The Antidote by Karen Russell

 

Harp Oketsky’s farm in dust-drowned Uz, Nebraska, is flourishing even as his neighbors’ are failing. And a serial killer is on the loose, even if the town sheriff tries to bury the plot. Central to the story though is a “prairie witch,” the antidote in the title, whose strength as a keeper of secrets might be on the wane. Russell is famous for elements of magical realism and this novel too weaves strands in expertly. At times the stories of the various characters strain to merge into a cohesive whole but the vivid and energetic narrative is a winner nevertheless. 

The Apartment by Ana Menendez

The high-rise building in Miami already rests on the ghosts of indigenous people. As apartment 2B gets going, from the early 50s on, stories of the residents layer on like wax on the parquet flooring. A soldier and young bride for whom the apartment marks just the beginning; a Cuban concert pianist whose best days are behind him; and most of all, Lenin, a young Cuban man whose exile haunts him. In the present is Lana, troubled by these collective ghosts and by the mice in the apartment. The collective symphony is aching and melodious, full of beauty and anguish.

American Bloomsbury: : Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work by Susan Cheever

Before I read this absolutely mesmerizing account of literary heavyweights in nineteenth century Concord, my knowledge of the giants was piecemeal. Thoreau setting up home by Walden Pond. Louisa May Alcott’s blockbuster, Little Women. Emerson’s role in launching the Transcendentalists movement. Cheever adds putty to this framework, portraying the characters in their full humanity, foibles and all. The short chapters keep the narrative brisk and there’s enough gossip in here to rival People magazine. I especially appreciated the personalities being set against the history-laden town of Concord, and, eventually, against the larger context of the Civil War. A riveting read.

Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal

The Trans-Siberian Express is the focal point for this absolutely transfixing novella, brilliantly translated from French. Aliocha is a 20-year-old conscript who desperately wants to escape a certain harrowing fate in Siberia as part of the Russian army. He pleads with a woman on the train, secreted in first class, to hide him. And so launches this firecracker of a story that delivers a nerve-wracking ride. Maylis de Kerangal packs much energy into a dyamite narrative that moves linearly—quite literally, except for a short aside into the woman’s backstory. A marvel that has had me seeking out the author’s backlist.

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

What does the fall of an empire look like when distilled down to its most basic elements? This absolutely beautiful and elegiac novel shows us as it traces the lives of the father and son Trotta, descendants of the senior Trotta who saved the Kaiser’s life in the Battle of Solferino. That singular act casts a long protective shadow over the family, taking every generation under its wing. Roth traces Junior’s gradual disillusionment with his military duty, honorbound as he is by tradition and his father’s word. As the empire crumbles, the Trottas stand out in even starker contrast. Brilliant!

James by Percival Everett

 

It’s been a long time since I read Huckleberry Finn but I picked up this retelling of the classic because Percival Everett is one of my favorite authors and this one is from the runaway slave, Jim’s, point of view. I wish I had reread Huck Finn to place this work in better context but that did not in any way diminish how much I loved this novel. It’s heartbreaking to see James couch his erudition and bend his will to meet the demands of the whites around him. His evolution over the narrative is a joy to watch unfold. 

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

 

The cherry blossoms might be blooming right outside his window but the Professor in this delightful novel wants none of it. Ever since a car crash took away most of his memory, he’s most secure in his single shed-like home and doesn’t want to venture out into the world. But the titular housekeeper draws him out and makes space for him in the universe. From him she learns the meditative beauty of math and works around his handicap of being able to have a memory span that lasts only 80 minutes. Without a hint of melodrama, this novel is magical.

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

 

Sadie Smith’s mission is to infiltrate Pascal Balmy’s radical farming cooperative, Le Moulin, in the remote French countryside and to use it as a vehicle to sow chaos. By befriending a Parisian filmmaker, Lucien, she gains access to his family home in Vantome from where she can execute her plan. Balmy himself is a disciple of Bruce Lacombe, an anti-civver, who believes capitalism is the sure path to the end times. While the forays into philosophy are convincing, the central thesis as to why Sadie is planning subversion and under whose command, remains less certain. Passionate but needs more cohesion.

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Movement is responsible for breaking up pallets off the delivery truck early in the morning before customers hit Town Shop in Pottstown, New York. The division’s boss, Meredith, is universally reviled so when a chance shows up to get her a promotion and off their backs, the store workers hatch a plan. The character portrayals of low-wage workers, each with their own back stories and motivations, is the best part of this engaging novel. A brilliant description of work in the age of Amazon, the immense readable novel is proof you don’t need a murder mystery to make things gripping.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

 

When Cyrus Shams was barely a toddler, his mother died in an Iranian flight shot down by an American missile. Now an American recovering from addiction, Cyrus is determined to explore the meaning of death, to make it matter. A performance artist who’s dying at a New York museum might provide answers. As the plot builds its tension, reveals included, what emerges is a necessary ray of hope amid despondency. It’s not just that Martyr! is one of the most beautiful meditations on death, it’s also one on life. The superbly crafted sentences only add to the luminous transporting experience. 

Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

 

I’ve not read such a heartwarming capture of childhood friendship in a long time! Tomoko spends a crucial middle school year with her mother’s aunt’s family in a stunning manor in the hillsides of Ashiya. She quickly strikes up a deep friendship with her sickly cousin Mina, with whom she tries to learn about life’s truths. The house has a favored pet, a Pygmy hippopotamus, who adds a touch of whimsy to the readable story. From the gorgeous Japanese countryside, to the subtle portrayals of class, to the wistfulness that imbues every page, this is a coming-of-age novel worth savoring.

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

“A national campaign was a great unfathomable whale, with all kinds of subsidiary life flourishing on its skin and between its strands of baleen,” writes Cunningham in an impressive debut chronicling a young volunteer’s growth through the Obama Presidential campaign. The novel has a Gatsbyesque touch in its evocation of fundraising parties and the milieu of the hopeful times. The story shines when the narrator frames the story from his own experiences, a memoir of sorts. At times the story gets a little too ornate. Nevertheless, a different twist to the coming-of-age story told from a ringside seat of history.

Choice by Neel Mukherjee

Riddled with climate anxiety, battling obsessive-compulsive disorder, Ayush can’t get over capitalism’s oversized destructive effect on the lives of ordinary people. Economics is life, life is economics, is a mantra that surfaces over and over again in the first long short story of three. Equally compelling is the final story in which the well-intentioned gift of a cow to a rural impoverished mother systematically unravels the family unit until the unexpected ending. Startling and dark, the stories are a perfect snapshot of life lived under the yoke of capitalism today. Choice is but an illusion, we all bear our burdens.

The Archive of Feelings by Peter Stamm

 

An unnamed middle-aged  archivist in a small Swiss town reflects on the path not taken in this moving melancholic reflection. When we find him, the archivist has lost his job at the local newspaper, displaced by digital technology. Having inherited his parents’ home, he is comfortable nevertheless. With time weighing heavy on his hands, the archivist especially obsesses over Franziska, a school friend whom he had a crush on, and who goes on to become a famous singer. What would it mean to rekindle a relationship with her, he wonders, even as his increasingly small world boxes him in slowly.