*STARRED REVIEW The story begins and ends with Alisak, one of three inseparable Laotian orphans in 1969, who, in the final pages, will have become an almost-content Spanish shopowner on his way to a birthday celebration in 2018. Traversing countries and continents during a half-century, Paul...
*STARRED REVIEW Although the page facing the title of Azar’s first novel to be translated into English clearly states, “Translated from the Farsi,” the linguistic enabler remains anonymous; the publisher’s official line is, “the translator of this book has asked not to be named out of...
At 42, Andrew knows too much about death – personally and professionally. He’s lost his father, mother, sister; his bully brother-in-law is hardly family. He works in London’s Death Administration department, where he deals with what’s left of those who died alone, inspecting their homes,...
*STARRED REVIEW A half-dozen Latinx readers voice Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s superb 11-story debut collection, which features mostly Colorado-domiciled Latinx/Indigenous characters hoping, demanding to be seen and acknowledged by a society in which women are routinely dismissed, threatened, and destroyed. Aural aficionados will especially thrill at the “read...
*STARRED REVIEW Although the cover claims Yu’s (Sorry Please Thank You, 2012) latest is “A Novel” – the description insistently written out in both Chinese and English lettering – his fiction, as always, defies easy labels. This hybrid conflates history, sociology, and ethnography with the timeless...
As British artist and author Ian Beck explains in his afterword, he first visited London's Tate Gallery "as a callow art student." He discovered then his favorite painting in the collection: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. In a verdant Cotswolds garden, two...
This English-language debut from French writer/filmmaker Valérie Mréjen opens with a nameless suicide: a man “decides he’s old enough” and replaces the disco ball with rope. The story, however, begins with a divorced father who determines that his children are lacking suitable New Year’s Eve...
The town of Africville exists, designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1996. The small coastal community on the edge of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was home to black residents since the early 1800s, the majority with southern U.S. and Caribbean origins. Narrative magazine assistant editor Jeffrey...
Perhaps because her single mother was an adamantly independent, relentlessly peripatetic news photographer, Nina Hill prefers to stay still. Mostly raised in L.A. by a wonderful nanny, by high school she was better read than all of her teachers. She finished a UCLA Art History...
Born on the same day during a freak September blizzard in Tennessee, Eric and Morgan – and their families – "became friends for life." The shared birthday anchors them through life's most dramatic changes: Morgan's mother dies and Morgan's father shuts down, while Eric's once-perfect...
“I cared more about making the reader uncomfortable than happy, because … discomfort makes you question and think” She began her American life as a six-year-old immigrant from the Philippines. She entered adulthood with a Princeton pedigree which well-served her lofty finance career. She was a...
Two brothers. Two narrators. Two type fonts: serif for "The Older Brother" chapters; sans serif for "The Younger Brother." Their family has shrunk as Mahir Guven's debut, Older Brother, begins: "...
Amy Sarig King’s (Me and Marvin Gardens) second middle-grade title explores especially mature subjects – infidelity, parental missteps, mental illness, genetic inheritance, violent triggers – with effective, age-appropriate awareness. On January 18, 2019, "everything changed" in the Johanson home. While 12-year-old Liberty and her nine-year-old...
Grace was unaware of her sister’s existence until their mother’s death revealed the family’s three-decades-plus secret. Grace returns to her native Madras from America, where she’s been living since college, working in customer service and watching her marriage implode over progeny disagreements. She’s jet-lagged but...
“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...
When Simi’s habitual klutziness leads (surprise!) to the unlikely pairing of her recently single cousin with the furniture store owner’s lawyer-to-be son, her mother and masi – mother’s sister – have irrefutable proof that Simi’s inherited the family talent: matchmaking. For three generations, the women...
“Choosing to live is an act of defiance, a form of heroism,” Lale assures his lover Gita. The pair are both Slovakian Jews, trapped in the hell of Auschwitz-Birkenau. As the death camp’s Tätowierer – the tattooist who scars prisoners with everlasting numbers – Lale...
*STARRED REVIEW Tom Hanks couldn’t be a more affable, ‘let’s-enjoy-this-together’ narrator for Ann Patchett’s (Commonwealth) marvelous latest. From the title all the way through to the ending credits, Hanks never ever falters, always performing his charming, ever-so-likable self: “Chapter threeee” lilts up to mimic ‘wheeeeee!; you...
YouTube star Alex Bertie readily admits “that as far as trans people go, I’m very privileged. I’m a white educated male with family support, a roof over my head, and a job.” Being British also guaranteed access to a national health system that paid for...
*STARRED REVIEW Adroitly adapting her deep, mellifluous voice across continents, decades, ages, and genders, Mozhan Marnò flawlessly embodies Marjan Kamali’s (Together Tea, 2013) stupendous sophomore title about young lovers torn apart by class, politics, and history during the violent tumult of 1950s Iran. A Tehran stationery...
