General Fiction
American Spirits.
By Russell Banks.
Mar. 2024. 224p. Knopf, $28 (9780593536773); e-book (9780593536780).
The late Banks was our chief chronicler of the working class, the patron saint of the blue collar. This collection of three stories returns to the memorable haunt of Sam Dent, where the locals struggle to pay the bills while performing odd jobs for the wealthy summer folks. In “Nowhere Man,” young couple Doug and Debbie are raising their two children in a small house built on a parcel of land that is a fraction of the vast acreage once owned by Doug’s family. When the new landowner begins operating a firing range, Doug becomes enraged and begins a battle he cannot possibly win. In “Homeschooling,” new residents Barbara and Kenneth Odell buy a house on the outskirts of town, where their only neighbors are a white lesbian couple home-schooling four adopted Black children, and soon learn a disconcerting truth. Finally, in “Kidnapped,” an elderly couple is kidnapped after their not-so-bright grandson reconnects with his long-estranged and troubled mother. Each tale bears the unmistakable imprint of a true literary giant, who will be dearly missed. —Bill Kelly
Bad Animals.
By Sarah Braunstein.
Mar. 2024. 304p. Norton, $27.99 (9781324051046).
A library worker is accused of voyeurism in Braunstein’s pulsing second novel (The Sweet Relief of Missing Children, 2011). When Maeve Cosgrove is laid off, she blames Libby, a troubled teenager who claimed Maeve watched her fool around with a boy in the public library restroom. Maeve’s resentment grows after famed author Harrison Riddles agrees to speak at the library, a program she had been working to book for months. With her husband away on a work trip and her daughter spending summer break elsewhere, Maeve feels like the world is against her. “Everything’s gone at once,” she complains to a friend. Desperate to feel needed, she jumps at the chance to assist Riddles with his next novel, based on the life of local Sudanese refugee Willie. Simmering with rage and desire, she is determined to get what she wants, regardless of the consequences. Exploring themes of appropriation, obsession, and control, Braunstein’s tangled novel will leave readers unsettled. —Rebecca Hopman
The Best Way to Bury Your Husband.
By Alexia Casale.
Mar. 2024. 400p. Penguin, paper, $18 (9780593654606); e-book (9780593654590).
After spending twenty years enduring her husband’s abuse, Sally snaps and kills him with a skillet during the COVID-19 lockdown. She’s got plenty of ideas for how to handle the body, but there are two potential issues—how to explain Jim’s disappearance to their adult children, and how to conceal the body from her nosy neighbor Edwina. A few blocks away, Ruth’s husband attacks her, then falls when she rushes away to escape his grasp. Sally discovers Ruth trying to burn his body, and they bond over their shared predicament. They are soon joined by Samira and Janey, who also have abusive husbands to bury. The quartet hatches a plan to conceal the men’s deaths and dispose of their bodies. Casale’s adult debut is a sharp, entertaining, and fast-paced story that’s as much about revenge as it is about sisterhood and liberation. While there are plenty of darkly comic moments and surprising plot twists, domestic violence is presented with frank realism that can be difficult to read. This intoxicating blend of revenge thriller and black comedy will appeal to fans of C. J. Skuse and Helene Tursten. —Nanette Donohue
Blank.
By Zibby Owens.
Mar. 2024. 272p. Amazon/Little A, $28.99 (9781662516696); e-book (9781662511196).
Pippa Jones’ debut novel was a runaway best-seller, but balancing writing and motherhood has kept her from completing a follow-up. She’s just received the call she’s been dreading: she needs to submit a manuscript within a week, or she loses her contract and has to pay back her advance—which she has already spent. She decides to run with an idea that came from a joke that her teenage son makes and submit a 60,000-word manuscript consisting solely of the word “blank,” or published as a blank book, presented as a statement on literature and writing. Her agent is furious, but her publisher views it as a way to “spark conversation” about the book business. Soon, word about the project leaks, dragging Pippa’s family and friends into the mix just as her personal life implodes, leaving everything in question. Owens’ (Bookends, 2022) depiction of a neurotic writer on the brink is presented with comic zeal, but the plot elements focused on Pippa’s personal life are likely to resonate most with readers. Fans of Maria Semple will be drawn to Owens’ sharp observations. —Nanette Donohue
Colton Gentry’s Third Act.
By Jeff Zentner.
Apr. 2024. 400p. Grand Central, $30 (9781538756652); e-book (9781538756676).
Reeling after his best friend’s death due to a mass shooting at a music festival, B-list country star Colton Gentry drunkenly rants about gun control during his opening set on a well-publicized tour and finds his life completely upended. Dropped by his record label, banished from country radio, and facing a divorce from his pop-star wife, Colton serves a stint in rehab and winds up back in Kentucky, sleeping in his old bedroom as he figures out what to do next. Feeling lost and alone, Colton struggles to cope but discovers a spark of hope when he encounters his high-school girlfriend Luann at her buzzy new farm-to-table restaurant. Entwined through the current-day story are flashbacks to Colton’s senior year of high school, his relationship with Luann, and the beginning of his music career in Nashville. Zentner’s moving first adult novel explores many of the same emotional themes as his well-regarded YA novels (like In the Wild Light, 2021) do—dealing with loss, finding your place in the world, and the formative relationships of our youth. Brimming with southern charm and deftly balancing humor with poignancy, Zentner’s story of second (and third) chances is sure to win over readers who love a redemption story. —Halle Carlson
YA: YA author Zentner’s adult debut will appeal to teens looking for a good redemption story. HC.
The Extinction of Irena Rey.
By Jennifer Croft.
Mar. 2024. 288p. Bloomsbury, $28.99 (9781639731701).
Searching for their beloved author in deep Polish woods, a coterie of translators confront an ambiguous text and the perception-distorting realities of imminent environmental collapse. Eight sophisticated literary translators, initially identified only by their respective target languages, convene at a remote cabin near the Belarussian border to collaborate on reverent translations of a major new work by Irena Rey. But something seems off with the world-renowned novelist, and when she disappears, perhaps into the vast Białowieża forest or perhaps into some other life-form altogether, the group searches for clues and descends into disarray. Could Grey Eminence, Rey’s masterpiece, really suggest that our current extinction event is a consequence of humanity’s need to create, to transform our world to give it meaning? Is it possible that the whole scenario is an elaborate performance piece? Croft, herself an acclaimed literary translator (of Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, among others) both celebrates and lampoons translation communities, which being both altruistic and parasitic, resemble the complex dynamics of forest biomes. Editorial footnotes, provided by the narrator’s own supposed translator, are delightfully wry. But beneath the satire and the metafiction lie a lament for our all-too-real ongoing ecocide and a desperate appeal that humans might emulate fungi and find sustenance within the destruction. —Brendan Driscoll
Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County.
By Claire Swinarski.
Mar. 2024. 272p. Avon, paper, $18.99 (9780063319882); e-book (9780063319899).
Esther Larson has been on the funeral committee for St. Anne’s for decades. When someone passes away in Ellerie County, the committee brings food and lots of it. Pies, casseroles, sandwiches, pastas; they make it all and pass the leftovers on to the grieving families to ease their burden. Even when the funeral happens to be for the wife of celebrity chef Ivan Welsh, the committee makes the food just the same. Esther—who is in dire financial straits after an internet scam leaves her facing foreclosure—and her granddaughter Iris find themselves wound up in the lives of the Welsh family, who decide to stay in Ellerie for a while as they deal with their loss. Many of the plot points will feel ripped from the headlines, but Swinarski handles them with sensitivity and tact. Readers will root for the characters and get swept up in the smalltown Wisconsin setting. This is a great pick for anyone who liked Saturday Night at the Late Night Supper Club (2023), by J. Ryan Stradal. —Diana Platt
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties.
By Jesse Q. Sutanto.
Mar. 2024. 304p. Berkley, $29 (9780593546215); paper, $18 (9780593546222).
Meddelin (“Madeleine” wastes vowels) finally caught “the One That Got Away” after being reunited in Dial A for Aunties (2021) and married in Four Aunties and a Wedding (2022). After luxuriously honeymooning across Europe, Meddy’s got to present Nathan to her extended Indonesian clan, just in time for Chinese New Year. The aunties—Big Aunt, Second Aunt, Fourth Aunt—and Ma are, of course, eagerly waiting to claim Nathan at the Jakarta airport. The newlyweds (and everyone else in the family’s megamanse) are awakened the following morning by “the Scourge of Jakarta”—Abraham Lincoln Irawan—and his rifle-toting entourage bearing lavish gifts. Distracted by adoration for Second Aunt, Abi gives away something he shouldn’t have, inciting domino-tumbling (mafia) mayhem that Meddy and the Aunties must set right. Delightfully preposterous monikers (Julia Child Handoko, Kristofer Kolumbes Hermansah) populate the extensive cast as precarious chaos reigns, but true love will indeed conquer all. Sutanto delivers another addictive romp, managing to negotiate a thrilling (multi) happily-ever-after finale because, alas, this concludes the Aunties series. But Sutanto’s acknowledgements promise “other meddlesome, auntie characters … to come.” —Terry Hong
Great Expectations.
By Vinson Cunningham.
Mar. 2024. 272p. Hogarth, $27 (9780593448236); e-book (9780593448243).
No need to name the senator from Illinois running for president in 2008. The narrator’s astute descriptions leave no doubt as to his identity as he finds himself working for the campaign. A Black New Yorker raised in a Pentecostal church who lost his father at age 10 and an aspiring writer who dropped out of college after getting his dancer girlfriend pregnant, then dumping her, David is working as a private tutor when his glamorous employer makes the connection. Soon he finds himself meeting celebrities, hobnobbing with Black elites on Martha’s Vineyard, bunking in a moldering trailer in New Hampshire, navigating Iowa, partying in L.A., and witnessing the victory speech of the first Black president of the U.S. in Chicago, all while pondering tightrope questions of faith, power, morality, charisma, and politics with finesse and depth. David’s ruminations over family, home, race, religion, literature, basketball, music, class, identity, accountability, and what it takes to be a genuine leader are fused with memories and tricky situations, every set piece saturated with feelings and fresh and provocative insights. Cunningham, a writer for the New Yorker and former staffer on Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and in the White House, has written an electrifying first novel and bildungsroman of consummate artistry and sensitivity, honed vision and wit. —Donna Seaman
Green Frog.
By Gina Chung.
Mar. 2024. 240p. Vintage, paper, $17 (9780593469361).
Chung’s (, 2023) dedication—the recipient identified in Korean, 엄마, for “Mom,” whom Chung calls her first storyteller—presciently launches her superb 15-story collection highlighting Korean and Korean American mothers and daughters navigating their lives both together and apart. Mythic Korean origins, deftly reimagined, memorably haunt some stories, including “Green Frog,” in which the tale of the disobedient ranine who only listened to his mother in death parallels a New Jersey family in which the once-upon-a-time rebellious younger daughter returns to fulfill the filial duties of widowed-father-care and restaurant management. Channeling the legendary kumiho (nine-tailed fox), the protagonists turn vulpine in “Human Hearts,” in which a surviving twin is exhorted to avenge her sister’s murder by their grief-stricken mother. Standouts are many, effortlessly ranging from fantastical, futuristic, and slice-of-real-life narratives. A “thanatorobotics” five-year-old version of a dead teen is returned to her parents in “Attachment Processes.” In “Presence,” an exhausted woman seeks sanctuary at a spa after her and her now-ex-husband’s business selling pick-and-choose personalized memory banks implodes. In “Arrow,” awho the father might be, finally accepts, for a while, her estranged mother’s nurturing. In “The Fruits of Sin,” a community of older, competitive, judgmental, church-going women comes together for a pregnant teen. Chung proves she’s a vibrant heir to her beloved first storyteller. —
