own marriage that Rodsky did the research for and designed the Fair Play system.

It’s to Rodsky’s credit that Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) (Putnam, $26, 9780525541936) never devolves into a diatribe against men. (Although some of the quotations she gets from men in her interviews are astonishingly retro: “What does she have to complain about? I have the stress of putting the food on the table.”) She takes a solution-based approach to the issue, starting from the premise that men’s and women’s time are of equal worth, no matter who makes more money or stays home with the kids. From there, couples are given the tools to renegotiate the top 100 things required to make a household work— everything from managing pets to ensuring first aid and emergency supplies are in order. Fair Play is lively and cathartic, and just plain fun to read. Rodsky acknowledges the issues that chip away at so many marriages and offers a completely achievable approach to solving them. Her message is clear: Stop nagging, start living. —Amy Scribner

Gender Mosaic By Daphna Joel and Luba Vikhanski

Neuro science The 1990s and 2000s were awash in books telling us there is something fundamentally, biologically different about the way men and women think. Bestsellers claimed that the differences between men and women were, literally, all in our heads. But it turns out the science wasn’t so cut and dried. In their new book, Gender Mosaic (Little, Brown Spark, $26, 9780316534611), neuro scientist Daphna Joel and science journalist

meet ERIN WILLIAMS

In this intimate, clever and beautifully illustrated memoir, we follow author and illustrator Erin Williams on her daily commute to and from work in New York, punctuated by recollections of sexual encounters and memories of her battle with addiction and recovery. She tenderly explores the complexity of shame, guilt, vulnerability—and the daily choice women make between being sexualized and being invisible. Read our full review of Commute (Abrams ComicArts, $24.99, 9781419736742) at BookPage.com.

reviews | nonfiction Luba Vikhanski demolish the warped science and faulty reporting that claimed to have located the gender binary inside our skulls, showing evidence for a much more nuanced and egalitarian picture of human cognitive capabilities. Joel is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Tel Aviv University, and her research underpins Gender Mosaic. She argues that classifying brains as either “male” or “female” is meaningless. Instead, all brains are a patchwork of both masculine and feminine attributes—the mosaic. “If we do persist in applying to brains the same terminology we apply to genitals, we are bound to conclude that most brains are neither male nor female—they are intersex,” the authors write. But aren’t there measurable distinctions in how girls and boys behave, the subjects they are good at, the ways they interact? Gender Mosaic posits that these differences aren’t primarily biological but social, the result of how children are raised, educational systems, religious ideologies and other sociological forces. The authors offer an approachable overview of the basics of brain anatomy and neuro science, and readers will ponder the reasons for the cultural insistence on what the authors call the “binary illusion.” The book follows accounts of scientific research with reasoned arguments for gender equality—as if the authors anticipate a backlash. Gender Mosaic is an excellent science book for gender studies scholars and an excellent gender studies book for scientists, but anyone looking for a deeper, more expansive examination of the science of gender could glean something from this book. —Jessica Wakeman

would shape the young accounting student’s life. Stanley invested his life in the job, often passing his computer knowledge along to his son, Clyde. But Stanley was passed over for promotion again and again. Although Stanley and his wife marched on Washington in the civil rights era, Stanley had internalized some of the racism around him. He believed he was inferior, and he saw his lack of advancement at IBM as confirmation. Clyde resisted following the path his father had paved. He was more radical and refused to adjust himself to the white business world’s expectations. Even so, Clyde too ended up at IBM—sporting a wide-lapel suit and an afro. The Ford men ultimately took different paths, with Stanley spending his career at IBM and Clyde leaving to pursue other dreams. But his years at the company helped Clyde understand his father. After Clyde left IBM to become a chiropractor, he learned that his father—and many others—gave up their dreams for the financial security of IBM. In Think Black (Amistad, $25.99, 9780062890566), Clyde blends personal experience with technological and racial history to reveal how these things influenced one another. This wide-ranging memoir includes complex details about software and hardware as well as an exploration of IBM’s ties to oppressive regimes. While his examination of the past can’t change his relationship with his father, Clyde Ford’s words powerfully honor his father’s dreams and contributions to the digital age. —Carla Jean Whitley

American Radicals By Holly Jackson

American History

Think Black By Clyde W. Ford

Memoir “My father used chess as his guide: Black begins with a disadvantage. You have to look farther ahead, work extra hard, rely on cunning, and assume everyone else is your opponent.” John Stanley Ford was proud of his position as the first black systems engineer at IBM. Founder Thomas J. Watson hired Stanley himself in 1946, extending an invitation that

On the Fourth of July in the late 1820s, Frances Wright, a Scottish philanthropist, writer and social reformer, gave what was probably the first public address by a woman in the United States. In it, she warned her audience against a narrow patriotism that worshipped the founders instead of their principles. She encouraged listeners to focus instead on the Constitution’s amendment system, with its expectation of change as the public became more enlightened. Holly Jack-

son’s magnificent American Radicals (Crown, $28, 9780525573098) tells the story of trailblazers like Wright who sparked a second American revolution in the 19th century and of their profound effect on the course of our history. This sweeping and briskly told history introduces the many people who have challenged conventional approaches to race, gender, property, labor and religion, and the devastating attacks waged in response by defenders of the status quo. The major figures in public reform are certainly here, but Jackson intentionally focuses on obscure figures who played significant parts. Among them was George Ripley, who left the Unitarian ministry and, with his wife, founded Brook Farm, a communitarian project whose residents shared domestic and agricultural work equally in an intellectual atmosphere. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived there, and many other visitors came to observe, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. The theories of Charles Fourier, a French philosopher who felt that “civilization” as it was being practiced was “monstrously defective” and needed major reform, inspired the project. Jackson believes “the impact of Fourier’s thought on American culture has been underestimated, probably because it is difficult to believe that thousands of Americans, including highly educated members of the elite, earnestly embraced these ideas. But they did.” This incisive and well-written overview of Americans who protested wrongs in their society deserves a wide readership. Many fine academic studies have covered the subjects here, but this account, written for a general audience, is authoritative and fast-paced and vividly portrays a crucial period. —Roger Bishop

Motherhood So White By Nefertiti Austin

Memoir In her memoir, Motherhood So White (Sourcebooks, $25.99, 9781492679011), Nefertiti Austin provides valuable firsthand insight into what it means to be a black single mother and to reject the constraints of societal expectations. When Austin decided to adopt her son,

feature | the monstrous feminine August, a black boy placed in the California foster care system, she was met with criticism and disbelief, especially from her own family. They couldn’t understand why she wanted to legally adopt a stranger, an outsider. For many black people, adoption is a cultural custom reserved for white people, unless you had “a connection with that child, even a tenuous one.” As a child, Austin’s grandparents provided stability and guidance while her parents drifted in and out of her life. Her own adoptive experience had shown her that families, especially black families, didn’t need to be limited to the traditional expectations of one mother and one father, or to the demands of the white gaze. When she decided to become a mother at 36, Austin had to first become a foster parent, as decreed by California state law. This journey, which eventually resulted in adoption, was not without trials and tribulations. Not only did she face the daily challenges of newfound motherhood, she also had to contend with America’s legacy of systemic racism and discrimination, which renders black mothers either as invisible or as tropes in a dehumanizing narrative. Austin’s memoir is a natural response to both the erasure of black mothers and the dismissive and demeaning misrepresentation of black motherhood. She relays her experiences with equal parts candor and consideration, careful not to paint communities or motherhood with broad brushstrokes as she dismantles the notion that all “real” families must look and act alike. Motherhood So White is a testament to the power of love as a radical act and an urgent call to reclaim motherhood from institutionalized whiteness. —Vanessa Willoughby Visit BookPage.com to read a Q&A with Nefertiti Austin.

H Unfollow By Megan Phelps-Roper

Memoir There are two ways to write about a dam bursting. You can begin at the exact moment the cresting waters rupture the wall and surge toward freedom—or you

Sisterhood of horror The harrowing realities of being female in a wicked world have inspired horror, gothic and speculative fiction for centuries. In late 2018, prominent horror film producer Jason Blum came under fire on Twitter for defending his production company’s failure to hire female directors, saying it was the result of women’s disinterest in exploring horror. Women, it turns out, not only like the dark just fine, they’ve staked it out as their own. Indeed, it’s largely due to women that the horror genre developed as it has. When literature that was gothic, dramatic and shocking was thought to be trash unfit for the highbrow male, women writers and readers flooded the macabre void. Through horror, they began to write the dark side of the female experience: endangered, haunted, preyed upon. In Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction (Quirk, $19.99, 9781683691389), scholars of the weird Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson trace the genealogy of women who’ve dealt in the unsettling, from the 17th century into the present. This book is inspired not only in the way it explores what the off-kilter, the monstrous and the half-known has meant to women for centuries but also in how it illuminates the often unusual lives of the women who crafted these dark worlds. Amelia Edwards was a swashbuckling explorer who traveled Egypt with her female partners in the Victorian era and wrote stories about mummies. Daphne du Maurier enigmatically referred to herself as a “disembodied spir-

it” throughout her childhood. Shirley Jackson was whispered to be a witch. As rebels within the male-dictated feminine role, were these women writing themselves as monsters? Or was it the world around them that was malformed, menacing? Sady Doyle would answer, “Why not both?” The engrossing Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power (Melville House, $16.99, 9781612197920) embarks on a fascinating exploration of the women we make into monsters in film, in literature and in life. (Behind every male serial killer is a bad mother, society would say, as Doyle rolls her eyes.) When a woman steps outside her prescribed role, Doyle argues, suddenly everyone’s a Puritan minister, signing the cross and hissing, “Witch.” What is Lucy Westenra from Dracula if not a woman who consumed as she pleased? What were the protagonists of the film The Craft but disempowered girls who finally stood up? Doyle uses these tales to examine what feminine power can mean to us now. It’s thought that Mary Shelley wrote her Creature as a metaphor for womanhood—a trod-upon and mistreated thing that famously stated, “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!” upon discovering that being nice got it nowhere. Doyle might agree. In an era that seems to reflect renewed violence against women, it might be time to sweetly remind those around us that we are dangerous. Monsters, after all, have claws. —Anna Spydell

reviews | nonfiction can start long before that, with the first drops of rain that eventually overrun the embankments. In Unfollow (FSG, $27, 9780374275839), Megan Phelps-Roper chooses the second approach to explain why she left the notorious Westboro Baptist Church. One of the most surprising aspects of this remarkable book is how loving the Westboro Baptist Church was—at least to its members in good standing. Phelps-Roper’s childhood was idyllic in many ways. She was surrounded by caring, intelligent and passionate adults who adored her. By the age of 8, however, she was joining them in protesting against the LGBTQ community and being rewarded for spewing vile slogans. This strange juxtaposition defined her youth: Phelps-Roper went to school, shopped at the mall, ate popcorn at the movies—and then rushed out to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or to publicly pray for more children to be shot after Newtown. By the time she was in her 20s, Phelps-Roper was in charge of the church’s social media presence, using her formidable intellect to defend the reprehensible. And yet, throughout her book is an awareness that each incident contributed to the erosion of her faith in Westboro’s theology. It’s ironic that the very qualities her family instilled in her—intellectual rigor, intimate knowledge of the Bible, courage in the face of fierce opposition—led to her inevitable departure. When she could no longer support either the church’s theology of hatred or its belief in its own infallibility, she renounced them. Phelps-Roper is a masterful writer. She writes movingly about the searing pain of separation from those she continues to love, and beautifully about how freeing herself from a theology of hate has given her life greater meaning and purpose. In a time of growing intolerance, Unfollow is essential reading. —Deborah Mason

Sontag By Benjamin Moser

Biography Perhaps no writer of the late 20th century has been more mythologized, or lionized, than Susan Sontag. Beautifully written and moving, Benjamin Moser’s Sontag: Her Life and

Work (Ecco, $45, 9780062896391) reveals with illuminating clarity Sontag’s ceaseless quest to understand and be understood; her often arrogant and condescending manner, even to those closest to her; and her attempts to use art to fashion herself into the iconic figure she became in life and death. Drawing deeply on hundreds of interviews with Sontag’s family and friends, as well as on materials in Sontag’s restricted archives and her published and unpublished writings, Moser traces her life from her childhood and youth, to her years at the University of Chicago, and throughout her attempts to distance herself from reality by aestheticizing it in her critical essays and fiction. Sontag’s father died when she was 5, and her mother remained distant, so she retreated into books. “Reading gave Susan a way to recast reality. . . . When she needed to escape, books let her close the door,” Moser writes. Looking back on her childhood, Sontag revealed a theme in her journals that defined her entire work and life: “I grew up trying both to see and not to see.”

This brilliant book matches Sontag’s own brilliance and finally gives her the biography she deserves. Moser’s close readings of Sontag’s writings— from her earliest essays (“Notes on Camp,” “Against Interpretation”) to her failed novels (The Benefactor) and her successful ones (The Volcano Lover, In America)—reveal the theme of language’s relationship to reality. For Sontag, “language could console, and how it could destroy.” Alongside his elegant readings, Moser delves into the rocky relationships that resulted from Sontag’s inability to be alone— from her son, David, to her lover, Annie Leibovitz, to artists such as Jasper Johns and Joseph Brodsky. Sontag may have been our last public intellectual. She cast her intense gaze over art, literature, film and politics, boring into her subjects with a steely vision that revealed the many facets not only of those subjects but also of herself. Moser’s monumental achievement captures the woman who, among other things, “demonstrated endless admiration for art and beauty—and endless contempt for intellectual and spiritual vulgarity.” This brilliant book matches Sontag’s own brilliance and finally gives her the biography she deserves. —Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

How to Be a Family By Dan Kois

Memoir In 2017 Dan Kois, his wife and their two children did what many families secretly dream of doing: They packed up their belongings and spent a year living abroad. Their life in Arlington, Virginia, had come to feel like an endless rat race—Kois is an editor at Slate and his wife, Alia, a First Amendment attorney—leaving them feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. They asked themselves, “Could the two of us set aside our relentless quest to make sure our children had every material and educational advantage, and instead focus for twelve months on caring for all our hearts and souls?” Kois shares the fascinating and frequently hilarious results in his admirably honest account of that year, How to Be a Family (Little, Brown, $28, 9780316552622). In addition to Kois’ humorous, self-deprecating style, the book is particularly lively because Kois and his wife picked such diverse spots to live: the blustery coastal town of Wellington, New Zealand (their favorite spot); the bustling city of Delft in the Netherlands; tropical Samara, Costa Rica; and deep in the heartland of Hays, Kansas, where a friend of the family lived. (Yes, Kansas!) Kois and company adored their friendly, welcoming neighborhood in New Zealand. The Dutch were not so affable (Kois calls them “mysterious and frustrating”), although the family loved the country’s reliance on bike transportation. Costa Rica was at times monotonous in its endless string of beautiful days, and occasionally the togetherness became too much, prompting Kois to write, “Thank God for cards” (as in card games). In Kansas, they found a wonderful sense of community, discovering that it was “a place where people could bloom.” In the end, the family found their lives changed but not transformed, realizing that “a place never solves anything.” Nonetheless, their journey was an unforgettable adventure, allowing them the priceless gift of having time to pay more attention to each other. —Alice Cary Visit BookPage.com to read a Q&A with Dan Kois.

reviews | young adult

H Thirteen Doorways,

Wolves Behind Them All By Laura Ruby

Historical Fantasy In Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All (Balzer + Bray, $17.99, 9780062317643), Printz Medal-winner Laura Ruby weaves a heart-wrenching story about loss and familial bonds as two girls, an orphan and a ghost, struggle to make their way during the early 1940s. Pearl, who narrates, died in 1918 and haunts the Chicago orphanage where Frankie is abandoned by her father, a poor shoemaker. Pearl watches as Frankie endures both harsh treatment by the nuns and the heartbreak of her father’s remarriage and subsequent move to

H The Last True Poets

of the Sea

By Julia Drake

Fiction The Larkins’ family history starts with a shipwreck off the coast of Maine in 1885. Fidelia Larkin, the only survivor of the sinking of the Lyric, persevered, founded the town of Lyric, Maine, married and started her family there. “Their love was our beginning” is Lyric’s unofficial slogan. Generations later, Fidelia’s descendants are adrift in wreckage of a different sort. Violet’s younger brother, Sam, has just tried to take his own life, and Violet’s parents have sent her to stay with her uncle in Lyric for the summer so they can focus on Sam’s recovery. Desperate to shed her own self-destructive tendencies, Violet shaves her head and tries to disappear. But she soon discovers that, although her disappearing act won’t help her brother, reviving their lifelong dream of finding the wreckage of the Lyric just might. Debut novelist Julia Drake has drawn all her

Colorado without her. Frankie must also weather the loss of her first love, who enlists in the Army at the height of war. Over time, Pearl meets other spirits and begins to unburden herself of the secrets that keep her locked in the mortal realm. She

characters richly, easily enabling readers to identify with Violet, Sam and their struggles. The seaside setting is vividly evoked, and readers will feel fully transported to the small town of Lyric. Violet and Sam undergo dramatic transformations as they begin to heal, redefining both their identities and their relationship with each other. Their journey together is the novel’s greatest strength. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Drake’s enthralling debut doesn’t shy away from the big stuff. The Last True Poets of the Sea (Hyperion, $17.99, 9781368048088) explores themes of identity, mental health, romance and family with grace and gravitas. —Sarah Welch

Angel Mage By Garth Nix

Fantasy Generations ago, a plague of Ash Blood and strange beasts destroyed the land of Ystara, which its guardian archangel, Pallenial, appeared to have abandoned. The neighboring land of Sarance, protected by its own angelic hosts, was unaffected by the plague.

discovers that her afterlife doesn’t have to be spent wandering Chicago’s streets, trapped in an endless loop. Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All calls to mind A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, another story that explores the struggles, heartache and joy of those who grew up without privilege in the early 20th century. Pearl is a tragic heroine, a product of the social expectations placed on a beautiful young woman in the late 1910s, and Frankie comes of age amid the uncertainty and instability of World War II—yet both refuse to succumb to hopelessness. A beautiful and lyrical read that pushes against the boundaries of what we often think a young adult novel can contain, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All is sure to garner Ruby even more acclaim. —Kimberly Giarratano

A powerful young woman, Liliath, who may have caused the tragedy, was believed to have perished while fleeing Ystara. More than a hundred years later, Liliath reawakens in Sarance, eager to complete her devious and destructive plan to summon Pallenial. Her efforts bring her into contact with four young people: Agnez, a valiant, newly recruited Musketeer; Henri, the fortune- seeking youngest son of a poor family; Simeon, a dedicated doctoral student; and Dorotea, a gifted icon-maker with rare skills of angelic magic. Liliath’s plan brings these four strangers together, but although she watches them closely, she underestimates their resourcefulness and determination to uncover the truth about their bond, which could foil Liliath’s plan for the second time. Garth Nix found inspiration for this swashbuckling standalone fantasy novel in Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Nix maintains the epic scope and derring-do of a 19th- century adventure novel, and like Dumas, his world is governed by powerful monarchs and church officials. However, Nix updates Dumas’ setting for 21st-century readers with clear (and deliberate) descriptions of an egalitarian world populated by men and women who command equal status and respect in every aspect of society, from politics to academia. He also adds a complex and fascinating system of angelic magic. With four dashing heroes, an unrepentantly evil villain, a sprawling cast of characters whose diversity is foregrounded and, refreshingly, no hints of romance between the protagonists, Angel Mage (Katherine Tegen,

reviews | young adult $19.99, 9780062683229) is a highly entertaining tale of valor and intrigue. —Annie Metcalf

The Catcher in the Rye and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. —Jill Ratzan