Keith Donohue Crown Publishers ($24) by Andrew Cleary In the opening scene of Keith Donohue's novel Centuries of June, we see the bloody collision of the narrator’s head against the bathroom floor. "In that instant," Jack says, "the blood became a secondary concern to the hole in the back of my head." When Jack rises from […]
Henning Mankell Translated by Steven T. Murray The New Press ($26.95) by Jens Tamang A story about a white man who brings a black child back to 19th-century Sweden against his will, Henning Mankell’s ethically complex and disturbing novel Daniel has tremendous potential for offense. YetDaniel is a surprisingly delicate meditation on the failures of colonial power, providing a […]
Jim Miller AK Press ($13.95) by Susan Solomon Who are the Wobblies? If you know, if you care, then Jim Miller’s novel Flash may light a spark inside you, driving you deeper into the realm of hellish history heaven. And if you are not familiar with the Wobblies and the Industrial Workers of the World, be prepared […]
Federico Gamboa Translated by John Charles Chasteen The University of North Carolina Press ($22.95) by Kristin Thiel This book’s English translator, professor of history John Charles Chasteen, provides a brief but extremely useful introduction to the 110-year-old novel Santa, offering readers some depth only scholars might already have. Santa—which describes turn-of-the-twentieth-century Mexico through the life of the […]
Jennifer Egan Anchor Books ($14.95) by Sharon Harrigan “It is in ourselves that we should seek to find those fixed places, contemporaneous with different years.” This epigraph, from In Search of Lost Time, is well chosen, because A Visit from the Goon Squad is Proustian in its ambitions—not just in its themes of capturing the essence of time, […]
Michael Crummey Other Press ($15.95) by Marjorie Hakala It’s common to say that a book paints a vivid picture, or to remark on the sound of its prose, but somewhat more rare to claim that a book has a distinctive smell. Galore is an exception, carrying a pervasive odor of fish and the sea that’s both distinctive […]
Kevin Brockmeier Pantheon ($24.95) by Kelly Everding Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination takes on a juggernaut of philosophical conundrums: the problem and purpose of suffering. In the world he creates, every person’s source of pain, from paper cuts to pancreatic cancer, suddenly begins to emit light. There is no fanfare to it—it just happens, and people are left […]
Anne Wiazemsky Translated by Alison Anderson Europa Editions ($15) by Derek M. Jackson Each story has its appropriate storyteller. When it came time to tell the story of Claire Mauriac, the task fell to her daughter, Anne Wiazemsky, and the result is My Berlin Child. Focusing on a turbulent, pivotal time in Claire's life, the book […]
Alexander MacLeod Biblioasis ($16.95) by Benjamin Woodard The Canada found in Alexander MacLeod’s impressive debut story collection, Light Lifting, is full of anxiety and obsession: a land where man masters the ins and outs of minivan combustion engines, parents fixate on the origin of lice, and the powerless struggle to overcome childhood fears. Across seven wide-ranging […]
Tahar Ben Jelloun Translated by Linda Coverdale Penguin ($15) by Brooke Horvath Although Tahar Ben Jelloun left Morocco for France in 1971, his imagination continues to haunt its villages and conjure its dusty beauty. His most recent novels, The Last Friend and Leaving Tangier, have explored the life of the immigrant, but with A Palace in the Old Village, […]