The “Great Man” biography is an element of the American literary landscape that has been around for decades: bookshelves are filled with accounts of captains of industry accumulating massive fortunes and using them to exert an outsized influence on culture and politics. Many of these biographies contain similar accounts of men who ‘pulled themselves up… Continue reading Trust by Hernan Diaz
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
In her debut novel, Disorientation, Taiwanese-American author Elaine Hsieh Chou has fashioned a propulsive literary thriller that smartly deconstructs anti-Asian racism in the U.S., and the parallel influence of fetishes both sexual and academic on Asian-Americans, especially Asian women. Disorientation is narrated by Ingrid Yang, a student in the eighth and final year of her… Continue reading Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart’s sophomore novel, Young Mungo, returns to the tenements of Glasgow that he so gorgeously rendered in his Booker-prize winning debut Shuggie Bain. This time, he traces the story of Mungo, a young boy who is basically being raised by his sixteen year old sister Jodie, while their alcoholic mother seeks adventure outside of… Continue reading Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
While there is certainly no dearth of literature surrounding the experience of motherhood and exploring the relationship between mothers and their children, Jessamine Chan has chosen to go in a unique direction with her debut novel, The School for Good Mothers, which tackles motherhood through a dystopian lens. The novel’s protagonist is Frida Liu, a… Continue reading The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
Over the past two decades, perhaps no novelist has created a profile like Jonathan Franzen. He’s written a couple of novels, including the National Book Award-winning The Corrections, a ton of essays, and managed to anger a great number of readers with controversial comments and opinions. His latest novel, Crossroads, the first of a planned… Continue reading Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
The Trees by Percival Everrett
It is the rare novel that can strike a delicate balance between satire and violence, a feat achieved by the celebrated writer Percival Everrett in his most recent book, The Trees. Perhaps Everrett is one of the only writers working today who could manage to make a book reckoning with the history of lynching in… Continue reading The Trees by Percival Everrett
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
Claire Oshetsky’s Chouette, a fabulist tale of a mother who becomes pregnant with an unusual child, is a fascinating debut that breaks genre conventions of all sorts. The novel begins with the narrator, Tiny, a professional cellist, disclosing that she has had an affair with her owl-lover, a companion from her youth, and she now… Continue reading Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot, Elif Batuman’s 2018 debut, is a coming of age story set against the onset of the digital age, in other words the novel’s protagonist is coming of age with our modern world. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, has arrived at Harvard for her freshmen year in the 1990s, armed with a love… Continue reading The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff brings readers back to the Middle Ages in her new novel, Matrix, a fiction loosely created around the life of the twelfth century nun and poet, Marie de France. In Groff’s novel, Marie is an 17 year old orphan, deemed unfit for marriage because she is a “great clumsy lunk” with a “giant… Continue reading Matrix by Lauren Groff
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Reading Sally Rooney’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, felt like the culmination of the many years of hype and interest surrounding her work, it’s the rare novel that builds upon the themes of the writer’s previous work in all of the best ways. The novel centers on Alice Kelleher, a successful Irish novelist… Continue reading Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney