Michael Chabon’s wonderful “Moonglow” is a fictionalized memoir of his family history, based on Chabon’s maternal grandfather’s story, portions of which his grandfather shares at the end of his life. We first meet Chabon’s grandfather in 1957, as he is attempting to strangle the president of the company he works for with the frayed end
Swing Time – by Zadie Smith
“Swing Time” is an incredibly complex book that delves deeply into a variety of topics, including class, politics, race, friendships and relationships, privilege and culture. The story begins in 2008 when the narrator, whose name we are bewilderingly (at least for me) never given, has been ostracized by her famous employer and is hiding in
Barkskins – by Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx’s 700 plus page epic, “Barkskins”, is the complex story of two intersecting families and the multi-level impact of one of the family’s greed driven destruction of the world’s environment. When you consider that the story begins in 1693 and ends in 2013, it is an almost masterly accomplishment that the novel runs only
The Underground Railroad – by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” is a chilling story of slavery, focused on Cora and her escape from the Randall plantation in Georgia. The story begins with Cora’s grandmother, Ajarry, kidnapped from a village in Ouidah, and sold over and over again until she found herself in Georgia at the Randall plantation. At the Randall
Nutshell – by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan’s “Nutshell” is a most peculiar murder mystery (although not so mysterious) told by a most unusual narrator, the unborn child of one of the perpetrators. “So here I am, upside down in a woman…I count myself an innocent, but it seems I’m party to a plot.”
Although unborn, our narrator has certain very
The Guineveres – by Sarah Domet
“The Guineveres” is a first novel by Sarah Domet, about a group of girls who for a variety of reasons have been abandoned by their families and are living in a convent. Four of the girls unbelievably are named Guinevere and that commonality is enough to bring them together as best friends. The girls must
The Nix – by Nathan Hill
“Sometimes we’re so wrapped up in our own story that we don’t see how we’re supporting characters in someone else’s.” Nathan Hill’s “The Nix” is a grand tale about Samuel Andresen-Anderson’s search for his own story, told through his family history and his cast of supporting characters, amidst flashbacks to the 1968 Democratic convention and
Zero K: A Novel – by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo’s “Zero K” is a novel about…well, I am not really sure what it is about. Maybe it’s about death, maybe it is about the one dimensional life of a grieving outsider or maybe it is a prediction of our dystopian future brought about by war and climate change and our ultimate desire for
A Gambler’s Anatomy – by Jonathan Lethem
What is a face? Is it a mass behind which we create an identity? Or is it our actual identity? What happens when the face is radically changed?
In “A Gambler’s Anatomy”, Alexander Bruno is a professional backgammon player, telepathic, debonair and mysterious, expertly relieving the wealthy and egotistical- frequently one and the same-of their
The Comet Seekers – by Helen Sedgwick
The Comet Seekers is a first novel about trying to live in the present while struggling to understand the past. The book starts and ends in the year 2017 in Antartica where Roisin, age 58, is studying Antarctica and comets. She chose to go to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey to get far away