17 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: May 2017
Every month, the Writer’s Bone crew reviews or previews books we've read or want to read. This series may or may not also serve as a confessional for guilty pleasures and hipster novels only the brave would attempt. Feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments section or tweet us @WritersBone.
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Daniel Ford: Hala Alyan’s debut novel Salt Houses is an incredibly beautiful, tender read. Her prose feels personal and lived-in, her characters seem like they’re ready to wander into your kitchen and have a cup of tea with you, and her dialogue is as lyrical and poignant as her poetry. There’s a real heartbeat on every page of this novel.
One of the things I love most about the book is how it’s structured. She jumps from character to character while moving forward several years in the timeline. This allowed her to explore themes like the aftermath of war and the development of personal and familial relationships in a way typically reserved for short story collections. Alyan crafted some powerful lines about love, family, and conflict that only someone who had this story in her bones could have pulled off.
As I said during my interview with the author (which you can listen to on May 8), human stories like the ones found in Salt Houses need to be told widely and often during these troubled political times. Pain and suffering weren’t just invented after Nov. 8, 2016. Humanity has been grappling with issues like identity, race, property, nationalism, and warfare since human’s stepped over the threshold of their cave dwellings thousands of years ago. Thankfully, novels like Salt Houses can delve into those seemingly intractable subjects in a moving and haunting way in the hopes of raising the level of our discourse.
The Wrong Side Of Goodbye by Michael Connelly
Sean Tuohy: Detective Harry Bosch is back in Michael Connelly’s latest thriller. The relentless LAPD detective is hired to find the missing heir to a billion-dollar fortune, while also trying to capture a serial rapist. Connelly is able to make each novel feel fresh and full of life. His characters are well developed, the plot is fast-paced, and you never know what will happen next.
Marlena by Julie Buntin
Daniel: From the isolated cold of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to the impersonal, sun-kissed skyscrapers of New York City, Julie Buntin’s haunting Marlena is a coming-of-age story with real teeth.
Fifteen-year-old Cat’s world is off its axis when we first meet her. Her mother has dragged her and her brother to rural Michigan (where they can barely make ends meet), and Cat makes friends with Marlena, an abused drug addict who sets in motion a litany of “firsts” for our troubled heroine. Marlena ends up drowning in six inches of water, and Cat’s life is never the same.
Buntin explores Cat’s psyche and motivations by bouncing back and forth from past to present. The contrast between the simple, hardscrabble life Cat leads in Michigan and her trendy, avant-garde New York City existence couldn’t be more stark, and, in many ways, more heartbreaking.
Marlena is incredibly well written and structured for a debut novel (especially when you consider Buntin wrote a good chunk of it on Google Docs!). Buntin’s passion and dedication to the craft is evident on every page, and you’ll be ready for more of her work as soon as you finish the book.
Janesville, An American Story by Amy Goldstein
Gary Almeter: I have, in the past few months, read Evicted by Matthew Desmond and Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, so fancied myself an expert on the effects of post-industrialization on the Midwest and Appalachia. (Evicted has since won the Pulitzer.) So I thought it intriguing to see another middle class-focused book, this one about the closing of a General Motors plant in a Wisconsin town called Janesville.
Janesville, An American Story endeavors to chronicle the stories of people in that town following the plant's shutdown. What Goldstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has done here is astonishing. In an engrossing, chronological format, she follows several families, community leaders, politicians, and corporate representatives. She provides facts and the details that make up a life that newspaper headlines just can’t adequately convey.
Little Victories by Jason Gay
Mike Nelson: For six years I’ve been riding the bus to work. As a veteran, you can tell who’s a pro, who’s new, and who hasn’t been on wheels since their drunk uncle pulled them around in a Radio Flyer at a family reunion screaming, “And down the stretch they come,” while spilling his mint julep all over himself, you, and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend’s daughter sitting behind you. There are rules to be followed on the bus, etiquette to be embraced, common courtesy and thoughtfulness, and funny moments to be had.
This is exactly the type of thing you’ll find in Jason Gay’s Little Victories (but this, specifically, is not a thing you’ll find in his book). Gay, a sports writer for The Wall Street Journal, has had my attention for years as a refreshing voice who can make you think, learn, and laugh out loud (a breach of bus etiquette) all in the course of a paragraph. His stories range from interviewing Rihanna to playing touch football with his family at Thanksgiving to what it’s like to lose your job—each one sticking with you and teaching you lessons you might not need just yet but maybe someday will.
I have three complaints about Little Victories (this is how I rope you in to read the third paragraph of a book review for something you haven’t read):
- This is not a very long book (~200 pages), and even if you try to stretch it out, it goes too fast. I want more, Jason.
- I wish I saved this book for the summer because it is an absolutely perfect beach read.
- I can’t remember how to write with my own voice because Gay’s writing style is so infectious.
The River of Kings by Taylor Brown
Daniel: I read Taylor Brown’s stunning debut Fallen Land in two sittings midway through 2015. I then had to wait six months to crow about it. (The novel ended up at #3 on our best books of 2016 list.) Brown’s sophomore effort, The River of Kings, was released this past March and I’m taking a different approach to reading it. Instead of rapidly powering through the novel, I’m savoring every sentence, every character, every line of dialogue, every chapter. There’s something about Brown’s writing that feels like home, regardless of what he’s putting his characters through. He’s a special talent, one that’s just going to get better with age.
American War by Omar El Akkad
Daniel: Omar El Akkad’s American War follows ably in the footsteps of Ben H. Winter’s Underground Airlines. The novel features a dystopian America, a second Civil War, shadowy characters, familial angst, and a culture that (horrifyingly) doesn’t feel too different than our own.
Within the thrilling tale lies a coming-of-age story (don’t they all?) for the main character Sarat. The young American refugee makes decisions that have implications for not only herself, but for the nation ravaged by war. The book’s release could not have been better timed, and offers a fictional cautionary tale to our politically divided country.
A Brutal Bunch Of Heartbroken Saps by Nick Kolakowski
Sean: I recently received this book from the author and I’m loving it. This is a must read for fans of gritty, hardboiled storytelling. Bill, a man on a run, has the misfortune of being taken hostage during his cross-country escape. Written by someone has a passion for the crime genre, this brutal story balances humor and violence brilliantly.
The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
Gary: I just got an email notification from my library that my copy of Joshua Ferris' The Dinner Party is ready for me to pick up on the reserve shelf. I reserved it back in January (I was the first one to do so), and periodically checked on it to make sure things were all systems go with the reservation.
This is one of the highlights of my 2017. Ferris is an author who makes books and writing cool. He’s the closest thing literature has to Matt Damon. His three novels have been spectacular. He chronicles the absurdity and the normalcy of life in the 21st century with characters that are likable and simple (and with whom we can all identify). This collection of short stories (many of which have appeared in The New Yorker already) is his first. The title story, about a dinner party, is a doozy.
Author’s Corner
By Josh Cook, author of An Exaggerated Murder
Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
In perhaps the most important book of 2017, Luiselli tells the story of her time volunteering as an interpreter for undocumented children fleeing violence in Central and South America seeking residency in the United States. Luiselli tries to change the way we talk about immigration, especially from our Southern neighbors, by exploring our complicity in the crises that turned these people into refugees and reminding us that quite often, when we're talking about “illegal aliens” and “undocumented immigrants,” or whatever other term someone might try to scare us with, we're talking about children.
The One-Eyed Man by Ron Currie
An exercise in questioning our assumptions, an examination of the state of our political discourse, and an exploration of the value of being irrational. Obviously, the topical aspects of Currie's great book stand out; reality television, political punditry, what counts for debate on cable, and the madness surrounding the American gun debate, but I think Currie's real target and real brilliance is something both smaller and bigger: how do we make sense of death and how do we figure out how to live.
Recitation by Bae Suah
A drifting lyrical book about place and identity that follows the story—as much as there is a story—of a mysterious Korean recital actress wandering through cities, lives, and apartments.
The Warren by Brian Evenson
If there is such a thing as “sci-fi noir” (and I'd argue there is) Evenson (who also writes more literary short stories) is a master of the genre. This novella is a good introduction to Evenson's dark, gritty, cynical fiction. Definitely for fans of PKD
Unbearable Splendor by Sun Yung Shin
Poetry as essay? Essayistic poems? Poetic essay? There are even some charts. Sometimes the pieces feel more like poems with fluid grammar and freer themes and some feel like they have the focus and coherence of essays. I love books like this that ask questions just by existing.
Hothouse by Karyna McGlynn
McGlynn is a favorite of mine. Her poems have a dark sense of humor and an interesting kind of intimidating sexuality to some of them. Though she is probably closest to Patricia Lockwood in style at the moment, this collection also has the weirdness that I love in James Tate
Make: A Decade of Literary Art
An anthology of short stories, essays, poems, and art from the literary magazine Make. Make isn't a magazine I'm familiar with, but it's a beautiful book and includes work by some great authors like Valeria Luiselli, Maggie Nelson, Dorothea Lasky, Martin Seay, Alejandro Zambara, and Kate Zambreno.
#NovelClass
Listen to Daniel Ford and Dave Pezza’s discussion about Jaroslav Kalfar’s debut novel Spaceman of Bohemia.
Learn more about the #NovelClass series.
More from the Writer’s Bone Library
5 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: August 2014
Every month, the Writer’s Bone crew will review or preview books they’ve read or want to read. This new series may or may not also serve as a confessional for guilty pleasures and hipster novels only the brave would attempt. Feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments section or tweet us @WritersBone.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Daniel Ford: I’ll admit I’m a little late to the party on this book. But I’m swiftly making up for lost time. During my recent trip to New York City, multiple people demanded I read this novel. I made my way to Strand Book Store, bought a cheap copy, and have been devouring it ever since.
John Kennedy Toole won a posthumous Pulitzer for the book after his mother found a publisher for it years after he committed suicide. It’s been said on numerous reviews I’ve read that Toole had more great work in him, which I completely agree with. His dialogue and comedic timing are so good that you won’t want to put this book down.
The best part is that Nick Offerman is reportedly going to play the role of Ignatius J. Reilly in a stage production of the book. I don’t know if he has the obesity to pull it off, but I’m pretty sure he will nail Reilly’s bursts of outrage.
Sean Tuohy: I like history. I like fiction. However, I didn’t like the two mixed together until now. I heard Daniel’s podcast interview with Jeff Shaara and then I was given the novel. I fell in love after the first three pages. Shaara painted a vivid portrait of the early years of the Civil War and gave me a better understanding of the men who fought it. The novel also reminded me of how young our nation was at the time and how close we came to losing it all. It’s a wonderful tale that you will be reading deep into the night.
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
Daniel: I was a huge fan of Joshua Ferris’ debut novel, And Then We Came to the End, because his writing style was a refreshing change of pace and perfectly blended humor and drama. I read it in a few days and recommended it to everyone I knew.
I didn’t know about his second novel, The Unnamed, until I found a used paperback copy at Raven Used Books in Boston. It’s an expertly crafted tale about a man struggling with a rare disease that forces him to keep walking. His relationship with his wife and daughter falls apart and gets put back together several times during the novel and your heart aches the entire time you’re reading it. The book isn’t devoid of hope, which is why you’ll be glad you powered through the book in a couple days. However long it takes you to read, it’ll stay with you for quite some time and for good reason.
I would read this over his recent work,To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. While I enjoyed spending time reading his style, I wasn’t particularly in love with the story or the main character. Ferris will be hard-pressed to top The Unnamed or And Then We Came to the End, but I’m eager to see him try.
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Dave Pezza: Alrighty, this is a quick review for the aforementioned book because Daniel won’t let me borrow any more seasons of the television series “Community” until this review is in his hands. So here we go.
Stephan King is, in short, awesome. Sean and Daniel spent an entire podcast talking about him. He is the master of the macabre and thane of thrills. Let’s put it this way, King is a machine. And this particular machine manufactures creative masterpieces of suspense and weird like no other! King has published Guns, Joyland, Ghost Brothers of Darkland Country, Doctor Sleep (the long awaited sequel to The Shining), and Mr. Mercedes in the last two years alone. Admittedly, I haven’t read much King. I've previously read the first 200 pages or so of The Stand and The Cycle of the Werewolf (a really cool illustrated collection of short stories following werewolf attacks in a snowy New England town). So I approached Mr. Mercedes from a mostly King-ignorant perspective.
Having said that, I highly recommend this book. King does everything right to convert his down-to-earth, blunt, blue-collar style to the detective novel format. His lead detective, retired detective Bill Hodges, is a quintessential King workaholic with a haunted past. He’s supported by the young and black Jerome, who is Ivy League bound and perpetually explaining technology to Hodges, and the curt, but charming and promiscuous Janey, Hodges love interest and overall doll! The gang teams up to stop Brady—a troubled man with mommy issues who floored a V-12 Mercedes into a crowded parking lot and walked away scot-free—from committing a new act of mass destruction.
I flew through this thriller and now I’m hungry for more King quirks, creepiness, and crudities wrapped up in literary stylings of legend.
Your Fathers, Where Are They? And The Prophets, Do They Live Forever? by David Eggers
Dave: Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is Eggers’ second publication since A Hologram for the King, his 2012 novel named as a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. I’m a fan of Eggers. I read What is the What, his novelization of the story of one of Lost Boys of Sudan, in college. I wasn’t’ particularly taken, but after reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a few years later, I began to admire Eggers’ frank, but hopeful, style of writing. A Heartbreaking Work…, Eggers’ memoir about the death of both of his parents and his raising of his younger brother, is astonishingly bleak and soul regenerating. Your Fathers…is not nearly as cut and dry. Eggers’ latest work got a scathing review in the New York Times Book Review. I felt unfairly so. However, when you publish a book composed entirely in dialogue through your own publishing company, you really don’t have to give a shit about critics. Eggers managed to complete this new work entirely in dialogue between the main character and several of his captives. Thomas, Eggers’ 30-something main character, kidnaps a series of people and chains them up in an abandoned military base in California to converse with them. Thomas believes that he can find the answers to his qualms about the current American culture by talking to these men and women, who include an astronaut, a congressman, and a police officer. The ensuing conversations compose the bulk of the 212-page novel.
These conversations, unfortunately, vary in relevancy and success. Some I found confusing, vague, and trite. Others were gripping, enlightening, and honest glimpses of social progressive dialogue. Overall, I suggest giving it an honest read. Eggers makes an attempt here, with some success, to remind us of how and how not to discuss social issues. We avoid many of the issues Eggers brings about in Your Fathers…, and short of being chloroformed, chained, and threatened with electrocution, many of us would be unwilling to earnestly discuss the issues Thomas poses to his captives.
Your Fathers…is a cry for help. You can hear him yell through the pages, “Get off Facebook, Twitter, and whatever and have a real, honest conversation with someone about real issues, especially with those that disagree with you.” Is the defunding of the space shuttle really low point in our nation’s grandeur? Is police brutality and hyper-aggressiveness a national concern?
Eggers may not have the right answers here, but at least he is asking, and, thankfully, he is doing it in format where clicking “like” isn’t a legitimate response.