The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

 

Bald, Black and bold Opal Jewel and white English singer Nev were about as unlikely a musical duo as they could get in 1960s America. Yet their brand of panache worked at least for audiences. Years later, a reporter with a personal connection to the duo revisits Opal and Nev’s legacy and finds much tarnish hidden underneath all that sparkle. Racism, women’s rights, and the many subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which minorities are routinely made to feel like the other, feature boldly in these pages. Told in a chorus of voices, this is one technicolor riot of a novel.

A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris

Steady Boy, aka Charlie Barnes, is convinced he’s dying of pancreatic cancer. When the doctor’s office calls, will he get a reprieve? This is the hook for Ferris’s exploration of an average Joe, a man who has still to find a true calling, at the age of 68. It might never happen, but given how close he has come to death, Charlie can’t afford to waste any more time. The premise might sound depressing but Ferris has a light touch that elevates the mundane into a moving (but not sappy) story of a man trying to do the right thing.

Three Rooms by Jo Hamya

Against the backdrop of Brexit, the narrator of this thought-provoking novel struggles to find a job and a place of her own. Hamya captures the rootlessness of the millennial generation — carving a space for themselves out of hollowed structures as they navigate the gig economy and the dumpster fire of capitalism. “There had been no place I could have dragged a sofa into, painted the walls whatever color I wanted, stayed in long enough to find inviting colleagues over for dinner and drinks, a worthwhile task,” the narrator says. It’s enough to make you scream: The “kids” are not okay. 

 

Skinship by Yoon Choi

Immigrants from Korea make their way through the novel landscape that is the United States, even as the past continues to haunt them. This remarkably brilliant collection might tread familiar ground but it is especially successful in its subtle acknowledgment of the minor triumphs of the new transplants. That even these achievements might be a step down from life in Korea makes their accomplishments even more noteworthy. The most moving stories feature aging and dying in a foreign land, characters clinging to a past that is fuzzy even in memories. The collection spotlights life in its high-definition beauty and complexity. 

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

It takes an assured hand to take a classic Pacific Northwest loggers’ fight for survival and not turn it into an us-versus-them story. Colleen is still reeling from her eighth miscarriage when her husband Rich boldy buys a patch of redwood trees he can’t afford. As the environmental damage wrought by chemicals and logging takes its toll, the community faces slim choices. This is an unforgettable novel saturated with languorous yet memorable prose — a salad is filled with “horseshoes” of celery, a character’s laughter fills the air like “confetti,” — and a slow-burn of a plotline. An absolute stunner.

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

 

What happens when six friends, fueled by plenty of alcohol, are together during lockdown? We’re far from placing the pandemic in the rearview mirror but the immensely talented Shteyngart studies what could go wrong (and right) under such a pressure cooker environment. Alternatively funny and pithy, the novel gives off Big Chill-esque vibes. The story displays a powerful grasp of  class divides and the pressures on progressives seething in the Trumpian era. Overall though, the novel feels half-baked, the bows too neatly tied together in the end. A worthy addition to an impressive body of work but not my favorite.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

 

The “great circle” is the path that fictional pilot Marian Graves wants to trace — from the North to the South Pole. In reading the story of her accounts, we realize that the collective arcs of our individual stories turn out to be equally stunning. In mapping Marian’s “great circle” of life, from early abandonment as a baby, to life with her twin brother, growing up in the ruggedness of Montana, and serving in World War II, Shipstead paints a sweeping and majestic portrait of an unforgettable and spunky heroine. This is a novel to sink into and savor slowly.