Published by Influx Press / Graywolf Press, 2021, 335 pages. “Money, Mississippi, looks exactly like it sounds. Named in that persistent Southern tradition of irony and with the attendant tradition of nescience, the name becomes slightly sad, a marker of self-conscious ignorance that might as well be embraced because, let’s face it, it isn’t going …
Category: Fiction
Great Circle: Maggie Shipstead
Published by DoubleDay / Knopf, 2021, 593 pages. “I was born to be a wanderer. I was shaped to the earth like a seabird to a wave.” In 1950, aviator Marian Graves undertook a round-the-world flight, going from north to south. She disappeared over Antarctica—neither her body nor the plane was ever found. Over half …
Murder at the Grand Raj Palace: Vaseem Khan
Published by Mulholland Books / Hodder, 2018, 360 pages. An American billionaire is found dead in his room at the Grand Raj Palace in Mumbai with a knife sticking out of his chest. The room is locked, and there is no sign of anyone else having been there. On the mirror in the bathroom are …
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Glory: NoViolet Bulawayo
Published by Viking / Chatto & Windus, 2022, 403 pages. “The Father of the Nation...was at an age when what was most important to him was to be left alone, and besides, those who know about things said the state of affairs inside his head wasn’t unlike a tumultuous country without a clear leader.” Jidada, …
Doña Inés Versus Oblivion: Ana Teresa Torres
Translated from Spanish by Gregory RabassaPublished by Phoenix, 1999, 245 pages. Original version published in 1992. “[L]isten carefully, because I hold its whole history in the secret places of my memory.” Doña Inés, the matriarch of a wealthy Venezuelan family who owns a cacao plantation, fights a legal battle with her houseboy for some property …
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Frangipani—A Novel: Célestine Vaite
Published by Back Bay Books, 2004, 294 pages. “When a child is born in Tahiti, her placenta is buried under a tree and the child and the tree grow together. A healthy tree means a healthy child just as a sick tree means a sick child.” Set in Tahiti, this book is about the relationship …
The Blue Sky—A Novel: Galsan Tschinag
Translated from German by Katharina RoutPublished by Milkweed Editions, 2006, 209 pages. Original version published in 1994. “Grandma was human silk. That’s what Father said, and what he said was always right. Always. And she had been sent to me by the sky.” The Blue Sky is a coming-of-age story about a boy living in …
Everything the Light Touches–A Novel: Janice Pariat
Published by Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, 2022, 491 pages. “Not everything the light touches can be seen.” “‘To strive, to seek, to find, dear Evie,’, her grandmother would sing, ‘and never to yield.’“‘Never to yield to what?’ she would ask. ...“‘A life bereft of wonder.’” Four people, separated by time and place, embarking on four journeys, …
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Death and the Penguin: Andrey Kurkov
Translated from Russian by George BirdPublished by Vintage Books, 2003, 228 pages. Original version published in 1996. Victor lives in Kyiv with his pet penguin, Misha, whom he acquired when the local zoo was giving away animals they could no longer feed. Viktor makes a living writing obituaries (obelisks) for the newspaper Capital News. His …
The Shining: Stephen King
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, and Anchor, 1977, 497 pages. “Now his ears were open and he could hear them again, the gathering, ghosts or spirits or maybe the hotel itself, a dreadful funhouse where all the sideshows ended in death... It was a living sound, but not voices, not breath. ... [T]o Danny it …
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