General Fiction
América del Norte.
By Nicolás Medina Mora.
May 2024. 480p. Soho, $27 (9781641295642).
The breezy, buoyant debut by Mexican journalist Medina Mora weaves together hundreds of years of Mexican history and culture with the frequently satiric story of young writer and narrator Sebastian Arteaga y Salazar (who shares some similarities with the author). In 2017, Sebastian is attempting to continue his ten-year stay in the U.S. despite the current president’s attacks on immigration. He also struggles to write a book, deals with his clueless under-graduate students at an Iowa university, copes with an on-and-off romance with an American woman (who has had a series of lovers from Latin America), and visits his friends and cancer-stricken mother in Mexico City. The heir of a powerful family of Austro-Hungarian immigrants to Mexico, Sebastian intersperses his story with a dizzying series of vignettes about figures from and periods of Mexican history, presumably taken from the many versions of the book he’s been trying for years to complete. Readers willing to go along for a kaleidoscopic and occasionally overwhelming journey will get to know Sebastian’s Mexico and unique point of view. —Margaret Quamme
Bear.
By Julia Phillips.
June 2024. 304p. Hogarth, $28 (9780525520436); e-book (9780525520443).
Sam’s entire life has played out in suspended animation. Her mom’s irreversible lung disease means her demise is imminent. Sam’s dead-end job on the ferries plying the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest is in service to this existence. Along with her slightly older sister Elena, Sam hopes the final boat ride off the island toward a fuller life is not far away. What she doesn’t realize is that Elena has been systematically worn away by the burden of her responsibilities toward her mother and younger sister. Drowning in debt, she is barely hanging on, and hope is rare to come by. When a grizzly bear shows up outside their home, Elena views it as a sign that a life outside rigid confines is possible as this magnificent beast adds beauty and wonder to her days. The animal’s near-mystical presence, however, rends the sisters’ lives apart, throwing their dissimilarities into sharp focus. Vivid descriptions—a high school is “a tiny, gossipy hellhole, a bucket of crabs snapping at each other and falling over themselves” — add luster to this brooding yet incisive tale. Phillips (Disappearing Earth, 2020) paints a striking picture of the charred landscape that remains after everything else burns to the ground. — Poornima Apte
The Body Farm.
By Abby Geni.
May 2024. 304p. Counterpoint, $27 (9781640096264); e-book (9781640096271).
Wounds of all sizes and kinds—physical, emotional, psychological—are present in various stages—open, healing, permanently scarred—in these stunning stories. Sometimes the injury is clearly visible—a scar shaped like the outline of an iron, recent bruises on a teenager’s face, fresh stitches over both wrists. Other times the damage is less conspicuous—marital strife, the daily dread generated by a stalker. Geni (The Wildlands, 2018) chooses primarily female protagonists to illustrate the interplay between hurt and loss, secrets and transitions. The title story, with hints of Edgar Allan Poe, features an entomologist narrator at a research facility studying how corpses decompose, who plans a perfect (and perhaps necessary) homicide. In “A Spell for Disappearing,” a librarian falls in love with a stranger, becomes pregnant, and is warned by a mysterious woman of the danger posed by the relationship. “Selkie” is an exquisite fairy tale about an empathetic young girl whose parents are psychiatrists and whose sister suffers from a severe behavioral disorder. Additional complicated characters include a woman who loses all five senses during the COVID-19 pandemic, a marine biologist, seven daughters abruptly deserted by their father, and a planetary geologist with an alcoholic husband. If readers are craving an exceptional collection of short stories, Geni will grant their wish. —Tony Miksanek
The Bookshop Sisterhood.
By Michelle Lindo-Rice.
July 2024. 336p. MIRA, paper, $18.99 (9780778334385); e-book (9780369736130).
Inspired by their love of books and their long-running book club, four friends band together to open the first Black-owned bookstore in Delaware. Celeste seems to have it all—a lucrative job, a supportive husband—but unresolved trauma from a recent carjacking threatens to destroy her perfect life. Leslie’s teenage daughter has a life-threatening condition, and genetic testing reveals an unexpected family secret. Toni is a popular influencer who has carefully hidden her past from everyone, including her fiancé, and Yasmeen feels like an outsider because she lives from paycheck to paycheck until a sudden windfall changes everything. Each woman brings a unique set of skills to the business, but when personal issues create a roadblock, they must rely on their friendship to resolve the situation. Lindo-Rice (A Beauty in the Beast, 2024) realistically captures the women’s thought processes as they work through their issues. The ending is satisfying but not pat, and the characters’ motivations are clear throughout the book. Readers who enjoy stories about women overcoming life obstacles will be drawn in. —Nanette Donohue
The Borrowed Hills.
By Scott Preston.
June 2024. 304p. Scribner, $28 (9781668050675).
Preston’s debut is everything it sets out to be: picturesque but brutal and uncompromising. It is the unflinching story of farmers’ lives in Cumbria, told through the eyes of one, a young man named Steve, who lives on his father’s impoverished land. He is at odds with his father over everything until the rumors come over the mountain: foot-and-mouth disease has been seen in the livestock. After Steve and his father lose everything to the disease, Steve decides to team up with a neighboring farmer named William in order to take back what has been lost. Each decision leads to steeper consequences, and Steve finds himself caught up in something much too big for him as those consequences destroy the life he knew, little by little. These Borrowed Hills is told in the voice of a hardened British farmer, used to nothing but misery and hardship and backbreaking work, and this steely tale will have a lasting effect on the reader. —Lily Hunter
Brat.
By Gabriel Smith.
June 2024. 320p. Penguin, $28 (9780593656877); e-book (9780593656884).
Smith’s picaresque first novel is told from the perspective of Gabriel, a writer struggling with numerous issues. His girlfriend left him, his dad died, and he cannot seem to get started on his second novel. Rather than live in the place he used to share with his ex-girlfriend, he opts to move into the now empty home where his dad lived and to spend his days drinking, smoking weed and cigarettes, and loosely piecing together his parents’ lives from their leftover belongings. Since both attempted to write, and Gabriel’s grandma is a writer, Smith includes excerpts from their plays, intriguing stories, and fables. As in Practice (2024), by Rosalind Brown, the novel follows the minutiae of everything the narrator turns his gaze to, but what is unique here is that this is also a deeply gothic work that never quite settles the reader in a certain world as Gabriel’s foibles, ghostly visions, and uncertainties filter every moment. Written in short, clipped chapters and featuring uproarious dialogue (especially with Gabriel’s brother), this is a darkly comic and brilliantly unusual debut. —Alexander Moran
But How Are You, Really.
By Ella Dawson.
June 2024. 352p. Dutton, $28 (9780593473771); e-book (9780593473788).
After graduation, Charlotte Thorne moved to New York to launch her career as an illustrator. But layoffs derailed her early success, and she’s suffering through life as the executive assistant to a cruel boss. Her five-year college reunion could be an opportunity to bring back her glory years—or it could be an unmitigated disaster, especially if she runs into her emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend. When
