AMERICA’S BOOK REVIEW
JUNE 2016
DISCOVER YOUR NEXT GREAT BOOK
Make Dad’s day with a great read Stop, look and listen: It’s audio month The exciting finale to Justin Cronin’s Passage trilogy
Yaa Gyasi establishes herself as an exciting new literary voice with a powerful debut that follows the descendants of two African half-sisters across centuries and continents.
Ready. Set. Read. Summer’s Here! Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald 978-1-4926-2344-1 • $16.99 • TP
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New York Times Bestseller Amazon Best Book of the Month
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#1 Indie Next Pick #2 LibraryReads Pick
“A manifesto for book lovers… We should all celebrate these little bookstores, where our souls find home.” —Nina George, New York Times bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop
“Heartwarming.” —People Magazine
Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet by H.P. Wood
The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes
One More Day by Kelly Simmons
978-1-4926-3148-4 • $15.99 • TP
978-1-4926-0833-2 • $14.99 • TP
978-1-4926-1864-5 • $14.99 • TP
“Fascinating and deeply compelling.”
“As finely and delicately woven as the title suggests.”
—Lauren Willig, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Daughter
—Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper’s Ball
“Beautifully dark, totally devastating, and so riveting you might find yourself gripping the pages.”
Visit books.sourcebooks.com/shareyoursummerread/ to win this collection of summer reads!
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You
contents
JUNE 2016
columns 04 04 05 06 08 09 10 11
Brenda Novak
Debut novelist Yaa Gyasi examines the scars and legacy of slavery across generations in both Ghana and the United States.
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Author photo by Urvi Nagrani
book reviews 20 FICTION
features 12 16 18 19 23 29 31
on the cover
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Lifestyles Well Read Library Reads Whodunit Cooking Book Clubs Romance Audio
Grunt by Mary Roach But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
t o p p i c k : They May Not Mean To,
but They Do by Cathleen Schine
Audio Month Father’s Day Moby-Dick Elisha Cooper Justin Cronin Karen Harrington Father’s Day picture books
Greetings from Utopia Park by Claire Hoffman
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
The Lynching by Laurence Leamer
The After Party by Anton DiSclafani
Double Cup Love by Eddie Huang
Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals by Jesse Armstrong
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
27 TEEN
t o p p i c k : Steeplejack
by A.J. Hartley
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Draw the Line by Laurent Linn
I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan
18 Ryan North
You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan
The Girls by Emma Cline
Devil and the Bluebird by Jennifer Mason-Black
Wintering by Peter Geye The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe
24 NONFICTION
t o p p i c k : Dinner with Edward
30 CHILDREN’S
t o p p i c k : Frank and Lucky Get
by Isabel Vincent The Maximum Security Book Club by Mikita Brottman
31 Daniel Miyares
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The Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Sometimes learning to trust again is the only way to get a second chance at love.
Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
meet the author
New from New York Times bestselling author
Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M.M. Blume
Schooled by Lynne Rae Perkins Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin Grayling’s Song by Karen Cushman
I’m Just a Person by Tig Notaro
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BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate OPERATIONS DIRECTOR and select for review the best books Elizabeth Grace Herbert published in a variety of categories. Only books we highly recommend ADVERTISING OPERATIONS are featured. BookPage is editorially independent and never accepts Sada Stipe payment for editorial coverage.
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columns
LIFESTYLES
WELL READ
B Y S U S A N N A H F E LT S
BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL
Style, decoded Andrea Linett, the founding creative director of Lucky, knows a few things about style—and she knows plenty of other smart women who do, too. Here, she gathers their wisdom, along with plenty of photos shot by her husband, Michael Waring, for a crash course on building a wardrobe and achieving a personal aesthetic that seems as natural as breathing. The Cool Factor (Artisan, $24.95, 208 pages, ISBN 9781579656485) is actually cool—and not your typical style guide—in part because the “models” are real women whose ages
range from the mid-20s to mid-70s, and because, Linett explains in her introduction, “being cool doesn’t involve wearing certain labels, but rather knowing what works for you—even if it’s a piece from a dorky line.” I was surprised to see her give the thumbs-up to the “Canadian Tuxedo” (denim on top and bottom); not so shocked to see lots and lots of neutrals. Here’s one surefire tip: Get yourself a classic trench coat. “Any outfit you slip one over becomes more serious and a bit more French.”
RUN TO THE HILLS First published in 1979 as Backwoods Ethics, Laura and Guy Waterman’s newly updated The Green Guide to Low-Impact Hiking and Camping (Countryman, $18.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9781581573947) is for avid hikers, backpackers and backcountry campers, but those new to outdoor pursuits will certainly glean knowledge from its pages. The Watermans write with wry humor, yet they are quite serious in their efforts to address the environmental impact of and ethical questions surrounding backwoods exploration today. Reliance on GPS is just one example of how
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A graphic Joyce tribute wilderness exploration has changed. “All you have to do is keep your eyes on the screen,” Laura Waterman writes. “But by letting [a GPS] do the work, two things happen: Our skill level with map and compass drops, and we change the relationship we have to the land itself.” The authors also take a close look at the environmental impact of four trends: bushwhacking, growing numbers of rock climbers, the presence of dogs on trails and winter camping. For anyone who loves to experience the natural, wild world up close, this is a mustread.
TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES The other day, I had a broken dimmer switch. It’s fixed now, thanks to a 10-minute visit from an electrician—but if I’d had David and Sharon Bowers’ The Useful Book (Workman, $19.95, 416 pages, ISBN 9780761171737), I could have saved myself a chunk of change. Aiming to fill the educational gap left by all those home ec and shop classes no one takes anymore, this aptly named tome gathers a dizzying array of how-tos: everything from folding a fitted sheet to caulking a bathtub, making a household budget to building a table and 197 other skills, projects and repairs that, once mastered, should leave you feeling brilliantly self-sufficient. I almost can’t wait to successfully remove ketchup from a white shirt or knead bread dough or . . . yeah, make that budget. As for cleaning the coffeemaker and catching mice—well, let’s just say I’m not the only one in my household who can benefit from this book. Also, those in need of a handy graduation gift? Your work is done.
Every June 16, legions of James Joyce fans celebrate Bloomsday, commemorating the ordinary day that Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus traversed Dublin in Ulysses. This year, American readers might mark the day in a somewhat unconventional way by reading James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner (Arcade, $22.99, 240 pages, ISBN 9781628726558), an engaging graphic biography of the great Irish writer by Alfonso Zapico. The book, which won the National Comics Prize in Zapico’s native Spain and was well received in Ireland, is a visual treat, filled with offhanded, irreverent humor that Joyce himself might have enjoyed. The story will be familiar to Joyce aficionados: Joyce’s impoverished childhood in and around Dublin; a self-imposed exile from Ireland living in Trieste, Zurich and Paris; his struggle to be recognized for his genius; and the battle to get his work into print. It’s a classic “starving artist” story, replete with excessive drinking and brawling. The tragedy is all here as well, particularly Joyce’s plunge into virtual blindness and the descent of his daughter, Lucia, into madness. We meet the usual suspects—Beckett, Pound, Eliot, Yeats and those two remarkable women who played
such a significant role in Joyce’s career, Harriet Weaver and Sylvia Beach—and witness the writer’s passing encounters with the likes of Vladimir Lenin and Irish nationalist Patrick Pearse. Zapico’s depiction of Joyce is a loving one, even if the writer is presented as an insufferable egoist who takes pleasure in living a dissolute life at the expense of his family’s comfort and security. Some may find that Joyce’s long-suffering common-law wife, Nora Barnacle, is not given the full measure of her power and influence here. Zapico plays up the widespread belief that she never read her husband’s books, but skims past the significant fact that Joyce chose to immortalize June 16 because it was the day of their first date. Surely, Nora’s influence on Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in the closing chapter of Ulysses proves her to have been a fascinating muse rather than merely an ignorant, dutiful wife. There are a few jarring blunders, notably calling English writer H.G. Wells an American, and in a panel where Joyce’s sister leaves home, she issues some foulmouthed words, which seems unlikely since she was leaving to join a convent. Nitpicking aside, Zapico’s James Joyce is an affectionate tribute that offers an original way of introducing the great writer and his work to a new generation of readers.
From James Joyce, reprinted with permission from Arcade Publishing.
Selected from nominations made by library staff across the country, here are the 10 books that librarians can’t wait to share with readers in June.
#1
Find your next great book club pick with
VINEGAR GIRL by Anne Tyler
Hogarth, $25, ISBN 9780804141260
Tyler—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—puts a smart and savvy contemporary twist on Shakespeare’s beloved comedy The Taming of the Shrew.
THE INVISIBLE LIBRARY by Genevieve Cogman
Roc, $15, ISBN 9781101988640 Book collecting can be dangerous in this exciting fantasy debut, which blends time-travel, mystery and adventure to take readers on a thrilling journey.
UNDER THE HARROW by Flynn Berry
Penguin, $16, ISBN 9780143108573 After her sister, Rachel, is murdered, Nora sets out on a quest to find the killer—but it turns out that Rachel had some dark secrets.
GRUNT by Mary Roach
Norton, $26.95, ISBN 9780393245448 After investigating the science of sex, death and space, Roach brings her curious mind and considerable humor to the subject of the military. Read our review on page 25.
HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi
Knopf, $26.95, ISBN 9781101947135 Crossing centuries and continents, this epic novel traces the legacy of slavery and marks the debut of an astonishing literary voice. Read our interview on page 14.
MISSING, PRESUMED by Susie Steiner
Random House, $27, ISBN 9780812998320 Steiner introduces a determined female detective in this psychologically acute, pulse-pounding story of the search for a missing Cambridge student.
STILETTO by Daniel O’Malley
Little, Brown, $26, ISBN 9780316228046 Myfanwy Thomas must broker a deal to avert supernatural warfare in O’Malley’s follow-up to his bestselling debut fantasy, The Rook.
WE COULD BE BEAUTIFUL by Swan Huntley
Doubleday, $25.95, ISBN 9780385540599 Manhattan socialite Catherine West has everything but happiness. But when a secret from her past comes to light, she might have a chance to find it.
LILY AND THE OCTOPUS by Steven Rowley
Simon & Schuster, $25.99, ISBN 9781501126222 Ted’s best friend is his dachshund, Lily. So when he finds a tumor on her head, he’s determined to do what he can to save her. Read our review on page 20.
WIDOWMAKER by Paul Doiron
Available now.
Minotaur, $25.99, ISBN 9781250063700 In his seventh adventure, Mike Bowditch finds his life derailed by the arrival of a mysterious woman who needs help to clear her son’s name.
Visit BookClubbish.com to learn more!
LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.
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columns
WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY
An outsider stirs up trouble in backwater Arkansas The American South can get pigeonholed in one of two ways: It’s a happy, bucolic atmosphere peopled with lovable Gomer Pyle-esque rubes, or it’s a Deliverance-inspired snake pit filled with good ol’ boys who make life miser-
seven, unless you count dogs and chickens). He has moved into the old Duncan place, where nobody but Duncans has ever lived before, and his mistrustful neighbors are far from pleased. Now Bob has stumbled upon a dead body in
to have a vested interest in sweeping the entire case under the rug, along with Bob if necessary. It’s atmospheric to the nth degree, with prose that borders on poetry and a story that will put you off traveling south of the Mason-Dixon Line, perhaps forever.
NOT SO EASY BEING RAWLINS
able for anybody not of their clique. CB McKenzie’s second novel, Burn What Will Burn (Minotaur, $24.99, 224 pages, ISBN 9781250083371), falls decidedly into the second category. Bob Reynolds is a newcomer to Rushing, Arkansas (population:
nearby Little Piney Creek. Bob doesn’t want to get involved with the local law, but he reluctantly phones the sheriff. When they return to the scene of the crime, there is no body to be found, and the sheriff and his cronies seem
The dark, edgy thrillers you’ve been waiting for…
Veteran storyteller Walter Mosley is back with another installment in the life and times of Easy Rawlins in Charcoal Joe (Doubleday, $26.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780385539203). This is terrific news on several fronts: Easy is one of the finest characters in modern-day suspense fiction, complex and artfully drawn; the heroes and villains change sides with some regularity, including the main character; and the story offers more than its share of twists and turns to confound the reader. The titular Charcoal Joe is something of a legend in the circles of Los Angeles bad guys. Easy has stayed outside Joe’s sphere, but all that changes when he is tapped by his longtime frenemy Mouse to look into the murder charges against a young friend of Joe. Violence raises its ugly head, and our hero must take some serious evasive action to protect the lives of his family and loved ones. The Easy Rawlins saga has followed the landlord-turned-detective from the early post-World War II years through the Jim Crow 1950s and up to 1968 in this latest installment. The late ’60s were tumultuous times in Southern California, and Mosley deftly weaves social commentary into the narrative.
PARISIAN BEGINNINGS “Grabs you by the throat
and doesn’t let go.” —Catherine Coulter,
#1 New York Times bestselling author
“Emelie Schepp’s plot complexity is worthy of a
Nesbø or Kepler.” —DAST Magazine
Available June 14! Visit BookClubbish.com/Suspense to learn more!
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Cara Black fans, have you ever wondered how Aimée Leduc got her start in private investigations? Find out in Murder on the Quai (Soho Crime, $27.95, 336 pages, ISBN 9781616956783), the long-awaited prequel to the popular series. The year is 1989. Aimée is in her first year of university, studying to become a doctor. It’s not going well, to say the least. Someone has sabotaged her laboratory work,
2016-04-11 5:09 PM
and her boyfriend has just become engaged to a Parisian socialite, without so much as a word of farewell to Aimée. So when her father asks her for a bit of organizational help at the family detective agency, she agrees, never anticipating that it will lead her into the mysterious world of sleuthing. And particularly never anticipating that said sleuthing will involve a decades-old case of missing Nazi gold that has some tenuous connections to her long-missing mother. Murder on the Quai is suspenseful, emotional and, thanks in part to its Paris setting, très atmosphérique.
TOP PICK IN MYSTERY I may (or may not) be the first to compare Michael Harvey’s Brighton (Ecco, $27.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9780062442970) to Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, but I won’t be the last. Both are set in Boston, unfold over a number of years and involve crimes of passion in which the perpetrator(s) skate away scotfree—sort of. But on a deeper level, both books approach Thomas Wolfe or Pat Conroy levels of writing, transcending the “damned with faint praise” epithet of genre fiction. Bobby Scales and Kevin Pearce, childhood pals from the mean streets of Brighton, have gone on to markedly different lives: Kevin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the Boston Globe, while Bobby is a feared underworld figure. They share a decades-old secret: Together they enacted deadly revenge on the man running from the scene of the murder of Kevin’s grandmother. Thirty-some years later, their shared secret comes back to haunt them, as the gun used by Bobby all those years ago is the same gun used in the recent high-profile murder of a policewoman. The connections between past and present will test every notion of loyalty that either man could ever draw upon. Harvey has written a bunch of critically acclaimed novels, but he has seriously upped his game with Brighton.
High Summer, High Drama High Summer, High Drama
ON SALE 6/7 ON SALE 6/7
ON SALE 6/7 ON SALE 6/7
Enter for a chance to win a beachy tote filled with summer essentials and all athe bookstote featured above. Enter for a chance to win beachy filled with Go to BookPage.com/Contests to enter. summer essentials and all the books featured above.
Contest ends on 7/31/16 at midnight. No purchase necessary to enter. One entry per person. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. The Sweepstakes is open to all legal residents of the United States 18 years of age and older at the time of entry. Entries must be received no later than 7/31/16 (11:59 PM EDT). ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will receive one (1) Summer Prize Pack and a copy of each of the books advertised. The total approximate retail value Contest endsison 7/31/16Limit at midnight. Noper purchase to enter. One entry per person. NO For PURCHASE The Sweepstakes is open of all prizes $195.96. one entry person.necessary Void where prohibited or restricted by law. the officialNECESSARY. rules, go to BookPage.com/Contests. to all legal residents of the United States 18 years of age and older at the time of entry. Entries must be received no later than 7/31/16 (11:59 PM EDT). ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will receive one (1) Summer Prize Pack and a copy of each of the books advertised. The total approximate retail value of all prizes is $195.96. Limit one entry per person. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. For the official rules, go to BookPage.com/Contests.
Go to BookPage.com/Contests to enter.
Pick up or download your copies today! Available wherever books are sold. Pick up or download your copies today! Available wherever books are sold.
ON SALE 6/7 ON SALE 6/7
AVAILABLE JUNE 2016 IN PRINT, E-BOOK, AND AUDIOBOOK
columns
COOKING BY SYBIL PRATT
Middle-East mélange She’s been called “the golden girl of Persian cookery” by The Observer, but Sabrina Ghayour’s cooking is more about her own special brand of fusion. Though her Iranian heritage has given her a love and understanding of the bold, aromatic flavors of Middle-Eastern cooking, she was raised in England, with its bountiful produce and culinary techniques. The 100 redolent recipes in Sirocco: Fabulous Flavors from the Middle East (Potter, $30, 240 pages, ISBN 9780451495297), Ghayour’s second cookbook, highlight
In 1938, on the cusp of World War II, Heinrich Himmler is growing frustrated at the British using their power to block an SS expedition to Tibet. Determined to spite them, he plots to accomplish something they have failed to achieve—a first summit of Mount Everest. Seventy years later Neil Quinn’s ninth visit to the top of the world’s highest mountain begins to unravel. As a desperate fight for their lives begins high above Tibet, Quinn stumbles across a clue that challenges everything he thinks he knows about the great mountain.
“Magnificent! A compelling, fast paced novel, that reveals a rarely seen dark side of Everest. A must read!” —JAMES W. HUSTON, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BLOOD FLAG
“A wonderful story that instantly took me back to my Everest days.” —MARTIN ADAMS , 1996 EVEREST CLIMBER AND PROTAGONIST OF INTO THIN AIR AND THE CLIMB
BLACKSTONE P U B L I S H I N G
Available from all major retailers where books are sold.
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her unique, fresh, uncomplicated style. She relies on a pantry full of Middle-Eastern spices and musthave items—like za’atar, saffron, Aleppo pepper, pomegranate molasses and harissa—that combine with a variety of ingredients to yield vibrant combos for breakfast, lunch, dinner and savory snacks, even a Preserved Lemon Martini. Try Berries Infused with Rose Water and Crushed Cardamom, Grilled Zucchini with Goat Cheese and Sumac, Oven-Roasted Souk-Spiced Roots, Citrus and Za’atar Chicken, Harissa Mussels and a Quince Tatin with Cinnamon Cream—you can’t miss this vibrant celebration of flavors from the Middle East.
SEASONAL SPLENDOR Summer is prime time for farmers markets and for local CSAs to fill their weekly boxes with Mother Nature’s seasonal splendor. With local produce so easily at hand, all we need is a gentle push to focus on fresh veggies as they come to market. Rebecca Lang’s The Southern Vegetable Book: A Root-toStalk Guide to the South’s Favorite Produce (Oxmoor House, $27.95, 256 pages, ISBN 9780848746889) offers that loving prod. Lang
celebrates the rich Southern soil and its long growing season with classic and innovative recipes, plus hints on selecting, prepping, storing and canning 30 vegetables, which are arranged by season from springtime Asparagus with Rosemary Aioli and vividly green Chilled Sweet Pea Soup to Lady Pea Summer Salad and a meringue-topped Fancy Sweet Potato Pie that’s perfect for Thanksgiving. Worry not, you don’t have to have a Southern accent to get with the program, just an appreciation of fine-flavored food with Southern soul.
TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Anna Thomas has made sure that the guests at her table always know that they’ve entered a peaceable kingdom, a place where everybody—vegan, vegetarian or outspokenly omnivorous—is welcome and able to enjoy dinner together. For many years, Thomas has worked on designing meals made with delicious dishes that are convertible, flexible and adaptable. Other cooks with other books have considered the problems dietary restrictions can cause, but Thomas’ Vegan Vegetarian Omnivore (Norton, $35, 496 pages, ISBN 9780393083019), which is lavishly illustrated, imaginative and infused with her love for sharing food with friends and family, is the best I’ve seen so far. She serves up 16 menus for a variety of occasions, from an antipasto-laden Italian extravaganza to a simple Soup Supper and a versatile Taco Night. Thomas offers nearly 200 recipes that showcase her talent for taking a vegan dish, adding something for a vegetarian variation, then something more to tempt the omnivores.
BOOK CLUBS BY JULIE HALE
Catching waves In his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (Penguin, $17, 464 pages, ISBN 9780143109396), William Finnegan delivers an exhilarating account of surf culture while chronicling the ways in which the sport shaped him. As a boy in the 1960s, Finnegan moved with his family from California to Oahu, where he was an outsider among kids his own age. He took solace in surfing, finding a personal outlet in the pastime and quickly becoming addicted. In this beautifully written memoir, he recounts wave-chasing
excursions to Polynesia, Thailand and South Africa during the 1970s—trips that ignited his social consciousness and his interest in journalism. Family, career and the departure of youth have failed to quell his passion for surfing, and in the book he addresses the challenges of practicing a young man’s sport at middle age. Finnegan shares colorful memories of beloved surf buddies and once-ina-lifetime tubes, but his narrative is also an insightful meditation on the passage of time. This is an epic look at an elusive sport from one of the premier nonfiction writers working today.
family is behind the famous Baptist diet, and who encourages Plum to approach her weight in a new way. As she experiences a personal metamorphosis, Plum finds that she’s become entangled in a plot that may involve a group called Jennifer—a radical collective that targets misogynists. Through Plum’s personal evolution, Walker probes timely issues like sexuality and the pursuit of physical perfection, while also delivering a first-rate work of fiction. Funny, rebellious and ultimately compassionate, this is a refined debut from a writer who has much to share in the way of storytelling—and in wisdom about our image-saturated world.
TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer (Grove, $16, 384 pages, ISBN 9780802124944) is a sophisticated spy novel set at the close of the Vietnam War. The novel’s French-Vietnamese narrator, the captain, is an undercover Communist agent. Along with members of the South Vietnamese Army, who are unaware of his true sympathies, the captain escapes the turmoil of Saigon and settles in Los Angeles. There, he spies on his fellow counBIG CHANGES trymen, dispatching secret letters Plum Kettle, the 29-year-old about their activities to a member heroine of Sarai Walker’s smart, sly of the Communist leadership. novel, Dietland (Mariner, $14.95, When the captain arouses suspicion, he must find a way to contin336 pages, ISBN 9780544704831), weighs more than 300 pounds. ue his mission without revealing Unhappy with her physical appear- his true identity. Meanwhile, he becomes involved in the making of a ance, she monitors her meals and Hollywood film about Vietnam and dreams of being thin. Plum writes an advice column for a teen publi- falls in love. Nguyen juggles plot cation and has hopes of becoming elements with remarkable ease, dea serious writer. But her life takes livering a masterfully crafted debut that explores the legacy of war and a surreal turn after she meets the controversial Verena Baptist, whose the weight of loyalty.
Fresh Book Club Picks for Summer
The Girl from The Savoy by Hazel Gaynor
“Hazel Gaynor captures both the heartache and hope of England between the Wars in this richly imagined novel peopled with unforgettable characters, impossible ambitions and unexpected twists of fate.” —Kathleen Tessaro, New York Times bestselling author
The Space Between Sisters by Mary McNear
“Explores the complex relationship between sisters, their differences, their mirrored history, their love and support of one another. This triumphant story had me reading until the wee hours of the morning.” —Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author
The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper
“Anglophiles, rejoice! From cozy firesides of country houses to glittering halls of ancestral estates, Karen Harper gives the reader unprecedented access to a world of monarchs.” —Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl
The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan
“A fascinating tale of two women, generations apart, who defy expectations to find their own paths to happiness and purpose. Awash in historical detail, this book is a real page-turner.” —Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author
@Morrow_PB
@bookclubgirl
William Morrow
Book Club Girl
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ROMANCE B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY
A doomed duke In Sabrina York’s charming Lana and the Laird (St. Martin’s, $7.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9781250069719), part of her Untamed Highlanders series, an aristocrat leaves London to spend his final months in his Scottish castle. Lachlan Sinclair, aka the Doomed Duke, believes that the men of his family will die before age 30. While awaiting the end of his days, he meets the winsome Lana Dounreay, a young woman known to speak to animals and the dead. Their attraction is
HighBridge Featuring Garrison Keillor and cast
Tantor Read by Emily Woo Zeller
HighBridge Featuring Garrison Keillor and cast
HighBridge Read by Susan Duersen
HighBridge Read by an ensemble cast
HighBridge Featuring Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels
instant, but Lachlan tries to keep his distance, knowing that he has nothing to offer but impending grief. Lana, however, has other ideas. While she has no expectations of marriage—most men consider her supernatural gifts frightening—she has dreamed of Lachlan, and she knows they are destined to be lovers. Once they act on their desires, it’s with such passion that Lachlan begins to wish for a future with Lana. But first he must face the demons of the past and the threats in his present. Can the pair survive and destroy his curse? York has penned a tender, pleasurable romp with a dash of danger.
SECOND-CHANCE LOVE
HighBridge Read by Antonia Beamish
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HighBridge Read by Peter Berkrot
www.highbridgeaudio.com
A woman finds herself in dire straits in Kat Martin’s Into the Whirlwind (Zebra, $7.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9781420139020). When former lingerie model Megan O’Brien’s young son is kidnapped, she turns to P.I. Dirk Reynolds. Months ago, when he was her bodyguard, they had a fiery affair, but Megan couldn’t see the fast-driving, fast-living ex-Army Special Forces soldier as the steady family man she and her son need. However, she’s certain he can save 4/25/16 2:32 PM
her child. Still hurting from their breakup, Dirk is not keen on helping her, but her despair melts his resolve. Soon, he’s all-in with the beautiful redhead as they search for the child and then the answers to why O’Brien was targeted. As danger swirls around them, Meg realizes she made a mistake in ending things with Dirk, but he’s unwilling to trust her again. Not until they find the truth behind the kidnapping does Dirk face the truth in his heart. The second book in Martin’s BOSS, Inc. series, Into the Whirlwind is a high-octane mix of high stakes and high passion.
TOP PICK IN ROMANCE Paranormal romance plus nonstop action equals one combustible read in To Love a Wolf (Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9781492625957), the latest SWAT novel from Paige Tyler. Werewolf and Dallas SWAT officer Landry Cooper finds beauty in a bank line in the guise of artist Everly Danu. When the bank is robbed, their meeting becomes that much more intense. As Everly and Landry spend more time together, their immediate attraction grows into a serious connection, and Landry is certain Everly is the soul mate his kind longs for. But she has no idea that he’s more than human, and when Everly’s family finds out about Landry’s true werewolf identity, it brings to light a painful event from Everly’s past. Can she overcome that ugly memory and her family’s misgivings to make a future with the man she loves? But there are other obstacles to surmount as Landry tracks a bomber who is taking his activities very close to home. The bestselling Tyler has delivered another sexy and suspenseful read.
AUDIO BY SUKEY HOWARD
The money trail According to Forbes’ list of the richest people in America, Charles Koch is number four and his brother, David, is number five. Put their billions together, add their fervid belief in conservative-libertarian principles, their determination to make what had been fringe ideas part and parcel of the Republican Party’s thinking, their ability to create the multipronged structure to do it and the Citizens United decision, and you have a changed political scene in America. Jane
Mayer’s fascinating, scrupulously researched Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Random House Audio, $45, 17 hours, ISBN 9780307970657), performed with competent composure by Kirsten Potter, details the Koch brothers’ background and Koch Industry’s ascendancy, adding much about the other billionaire players who belong to this secretive network of the super-wealthy. Timely investigative reporting at its best, Dark Money is especially vital during this long, unusual presidential campaign.
AMAZING MAISIE One of the best things about an ongoing series is that you know that the hero or, in this case, the heroine, will make it through no matter how tough the going gets. And in Jacqueline Winspear’s latest, Journey to Munich (Harper Audio, $39.99, 9 hours, ISBN 9780062443991), convincingly read by Orlagh Cassidy, Maisie Dobbs takes on a risky mission for the British Secret Service. Since her beloved husband died flying an experimental plane and she miscarried their child, Maisie has been reflecting on her life and her future as she tries to find a path back to wholeness. Now in England after
working as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War, Maisie agrees to go to Nazi Germany disguised as the daughter of a brilliant British industrialist imprisoned in Dachau for two years. The Brits have ransomed his release, but he must be escorted out by a family member. This is Munich in 1938—danger and intrigue are as much a part of the scene as the brown-shirted storm troopers, and Maisie, wearing an itchy wig and carrying a loaded gun in her handbag, must navigate Hitler’s sadistic henchmen. Maisie amazes, again.
STRIKING
LISTENS “ Well done, Coes and Hermann both—don’t make us wait too long for the next appearance of this dynamic character.” —Library Journal Review, Best Audiobooks of 2010 on Power Down (starred review)
READ BY PETER HERMANN
“Emotionally stirring and hilarious.” —Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings
READ BY CYNTHIA DARLOW
TOP PICK IN AUDIO Riveting, tour de force, gripping, unputdownable, propulsive— these are usually just clichés used to hype a new thriller. Not this time. Redemption Road (Macmillan Audio, $39.99, 14 hours, ISBN 9781427275738), John Hart’s devastatingly dark new novel, is all of the above and more. And narrator Scott Shepherd’s perfectly paced, subtle Southern cadences make this a relentlessly compelling audio. Elizabeth Black, a North Carolina police detective, is at the center of a web of intricately woven subplots. She’s tough, talented, driven, but her deep emotional scars and total commitment to young victims can upend her judgment. Liz is under investigation for the overzealous shooting of two men who brutally raped a teenage girl; Adrian, a cop she loves who was wrongly convicted of a heinous murder, is paroled after 13 years; and someone’s on a killing spree modeled on the crime Adrian was blamed for. A lot of ends to tie up, a lot of redemption needed, and Hart does it with masterful aplomb.
“Narrator Henry Leyva keeps listeners on the edge of their seats.” —AudioFile on The Precipice
READ BY HENRY LEYVA
“King’s performance ability is the perfect medium for Jones’ s witty and cunning prose.” —Publishers Weekly on Fifth Grave Past the Light
READ BY LORELEI KING
Listen to excerpts on www.UnabridgedAccess.com
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features
AUDIO MONTH
Bringing a book to life with the magic of the spoken word
S
omeone once told me that the only difference between a child who grows up to make it in life and one who doesn’t is that the successful adult was read to—that’s right, someone curled up at bedtime and read aloud to her, filling her head with images, ideas and stories before she went off to dreamland and schemed her own.
There’s a craze in the world of books right now that no one predicted: Adults are buying coloring books. They buy sleeves of colored pencils and fill in complex line drawings making their own grownup works of art, Pre-K style. It would only stand to reason that the audiobook, sometimes called the audible, would be surging, too. We like the hands-free reading experience. We enjoy listening to a story interpreted by a skilled actor. It’s soothing, comforting, entertaining and can even be educational. And if you’re someone who has less time than chores, you can elevate your mind while you paint your house, clean your closet or make that long commute. Authors take the production values and narrator of the audio version of their books seriously. When your novel is edited, and around the time you are polishing the bells and testing the whistles, the subject of the selection of the narrator of the audio version of your book comes up. Through the years I’ve had some glittering stars,
ALL THE STARS IN THE HEAVENS
By Adriana Trigiani
HarperAudio, unabridged CD, $44.99, 14 hours ISBN 9780062419910
HISTORICAL FICTION
12
including my honorary brother Mario Cantone, who took the novel Rococo and turned it into his own personal opus, with the female voices conjured by him from the MGM leading lady roster during the golden age of Hollywood. The process of casting the reader for an audiobook is every bit as serious as casting a major Hollywood film. You are looking for the perfect match in vocal tone, cadence and delivery for the time period and setting of your story. You hope for an actor who can bring the book to life and dramatize the journey of the characters against the backdrop you’ve written. You want to feel the emotions of the characters, their longing and yearning, heartache and grief, and joy and connection. The actor has to make the story clear and lead the listener through the action. All she has is her voice and her ability to connect through that instrument—she has no props, costumes, music or fellow actors. She hasn’t a sleeve of colored pencils, only her own interpretation of the words before her and her particular ability to distill them for the listener. It’s a one-woman show. Recording an audiobook is a campout under a relentless spotlight in a glass box with headphones snapped over her ears and hundreds of double-spaced pages on a music stand, read, interpreted and flipped in near silence as she digs deeply into the text. A director will stop and start the action, keeping an ear on the flow, pace and energy. The director is also looking for colors, shading, electricity in the performance when called for, and smooth endings to chapters, plus big swells to their beginnings. For the actor, it’s intense work,
a lot of consecutive days of staying in the moment, remaining focused, soothing the voice by biting into green apples and downing lemon and honey in warm water. There’s no physical release, as there is in acting onstage. Recording an audiobook is the interpretation through the voice; it’s mental, a soul “The process connection. of casting the It’s hard work, but it can reader for an never sound audiobook like it. The is every bit characters as serious as have to dance casting a major through the air in the Hollywood imagination film.” of the listener as the actor reads their words aloud. When it came time to cast All the Stars in the Heavens, we needed an actor who could play a feast of great actors and actresses of all ages from the early days of American movies. I could only think of one woman who could skate between exchanges between Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young, or David Niven and Clark Gable, and bring a poor nun in a halfway house to life. We needed an actor with scope and range, but one whose voice was both velvet and gingham, who could conjure burlap and old rum. We needed youth and world weary, glorious and shabby, the kind of actor who can play it all, and frankly has. Blair Brown possesses all of these qualities, but she is also original, fresh and unwraps the words with delight. You keep
© JOSEPHINE SITTENFELD
BY ADRIANA TRIGIANI
listening because she is invested in the story, and you must know what happens. I’m the daughter of a librarian who played story-time records for us when we were children. We heard Danny Kaye read classic fairy tales, my first audiobook on an LP. When I went to college and majored in theater, I went straight to the library when studying the classics and listened to the Shakespeare plays recorded by Nigel Hawthorne and Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Laurence Olivier. I loved listening to plays read aloud. But it wasn’t all academia and serious drama—one of my favorite audiobook memories is picking up Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia by Peter Maas at the Cracker Barrel on Route 81 in the hills of Virginia. It was read by the great Philip Bosco. I laughed in a car with my dad for eight hours straight as we listened to Mr. Bosco cuss and wheel and deal as only an organized crime rat can do. You see, audiobooks are part of the happy memories with my family. They’re wonderful, and they fill us up as only a good story can. A playwright, TV writer/producer and film director, Adriana Trigiani is the author of 16 books, including her beloved debut, Big Stone Gap. Trigiani’s latest novel, All the Stars in the Heavens, is a fictional take on the real-life romance between two stars of Hollywood’s golden age: Loretta Young and Clark Gable.
D DI OI OB BO OO OK KMM U U A A S I IS O ON N E E T HT H NN U U JJ
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cover story
YAA GYASI
An epic debut traces slavery’s toll
Y
aa Gyasi sounds a bit unnerved by the prepublication buzz surrounding her stunning first novel, Homegoing, and the changes its enthusiastic early reception portend for her life.
“I’ve wanted to be a writer my whole life, so this is really the fulfillment of a long dream,” she says during a call to her home in Berkeley, California. She and her boyfriend, a writer she met when they were both at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, have recently moved to the Bay Area. “I feel fortunate not only that my dream came true but that it’s coming true in such a huge way,” Gyasi continues. “On the other hand, the stakes feel really high in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I find myself being a lot more anxious than when I thought no one would read the book. I feel a lot of outside noise has come in now in a way that it never had before. I had always been writing for myself. And now it’s becoming more public. That’s definitely an end goal of a writer, to share their work with readers. But it is a little nerve-racking.” Gyasi, who turns 27 in late June, spent seven years developing her first novel. Homegoing is a sweeping, emotionally and morally complex epic that begins in the
HOMEGOING
By Yaa Gyasi
Knopf, $26.95, 320 pages ISBN 9781101947135, audio, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
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18th century in the British African colony that is now Ghana. There, two half-sisters—Effia from the slave-trading Fante nation and Esi from the Asante warrior nation— are born and live nearly intersecting lives without ever meeting. Effia is born during a violent fire. As a young woman, she is married off to a British official as a local wife and lives in the upper realms of the Cape Coast Castle, seat of British colonial power. Esi is sold into slavery and imprisoned in the bowels of the castle to await a harrowing journey over the ocean to the American South. From there, in beautifully textured alternating chapters in which water imagery represents Esi’s line and fire imagery is linked to Effia’s, the novel explores the lives of these women’s descendants. Esi’s progeny live in the U.S. as slaves and then as free people under Jim Crow laws. Effia’s descendants remain in Ghana and experience the effects of British colonialism and bloody internal African warfare. In the end, in the 21st century, the two lines of descendants experience a poignant kind of “homegoing.” “The thing that I was most interested in was the question of what does it mean to be black in America today,” Gyasi says. “So I was very much focused on those last two chapters. I wanted to get to the African immigrant and the African American today. When I first thought of this novel all those years ago, I thought I would toggle back and forth between the characters that make up the first few chapters and the characters that make up the last few chapters to show a then-and-now thing. But then at some point I realized that I was more interested in being able to see the way something moves over a long period of time, in this case slavery, how slavery dovetailed off into this colonialism and
institutionalized racism depending on where and how you were looking.” The novel is propelled by a profound and wrenching sense of history. Yet its characters are emotionally compelling rather than didactic. This is partly because of Gyasi’s “exploratory” style of research. “I didn’t want to feel stifled by the research “People in the or the need to present have get everya tendency to thing exactly, believe that we exactly right,” are necessarily she explains. “I just wanted better, smarter to have or more moral it be this than the people atmospheric thing that who lived was in the before us.” background, so that the characters were foregrounded and they were just reacting to a moment in history, as we do now. You know, things are happening around us, but they don’t feel like they always explain our actions and our choices.” The novel is also shaped by Gyasi’s deep imagining of events and by her family’s experiences. Born in Ghana, she came to the United States when she was 2 years old. Her father is a professor of French and Francophile African literature, and her mother is a nurse. She is the middle of three children and the only girl. Before settling in Huntsville, Alabama, when she was 9, the family also lived in Ohio and
MICHAEL LIONSTAR
INTERVIEW BY ALDEN MUDGE
Illinois. She went to Stanford University and won a Chappell-Lougee scholarship to travel to Ghana and research her novel. “I’ve only been back [to Ghana] twice,” Gyasi says. “The first time was with my entire family at age 11. And the second time was when I was 20. I had just a very thin idea for a novel in mind. I had never been to the central region where my mother is from. So I wanted to spend some time there.” Her visit to Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle was the revelation that inspired the novel. “The tour guide started talking about the fact that a lot of British soldiers would marry the local Fante women, and the children from these marriages were sometimes sent to England for school and then came back and started to form the region’s middle class. I’d never heard much about the Cape Coast Castle or about Ghana’s participation in the slave trade. All of this was really new to me. And then the tour guide showed us the majesty of the upstairs level of the castle. It’s beautiful. Then after showing us this upstairs level, he takes us down to see the male and female dungeons. That was also a very striking experience for me—kind of the literal upstairs downstairs thing. And I thought, OK, this is where I’ll start.”
Interestingly, Gyasi says it was reading Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude that gave her permission to write her hugely ambitious novel. “That’s such a great book to read, especially if you are about to write a big, messy novel with a lot of family. Just the idea that a reader can look back at the family tree and that doesn’t totally mess up their reading experience was something I got from that book. [Homegoing has a helpful diagram of the characters’ family tree at the beginning of the novel.] I heard from people who had grievances about how many years it was covering or that there are too many characters. But having read Márquez, I could always say he did it, and it was fine.” Gyasi adds, “People say that first books tend to be more quiet. They tend to be a lot more autobiographical. But I grew up in Alabama. I was a Ghanaian immigrant. When I was in Ghana, I didn’t feel Ghanaian. When I was in America, I didn’t feel quite American. I was kind of living on the edges of these two identities. I’d always been interested in that, and in what we had in common—the African American and the African immigrant. In that way, this book feels incredibly personal to me.” Asked about the legacy of slavery that Homegoing explores, Gyasi says, “When we talk about slavery today, there’s a sense that it’s this thing that happened a million years ago, so why do we feel like it has any effect on our life today? And I always think that’s a ridiculous way to think about it. “People in the present have a tendency to believe that we are necessarily better, smarter or more moral than the people who lived before us. We wouldn’t have done this awful thing. We would be the ones who stand up and say, ‘Not me.’ But in the moment I think that is a much harder thing to do. So I was really interested in the people who could say that or who tried to say that, whether they were successful or not. I did want to have their voices in the novel as well. Hopefully, this book is an addition to the conversation about why we still need to think about it today.”
C E LE BRATE JUNE IS AUDIOBOOK MONTH WITH THE WHOLE FAMILY! FOR ALL AGES
TEENS & ADULTS
For more listening suggestions, visit TryAudiobooks.com/family-travel
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features
FATHER’S DAY BY KEITH HERRELL
Solutions to the dilemma of what to get Dad
D
ads can be notoriously tough to buy for, so Father’s Day brings a fair amount of angst for gift-giving sons and daughters. Here are five books to spare you from buying a necktie or golf balls and make you a family hero.
We’ve all said it—especially harried parents torn between workplace and home, with precious little time to themselves: “If only I had the time to practice, I could get really good at (fill in the blank).” In Late to the Ball (Scribner, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 9781476737393), Gerald Marzorati recounts how, at age 60, with work and family responsibilities winding down, he fills in the blank with competitive tennis. Marzorati, formerly editor of The New York Times Magazine, knows what he is up against in his quest to make the leap from decent club player to a force on the national senior circuit: lifelong players with extensive backgrounds in the game, many with international experience. But he stubbornly (and at no small expense) makes the effort. There’s the requisite coach along the way (more than one, in fact), but also cameos by a psychotherapist, a biomechanics expert and an ill-fated friend, all of whom have lessons to impart. Marzorati soaks them all in, but in the end— and to the reader’s benefit—appears to succeed just as much in improving his perspective on life as in perfecting his backhand.
STOPPING THE BOMB Don’t be surprised if, partway through The Winter Fortress (HMH, $28, 400 pages, ISBN 9780544368057), you get the urge to flip to the back cover and make absolutely sure that it’s a nonfiction book. This tale of a daredevil mission to slow Germany’s World War II progress toward an atomic bomb could only be conjured by a master storyteller. Neal Bascomb’s a master all right, but the events he describes in fly-on-the-wall
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fashion—working from recently declassified documents, firsthand interviews and previously unseen diaries and letters—are true. In 1942, the Nazis were bent on developing a nuclear capability, and a fortress-like facility in Norway was crucial to their goal. Making incredible sacrifices, commando teams made up largely of Norwegian patriots battled harsh conditions and nearly insurmountable odds in their quest to derail the Germans’ plans. It’s part spy tale, part action-adventure yarn as the saboteurs strap on skis and undertake the mission of a lifetime. We know how it will turn out, but there are plenty of surprises along the way in a book that, once you reach the midpoint, is almost impossible to put down.
BOTTOMS UP Taking on a subject near to almost any dad’s heart, The United States of Beer: A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink (Morrow, $25.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780062389756) is a light, informative read that goes down easily on a hot summer day. Author Dane Huckelbridge clearly loves his subject, and it’s obvious he had fun drinking his way through the necessary (really it is, Dear) research. And you’ll get quite an education as Huckelbridge starts in New England and works his way across the country, with shoutouts to beloved brands such
as Iron City, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Anchor Steam Beer. He traces beer’s roots in other cultures, notes that it came over on the Mayflower and describes how, for a time, beer battled with whiskey before emerging as America’s alcoholic beverage of choice. Breweries large and small are toured, and there are numerous history mini-lessons along the way, with such figures as Ben Franklin and George Washington making appearances. And who knew that Gen. George Armstrong Custer unwittingly played a role in the early mass marketing of beer? So it almost goes without saying: Tell Dad to enjoy this book with a glass of beer close by.
SUMMONING THE FORCE Perhaps you’ve noticed that the world has a few problems. But Cass R. Sunstein is here with The World According to Star Wars (Dey Street, $21.99, 240 pages, ISBN 9780062484222) to tell you the Force can fix them, along with taking off those extra five pounds and curing the common cold. OK, just kidding on those last two—but Sunstein, a Harvard professor and behavioral economics expert when he’s not geeking out with the Imperial March playing in the background, is a true believer and then some when it comes to the wildly
successful Star Wars films. In Sunstein’s view, fortunately written in an un-professorial tone, the movies unify people, connect generations (got that, Dad?) and form a modern myth that exists as a “rousing tribute to human freedom.” And just to seal the Father’s Day deal, there are enough “I am your father” references to sustain a drinking game, and there’s an entire chapter (this book calls them “episodes”) entitled “Fathers and Sons.” So sure, you can just read that one chapter. But trust the Force—you’ll enjoy Sunstein’s musings all the way through.
SECRETS OF THE PAST The world cannot end in The House of Secrets (Grand Central, $28, 368 pages, ISBN 9781455559497), because it’s billed as the first in a series. The conspiracy thriller is co-written by Brad Meltzer and Tod Goldberg, with Meltzer getting top billing—that’s understandable, as his credits include multiple bestselling novels, plus graphic novels and children’s books. He also hosts “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded” on the History Channel and “Brad Meltzer’s Lost History” on H2. Novelist Goldberg (the Burn Notice series) is no slouch either, so they have combined for a fastpaced novel that keeps the reader guessing all the way through. After all, how can you go wrong when you start off with a dead body (oops, make that two!) that has a Bible implanted in its chest and is dressed in a Revolutionary War uniform? The task of making sense of all this falls to the daughter of a TV host who’s a lot like, well, Brad Meltzer. And Meltzer (the real one) says the book’s premise is based on fact. So buy it for Dad, but don’t be surprised if you see him acting strangely as he turns the pages.
Totally Fun and Totally Fun and Utterly Delightful Utterly Delightful Summer Reading Summer Reading
“A page-turner.... Like reconnecting with “A page-turner.... a long-lost friend.” —The New Yorker Like reconnecting with a long-lost friend.” —The New Yorker
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“Deliciously twisty.... McMahon [keeps] you guessing “with Deliciously twisty.... wry wit and feverish chills.”
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—People McMahon [keeps] you guessing
with wry wit and feverish chills.” —People
“Fun, often funny.... The Devil Wears Prada meets “Fun, oftenAllfunny.... About Eve.”
“Delightful.... A literary jewel.” “Delightful.... —Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Devil Wears Prada—People meets All About Eve.”
(critics’ choice) A literary jewel.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune (critics’ choice)
—People
One of the Best Books of the Year San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • The Huffington • Bustle and more One of the BestPost Books of the•Year San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • Winner of the The Huffington • Bustle • and more PEN/Robert W. Post Bingham Prize Winner Finalist of forthe the PEN/Robert W.Critics Bingham Prize National Book Circle John Leonard Finalist for thePrize National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Superb.”
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meet RYAN NORTH
the title of your new book? Q: What’s
Q: Describe the book in one sentence.
would Romeo and/or Juliet’s Tinder profiles look like? Q: What
f you could hang out with Shakespeare for a day, what would Q: Iyou do?
Q: What’s your best advice for star-crossed lovers?
Q: What’s your guilty pleasure? Q: Words to live by?
ROMEO AND/OR JULIET Ryan North created the popular web comic Dinosaur Comics and writes The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series for Marvel. His first choose-your-own-path book, To Be or Not To Be, was funded as a Kickstarter project. North’s latest Shakespearean adventure, Romeo and/or Juliet (Riverhead, $20, 400 pages, ISBN 9781101983300), includes more than 100 possible endings for the timeless love story, each illustrated by a noted artist. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Jenn.
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features
MOBY-DICK BY JOELLE HERR
One masterpiece, two muses
T
his summer marks the 165th anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick. Two fascinating new books—one a historical novel, the other nonfiction—each identify a different person as the inspiration behind Herman Melville’s iconic novel.
In his debut, The Whale: A Love Story (Viking, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 9780399562334), former journalist Mark Beauregard supposes what many have speculated: that the brief but intense friendship between Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne went beyond camaraderie. The novel opens on August 5, 1850, with Melville and Hawthorne meeting for the first time while on an excursion with mutual friends in the Berkshires. Hawthorne is fresh off the success of The Scarlet Letter and living in Lenox, Massachusetts, while Melville is visiting his cousin Robert in nearby Pittsfield. Melville’s career is waning, and he is in a bit of a rut working on a novel about the whaling industry. Though both are married, Melville instantly falls for the handsome, congenial Hawthorne. Shortly afterward, Melville moves his family to a modest farm six miles from Lenox. Hawthorne keeps Melville at arm’s length to resist his attraction to the younger writer, and so Melville funnels his yearning into his work. In effect, Beauregard presents Hawthorne as Melville’s own white whale, the object of his obsession. Beauregard consulted biographies, journals and letters in crafting his clever and engaging, if unconfirmed, account. While the physical aspect of the relationship is limited to a couple of charged caresses and a drink-fueled kiss, the emotional toll of the affair— which ends when Hawthorne moves away from Lenox in 1852— is high, particularly for Melville.
In Melville in Love (Ecco, $25.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780062418982), Michael Shelden—a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Orwell: The Authorized Biography—presents another candidate for Melville’s muse, one whose importance has been entirely overlooked for the past 165 years. Among the guests at cousin Robert Melville’s house in Pittsfield during the summer of 1850 were the Morewoods of New York City. Sarah Morewood was the “bookish and beautiful, intelligent and inquisitive, creative and compassionate” wife of a wealthy merchant. That summer, the vivacious Sarah organized picnics, hikes and other jaunts, which Melville enthusiastically joined. The attraction between Sarah and the dashing writer was immediate and mutual, and Shelden asserts that Melville moved his family to Pittsfield to be close not to Hawthorne, but to Sarah, who was in the process of purchasing Robert’s estate. Shelden argues that the ensuing affair energized Melville, and the passion that Sarah stirred in him flowed through his pen onto the pages of Moby-Dick. Unlike Hawthorne and Melville in The Whale, Shelden claims that Sarah and Melville consummated their relationship, during an overnight trek to the summit of Mount Greylock. While there is no definitive proof of the affair, Shelden offers compelling evidence supporting his theory, including clues in Melville’s works. Melville in Love is a beautifully written, captivating story that may also be one of the most surprising literary revelations of our time.
ELISHA COOPER INTERVIEW BY ALICE CARY
A father’s fearful challenge
I
n 2007, Elisha Cooper experienced one of those life-changing moments that every parent prays they never face. He had taken his nearly 5-yearold daughter to a Chicago Cubs game on a beautiful summer day when he happened to reach his arm around her torso and feel an unusual bump under her ribs.
Cooper wasn’t initially alarmed, but ensuing doctor’s appointments revealed that Zoë had a rare kidney cancer known as Wilms’ tumor. Happily, Zoë got better and is now a healthy, vibrant 13-year-old. But during the aftermath of that fateful day—surgery, chemotherapy and years of appointments to ensure that the cancer didn’t recur—Cooper says he “fell apart.” He chronicles his memories of that difficult time in his spare and heartfelt memoir, Falling: A Daughter, a Father, and a Journey Back. Before that discovery, life had seemed idyllic. Cooper wrote and illustrated children’s and adult books while helping care for Zoë and her younger sister, Mia. The paperback version of his book about Zoë’s first year was being released: Crawling: A Father’s First Year. The family was scheduled to move to New York City in just two weeks, where Cooper’s wife, Elise Cappella, would start teaching psychology at New York University. Suddenly, however, a shadow loomed over their busy life. In a
FALLING
By Elisha Cooper
Pantheon, $23.95, 160 pages ISBN 9781101871232, eBook available
MEMOIR
phone conversation from his home in New York City, Cooper gives an admiring nod to Zoë’s unfaltering courage: “Here’s this girl who’s 5 and 6 and 7 years old and going through this thing, and she’s being tough. And meanwhile, I’m falling apart, because it was devastating to have that kind of worry. So I was always smiling, but I was not smiling inside.” Cooper didn’t begin to write about the ordeal until after Zoë’s four- and five-year checkups came back clear. “It was then that I could almost take a breath,” he says, adding, “And, this is a ‘good’ cancer. That’s something I’m still very aware of. Most kids are OK with this cancer and survive it, although 40 years ago, that wasn’t the case. But we were in a clinic where there were kids who were not surviving, and I’m always very aware of those parents who went through that heartache. I can’t even imagine that.” Cooper began to process his own emotions as he wrote Falling, mostly at a table in New York City’s Stumptown Café in the Ace Hotel. “The good thing about this space,” he explains, “is that it’s very dark. I would go there and cry really. Not cry—I would go and write and get weepy. This was a book-length attempt to use words to try to make sense of something.” Even now, years later, it can still be difficult for Cooper to discuss an experience so close to his heart. As he and I chat on the phone, I read out loud one of the many fine passages in his book: “The words ‘fight’ and ‘battle’ work for some; the words that worked for me were ‘laughter’ and ‘thanks.’ I like ‘beauty’ and ‘hope’ too, as they speak to the best in us.” When I finish, there’s a long pause on his end of the phone. “Thank you. It’s kind of amazing
to hear those words. . . . I got weepy a lot writing this, as you can imagine. Probably around sentences like that. Sorry.” After another pause, he elaborates, “As much as I like fighting and battling it out in sports, I had to kind of submit to something here, at least to find some type of patience, which I really don’t normally in my life. And I was kind of thinking about how words are saving— words from people whom I loved or finding words within myself that made me feel better.” “Consider After Zoë’s having a day surgery and that asks the chemotherapy, question, Will years of watchful waiting your child were neceslive?” sary, involving periodic scans to make sure that the cancer hadn’t returned. “Consider having a day that asks the question, Will your child live?” he writes. “Then repeat that day every three months.” Cooper hated those appointments, which intensified his worries and made him feel “angry and protective and wild.” At times he found himself erupting in unexpected explosions, which he describes unflinchingly in Falling. One winter, when a sports car nearly hit him as he biked through Manhattan, Cooper retaliated by punching the car until he broke its side mirror. He groans when I bring up the incident. “That was one of the harder things to write,” Cooper admits. “That was just crazy. Why did I do that? I’m still incredibly embarrassed. I think it was a moment after that when I realized I can’t go on being this upset. But was it all
Elisha Cooper and his daughter Zoë.
because of Zoë and her cancer? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” His anger has subsided, and life now brims with cheerful details, like making pasta sauce for dinner, getting Zoë to soccer practice or taking Mia to lessons at the American School of Ballet. And Cooper can’t wait to present copies of his new book to the nurses and doctors who treated Zoë, most especially to oncologist Dr. Alice Lee at New York Presbyterian. “I have so much appreciation for her,” he says, “both for being a scientist, and whip smart, and for doing all the things that she did, but also for being incredibly caring. Everybody there at the oncology department was.” Cooper carefully anticipates the readings he’ll be giving from his new book. “I’m going to be talking to people who have undergone or are undergoing some worry or pain in their lives,” he notes. “And I just want to be present for people who read this book.” Before ending our conversation, I mention one of Cooper’s children’s books, Homer, which he wrote and illustrated during Zoë’s illness and recovery. Cooper describes Homer as being about an old dog who “sits on the porch and worries about his family.” “Later,” he says, “I realized, yeah, that old dog was me.”
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er, DiSclafani is poised to shake up summer reading once more with her second novel, The After Party. In 1950s Houston, Texas, the champagne and martinis flow as freely as the oil that has made the River Oaks community so very wealthy. Our guide to the ins and THEY MAY NOT MEAN TO, outs of Houston’s social milieu is BUT THEY DO REVIEW BY LAUREN BUFFERD Cece Buchanan, best friend and The title of Cathleen Schine’s new novel riffs on Philip Larkin’s poem confidante to Joan Fortier, the “This Be the Verse,” which explores the inevitability of parent-child dysindisputable queen bee of the River function (though Larkin used much blunter language). A deeply affectOaks scene. Even though it means ing yet very funny intergenerational novel, They May Not Mean To, but standing in her shadow, Cece revels in her place by Joan’s side. She takes They Do examines the upending of one family as their mother attempts to age in place, despite the protests from her adult children. pride in being the only person who Joy Bergman is barely hanging on to a rent-controlled East Side truly knows secretive Joan . . . or so she believes, until Joan disappears Manhattan apartment and single-handedly caring for her husband, Aaron, who has developed full-blown Alzheimer’s. The pair is a constant one day without a word. When she reappears a year later, Cece is source of worry for their adult children, but Molly lives with her wife ready to resume their friendship on the West coast, and Daniel has his own family and a demanding job downtown. After Aaron dies, Molly and Daniel try more assertively to as though no time has passed. But By Cathleen Schine as Joan’s signature wild behavior include Joy in their lives. But Joy has plans of her own, clinging to her Sarah Crichton begins to morph into something job as a museum conservator and rekindling a relationship with an old $26, 304 pages, ISBN 9780374280130 more sinister, Cece won’t rest until flame, Karl—a move that enrages her children. Still, Joy struggles with Audio, eBook available she has uncovered whatever Joan depression and with finding a new sense of self in the challenging world is hiding. of widowhood. FAMILY SAGA The After Party is a scintillating They May Not Mean To, but They Do is the fictional equivalent of Roz Chast’s brilliant memoir of dutiful daughterhood, Can’t We Talk About journey into the world of the social Something More Pleasant?, though seen primarily from the point of view of the exasperated elderly parent. elite that penetrates beyond manSchine writes about the fierce love that binds generations, but also about the tensions, fears and resenticured lawns and designer duds to ments that run high on both sides. Yet the novel is as humorous as it is compassionate. Though Schine is expose the dysfunctions of the upbest known for effortless-seeming confections such as Fin and Lady and The New Yorkers, They May Not per crust. But don’t dismiss this as Mean To, but They Do has an extra layer of depth and dignity, making for a profound but very readable a literary “Real Housewives of River novel that is among her very best. Oaks”—DiSclafani delves deeper, thoughtfully exploring topics of female sexuality and empowerment, Ted Flask: “Thursday nights are the as well as the delicate dynamics LILY AND THE OCTOPUS THE AFTER PARTY nights my dog, Lily, and I set aside of female friendship. Populated to talk about boys we think are By Steven Rowley By Anton DiSclafani with complex and complicated cute. . . . . We get into long debates characters and relationships, The Simon & Schuster Riverhead over the Ryans. I’m a Gosling man, After Party is an engrossing period $25.99, 320 pages $26, 384 pages whereas she’s a Reynolds gal, even drama. ISBN 9781501126222 ISBN 9781594633164 Audio, eBook available Audio, eBook available though she can’t name a single —STEPHENIE HARRISON movie of his that she would ever DEBUT FICTION HISTORICAL FICTION Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A watch twice.” But 12-year-old Lily with Anton DiSclafani. has an unwanted companion—a tumor Ted dubs “the octopus.” Ted will stop at nothing to keep his pet LOVE, SEX AND OTHER There are pet people, and there safe, but it may not be enough. With just one previous book FOREIGN POLICY GOALS Whether it’s Lily! Exclaiming! Her! under her belt, author Anton are people who don’t understand By Jesse Armstrong pet people. If you’re the latter, Lily Emotions! or Ted quietly wondering DiSclafani has already made a Blue Rider how to prolong his best friend’s life, name for herself as a writer whose and the Octopus may not be the $26, 368 pages book for you. Rowley’s characters are rich and female protagonists dare to be ISBN 9780399184208 Debut novelist Steven Rowley is relatable. In fact, they’re so fully different. Her debut novel, The Audio, eBook available a pet person, as evidenced by every realized that this book’s appeal may Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, page of this book. It’s clear from the not be limited to pet people after was a titillating coming-of-age COMIC FICTION all: Lily and the Octopus will move tale set in a world of privilege in outset that author and character alike are taken with Lily, the dachs- anyone who has ever loved an anithe 1930s South; it rocketed to the hund at the center of this emomal, but it can also help those who top of summer must-read lists and don’t understand the rest of us. tional, big-hearted novel. Take, for was one of the most buzzed-about The name Jesse Armstrong may example, the first words of narrator — C A R L A J E A N W H I T L E Y bestsellers of 2013. Three years lat- not be familiar to you, but when
Mother knows best (really!)
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FICTION you learn he was a co-writer of the British Iraq War satire In the Loop and has written for the HBO series “Veep,” you’ll have a good idea of the darkly comic sensibility that infuses his droll first novel, Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals. In the summer of 1994, a group of eight young English men and women who dub themselves the Peace Play Partnership pile into a diesel van and set off for war-ravaged Sarajevo, Bosnia. They plan to spread the message of peace through the art of theater and somehow “extend the evolution of humanity to a new continuum.” Andrew, a sometime construction worker and the novel’s narrator, wangles his way into the van by falsely claiming fluency in Serbo-Croatian, but his main goal is to ingratiate himself with Penny, an African-born beauty who’s the adopted daughter of a well-connected British politico. As the group makes its way into ever more dangerous territory of the ironically named U.N. Safe Areas, the sexual tension is as thick as the humid Bosnian air. Armstrong trains his dry wit like a laser on the fumbling progress of the English do-gooders, whose sincerity is equaled only by their naïveté. Andrew’s bathroom stop in what may be a minefield and his trip to a military commander’s headquarters to deliver a briefcase he fears contains a bomb are just two of many scenes that showcase Armstrong’s comic gift. But in his realistic depictions of sniper attacks, artillery shelling, encounters with ragtag militias and mercenaries and even a hanging, he ensures that the reality of conflict is never far from the center of an otherwise amusing story. “Everything is complicated. Everything is simple. It depends how far away you stand, I suppose,” says Andrew. That’s an apt summing up of the tragedy of the savage war in Bosnia. Armstrong’s novel is an admirable contribution to the literature of that conflict, its mordant humor effectively balanced by a keen appreciation of the futility and irrationality of war. —HARVEY FREEDENBERG
SMOKE By Dan Vyleta
Doubleday $27.95, 448 pages ISBN 9780385540162 Audio, eBook available HISTORICAL FANTASY
tions about religion versus reason. As one character says in the second half of the book, Smoke isn’t necessarily evil. One person’s wickedness is another person’s humanity. That’s the kind of subtle observation that makes a smart thriller easy to spot. —MICHAEL MAGRAS
DEAR FANG, WITH LOVE Perhaps you think it’s easy to spot beneficiaries of wealth and privilege in today’s society, but it is a lot easier in the late-Victorian England conjured by Dan Vyleta in Smoke, an inventive quasi-dystopian fantasy. The aristocracy are distinguished from the lower classes by one significant and immediately noticeable trait: The lower classes emit thick black smoke—or, as it appears here, Smoke. This is an England in which babies turn black with Smoke and the resulting Soot minutes after they’re born; it’s the “dark plume of shame.” Think a bad thought or tell a falsehood, and tendrils of Smoke will alert the world to your misdeed. The novel begins at a boarding school in which 200 upper-class boys are receiving a “moral education” to cure them of the evil they are born with. Two of them become best friends: wealthy Charlie Cooper and Thomas Argyle, whom one of the school’s young prefects, Julius Spencer, suspects of harboring a reprehensible secret. At Christmas, the headmaster asks Charlie to accompany Thomas to the home of Baron Naylor, Thomas’ uncle. Keep an eye on Thomas, the headmaster tells Charlie, but he doesn’t say why. What follows is a shocking visit in which both boys become enamored of the baron’s daughter, Livia; discover experiments conducted with the Soot of prisoners; learn the mysterious properties of a tin of sweets; and uncover the real intentions of not only Julius but also the school’s masters. From the houses of Parliament to London streets dense with costermongers and their handcarts, Smoke is an action-packed adventure that raises provocative ques-
By Rufi Thorpe
Knopf $24.95, 320 pages ISBN 9781101875773 Audio, eBook available
lead his unhappy daughter from the brink. In one astonishing, terrifying scene, he does so literally. This is what a parent does, says Thorpe’s wise and sad book. —ARLENE McKANIC
MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM By Grady Hendrix
Quirk $19.99, 400 pages ISBN 9781594748622 Audio, eBook available COMING-OF-AGE
LITERARY FICTION
If The Exorcist had been authored by Tina Fey instead of William Peter Blatty, it might have borne an unIn Dear Fang, With Love, the canny resemblance to what Grady second novel from Rufi Thorpe, Lucas is given a singular opportuni- Hendrix has accomplished with My ty to show kindness to the daughter Best Friend’s Exorcism. Readers may know Hendrix from he doesn’t know all that well, even though she’s 17. He and his ex-girl- his previous gem, Horrorstör, which was styled like a certain Swedish friend, Katya, had Vera when they furniture store’s catalog. My Best were teenagers themselves. Lucas didn’t meet Vera until she was 5 and Friend’s Exorcism is just as visually appealing, including elements that has been in and out of her life ever recall a high school yearbook—stusince. It is only when the mind of dent photos capturing 1980s style, this beautiful, strange and brilliant cheesy quotes and a color scheme young woman finally breaks that he steps into the gap, as it were. His that would make any Trapper Keepsolution is to take her to Lithuania, er-toting, slap-bracelet-wearing high school student feel fresh. the home of their ancestors, inWe meet lead characters Abby cluding one who escaped the Nazis and Gretchen during fifth grade. It and Lithuania for a prosaic life in is 1982, and Abby is an E.T. aficioAmerica. nado determined to win the adEven though Vera doesn’t know miration of her classmates via her much about her traumatized mad roller-skating skills. Gretchen great-grandmother, the effect is the quiet new girl—and the Lithuania has on her is dramatonly attendee of Abby’s disastrous ic. Thorpe’s depiction of mental 11th birthday party. This awkward illness is painfully accurate. She encounter forges a friendship that shows how Vera’s intelligence and deepens until high school, but imagination are tangled up with then . . . possession strikes! After her mental issues, through both a mysterious summer night filled her ramblings on her laptop and with illicit teenage fun, Gretchen her increasingly desperate and delusional emails to Fang, the boy- suddenly turns on her friends, infriend she left behind in California. cluding Abby. But is she possessed, or is she just being a teenager? Thorpe also understands the utter Abby thinks she knows the answer, helplessness felt by a sick person’s loved ones. Lucas, who doesn’t even but either way, the fates of Abby and Gretchen depend upon the know how to parent a teenager who’s psychologically normal—are strength of their bond. With scenes gruesome enough any teenagers psychologically normal?—is out of his league with Vera. to satisfy any horror fan (you won’t look at milkshakes the same way But Lucas is a kind if flawed after finishing this one), Hendrix man, and he uses that kindness to
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reviews has created a genre-ambiguous story that demonstrates a real understanding of teenage friendships. Using his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, as a backdrop allows Hendrix to give the neighborhoods, families and attitudes of the era an authentic feel. Fans of satire, nostalgia, dark comedy and, well, demons should read this book. —AMANDA TRIVETT
FICTION runner who writes screenplays and the bartender with whom Tess is smitten. Occasionally, Danler tries too hard to be literary, but for the most part, Sweetbitter is a feast of coarse dialogue and industry insight. “You will stumble on secrets,” Tess says early in the novel. So will readers of this entertaining debut. —MICHAEL MAGRAS
SWEETBITTER By Stephanie Danler
Knopf $25, 368 pages ISBN 9781101875940 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION
Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler’s debut novel, is the literary equivalent of spiked chocolate mousse: the lightest of confections, but with a powerful kick. Danler, a former waitress, has fashioned a breezy piece of fiction that dramatizes the behind-the-scenes activities of a posh Manhattan restaurant in exact and unsparing detail. This episodic novel’s depiction of staff members who bandy profanities and snort the harshest drugs is so precise and vividly rendered that, the next time you patronize a fancy eatery, you may wonder what those smiling greeters are up to behind the swinging door. In June 2006, a 22-year-old English major named Tess arrives in New York from her Midwestern hometown and gets a job as a back waiter at Union Square’s most popular restaurant. Tess is such a novice about food that, when she’s asked during her interview to name “the five noble grapes of Bordeaux,” she “pictured cartoon grapes wearing crowns on their heads, welcoming me to their châteaux.” The owner hires Tess, however, because he sees her as a “fifty-one percenter,” a person who has the empathy and work ethic lacking in many restaurant employees. Soon, Tess is part of a crew that includes a chef who demands that no one speak to him while he cooks, a food
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MODERN LOVERS By Emma Straub
Riverhead $26, 368 pages ISBN 9781594634673 Audio, eBook available POPULAR FICTION
Emma Straub has been making her mark in the genre of domestic drama—see her 2014 hit, The Vacationers—and her latest has all the necessary elements for a repeat: an appealing cast, interwoven plot lines and an insightful take on the ups and downs of both marital and parent-child relationships. Over two decades ago, four Oberlin College students formed a band and achieved a modest amount of local fame. After the band dispersed, Lydia, the lead singer, became famous on her own before dying from an overdose at age 27. Now in their 40s, the other band members—Zoe, Andrew and Elizabeth—all live in Brooklyn: Andrew and Elizabeth are married and have a 17-year-old son; Zoe and her wife, Jane, own a local restaurant and have an 18-year-old daughter. As Modern Lovers opens, things are not running smoothly among these longtime friends. Elizabeth, a successful real estate broker, is mystified, even after all these years, by Andrew’s lack of commitment to a “normal” vocation. From a wealthy family, he’s never really had to work, and he’s thinking of investing in a shady yoga/health center. Zoe and Jane are seeing a marriage counselor, and they may be close to splitting up. Then a Hollywood producer contacts
Elizabeth about buying the rights to a song for an upcoming biopic about Lydia. All three must sign off on the rights, but of course, they can’t agree: one more complication threatening their friendship. Straub perceptively explores this new phase of her characters’ lives in chapters told from each one’s point of view as they realize they must leave their combined past behind to deal with what lies ahead. Straub weaves their stories together with wit and empathy, creating an engaging read about love in its many guises. —DEBORAH DONOVAN
I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT YOU By Terry McMillan Crown $27, 368 pages ISBN 9781101902578 Audio, eBook available POPULAR FICTION
Early in Terry McMillan’s hilarious, sad, wry, raunchy novel— aren’t all of her books thus?—the protagonist, 50-something Georgia Young, opens the door to a handsome 18-year-old pizza delivery boy. With memories of How Stella Got Her Groove Back swimming in her head, the reviewer immediately thought, ‘Oh Terry, don’t go there. Please don’t.’ I won’t reveal where McMillan goes with the hot pizza delivery boy, but the places she takes readers in I Almost Forgot About You are utterly fascinating. Georgia is an optometrist living in the San Francisco Bay area. She’s comfortable financially: She has a big honking house and shops at Whole Foods without trauma. Her two daughters are grown; she’s a veteran of two divorces; and she’s bored rigid with her life. When a patient reveals that she’s the daughter of one of Georgia’s old flames, who is alas, no longer alive, Georgia gets the idea to contact all—well, a lot—of the men she had relationships with in her torrid past and let them know what they meant to her. A rollicking story ensues. The reader finds herself torn
between gritting her teeth at how right McMillan gets the relationships between best friends, ex-spouses, ex-lovers, parents and children and putting the book down to laugh out loud. What else can you do when Georgia describes an ex-husband’s perfidy making her want to turn her head around “like Linda Blair in The Exorcist”? Head-spinning aside, what an amazing character Georgia Young is! She’s loving, though everyone she loves gets on her nerves. She’s wise and foolish, whip-smart and sort of dumb. Isn’t she a bit like you and me? She’s also supported by one of the best cast of characters McMillan has conjured up in a long time. Run, don’t walk, and pick up this exuberant summer read. —ARLENE McKANIC
THE GIRLS By Emma Cline
Random House $27, 368 pages ISBN 9780812998603 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION
The Girls, Emma Cline’s debut novel, is an exploration of the precariousness of being a teenage girl and the perils of craving acceptance. The 1960s are waning, and Evie Boyd has been carelessly disposed of by her childhood best friend, just as the onset of high school looms. Her parents’ divorce has Evie seeking solace elsewhere, far from her mother’s recently acquired new-age practices and boyfriend. She is also distanced from her father, now residing with his much younger assistant. One lonely afternoon, Evie encounters a group of fascinating strangers at the park: the girls. Evie is smitten by Suzanne, a disarmingly ethereal yet tough queen bee, and drawn into the world of the ranch she lives on. At its heart is the cult leader, Russell, who collects people as easily as a child collects bugs. Bewitching men and women alike, he oozes a sense of entitlement, a posture that infuses into
every interaction that the group has with the outside world. Evie senses danger but becomes entangled regardless, her intense desire for Suzanne leading to the novel’s inevitable, violent conclusion. Cline has created a perfect slow burner of a story. Her writing is languid and astute, and the rapport she establishes with her audience is like a cat courting a mouse that it plans to consume. A dual narrative chronicles the account of the summer on the ranch and Evie’s present-day life, and Cline keeps the reader engaged by teasing the details until the tragedy in question takes a starring role at the last moment. If you enjoyed Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, The Girls is your next pick. —AMANDA TRIVETT
WINTERING By Peter Geye
Knopf $26.95, 320 pages ISBN 9781101946466 Audio, eBook available LITERARY FICTION
As the winter of 1963 encroaches on Gunflint, Minnesota, Harry Eide and his 18-year-old son, Gustav, set off into the wilderness in a canoe. As the two face the ice and snow, they must also confront the demons, both real and metaphorical, that follow them from Gunflint. What happens to them out in the elements is a secret father and son will share for decades. Thirty years later, an elderly Harry—demented by the passing years—heads out again into the cold, alone this time, vanishing into the vastness that could have so easily claimed both himself and his son many winters before. When Harry is pronounced dead, a troubled Gus finally shares the story of that first wilderness trek. Minneapolis author Peter Geye has touched on themes of family and wilderness in his previous novels, Safe from the Sea and The Lighthouse Road, both set in Minnesota. In Wintering, Geye has
woven an artfully crafted tale of the special bond between father and son, the complexity of nature— both human and otherwise—and the idea that, sometimes, one must venture out to find a way back. —HALEY HERFURTH
THE GILDED YEARS By Karin Tanabe
Washington Square Press $16, 400 pages ISBN 9781501110450 eBook available HISTORICAL FICTION
In 1897, Anita Hemmings was a senior at Vassar College alongside some of the best and brightest girls in the country. She was a member of the Glee Club and a fierce debater, but Hemmings also held a secret that should have banned her from admission: She was an African American. In The Gilded Years, Karin Tanabe fictionalizes the story of the real-life Hemmings, who graduated from Vassar more than 40 years before Vassar allowed African Americans to enroll. The daughter of a Boston janitor and the descendant of slaves, Hemmings was light complexioned enough to pass as white, and she was even voted class beauty. She kept a distance from her classmates, but in her senior year, Hemmings roomed with wealthy and well-connected Lottie Taylor. As she befriends the adventurous Lottie, Anita finds herself enjoying life as a privileged white woman. But when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita’s brother, Anita’s secret faces a serious threat. A Vassar graduate, Tanabe first learned about Anita Hemmings from an article in the alumni magazine. This engaging novel, set in a time of conflict between old money and new ideas, captures both the bravery and the heartbreak of Anita’s decision. Though the writing at times lacks nuance, the story is a captivating one. Readers won’t soon forget Anita Hemmings or the choices she made. —LAUREN BUFFERD
q&a
JUSTIN CRONIN BY TRISHA PING
A show-stopping finale
J
ustin Cronin leapt to the top of the crowded field of postapocalyptic fiction in 2010 with the publication of The Passage, the first in a trilogy. An instant bestseller, the novel imagined a future where mankind has been decimated thanks to a vampirecreating virus.
© JULIE SOEFER
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Six years and more than a thousand pages later, Cronin brings the Passage trilogy to a brilliantly plotted, thrilling conclusion with The City of Mirrors (Ballantine, $28, 624 pages, ISBN 9780345505002). We asked him a few questions about how it feels to take a series across the finish line. First of all—congratulations on finishing such an epic trilogy! How did you reward yourself after finishing The City of Mirrors? A glass of Scotch and a piece of pie. It’s a ritual I always observe. It usually happens at about 3:00 in the morning. The world of the Passage trilogy has always been a large one, but it expands even more in this book. Was it satisfying to get more of that world out of your head and onto the page? It was a lot of fun in this novel to go back to Fanning’s college life, which borrows a great deal from my own. I’d wanted to use Harvard as a setting for years, but the occasion hadn’t arisen until now. You’ve been with most of these characters for a decade. How does it feel to let them go? Was there one in particular that you’ll miss most? Though Amy stands at the center, the Passage trilogy is an ensemble piece, and I felt close to all the major players, although my affinities differed from character to character at various times. Into Amy I poured a lot of my feelings about being a father, and Wolgast’s love for her really touches me. Carter is the most long-suffering, patient soul I will ever meet, a man full of an incredible decency. Peter’s bravery has an automatic quality I admire intensely; he simply can’t stop himself. Alicia’s struggles both break and mend my heart. It’s odd and rather lonely to say goodbye to these people, like standing on the pier while I watch them sail away. Has this project and its success changed the way you see yourself as a writer? As someone who writes sentences all day long, my goals and habits are the same, so to that extent, nothing has changed at all. I go to my office, I think really hard, the world sort of melts away and my fingers begin to move over the keyboard. I write how I write, and that’s always been true and always will be. But success means readers—a lot of them. I’m more aware of my audience now and want them to be happy with the work I do. It also means I don’t have to have a second job, which is a colossal luxury for any artist. Writing can get 100 percent of my attention during the workday. What’s next for you? More novels. But maybe first I’ll take a nap.
Visit BookPage.com to read a review of The City of Mirrors.
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EVERYBODY BEHAVES BADLY By Lesley M.M. Blume
DINNER WITH EDWARD
Eamon Dolan/HMH $27, 352 pages ISBN 9780544276000 eBook available
Table for two REVIEW BY ALICE CARY
LITERATURE
When Isabel Vincent’s friend suggested that she have dinner with her recently widowed, 93-year-old father, Vincent was in need of a lift. She had just moved to New York City to take a job as an investigative reporter with the New York Post, and her marriage was falling apart. “I don’t know if the temptation of a good meal did it for me, or if I was just so lonely that even the prospect of spending time with a depressed nonagenarian seemed appealing,” she writes, adding, “Whatever it was, I could never have imagined that meeting Edward would change my life.” She chronicles their time together in the touching Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship, in which she not only rediscovers herself, but also realizes that this lonely geriatric is a By Isabel Vincent charming poet at heart, full of wisdom about love and marriage. Algonquin, $23.95, 224 pages A refined, self-taught intellectual and old-fashioned gentleman, ISBN 9781616204228, audio, eBook available Edward can also cook—as in really cook. Vincent begins each chapter with a menu, full of dishes like herb-roasted chicken in a paper bag MEMOIR (one of Edward’s many specialties), pan-fried potatoes with gruyère and his signature dessert, apple and pear galette (the secret to which is using crushed ice and lard, he insists). Two warnings: Don’t read this book on an empty stomach because the mouth-watering food descriptions will drive you mad, and don’t expect to find recipes. As this unexpected friendship deepens, Edward becomes Vincent’s much-needed “fairy godfather,” cheerleader, sounding board and shoulder to cry on. He advises her to wear lots of lipstick and takes her to Saks to buy a pricey dress. He tells wonderful tales of his past, while Vincent confides her marriage woes, and later, after her divorce, shares stories of her new beaus. Soon Vincent realizes, “Joy, happiness—it snuck up on me every time I saw Edward.” Readers will savor their every encounter and turn each page wishing they could have been there.
THE MAXIMUM SECURITY BOOK CLUB By Mikita Brottman
Harper $26.99, 272 pages ISBN 9780062384331 Audio, eBook available BOOKS & READING
Nine male convicted felons, serving long sentences for violent crimes, meet regularly with a sensitive, witty female professor inside a maximum security prison to read and discuss works by literary giants like Conrad, Kafka, Nabokov, Poe and Shakespeare. What could go wrong? The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men’s Prison is Mikita Brottman’s refreshingly straightforward
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account about all that did go right, as together they explored Heart of Darkness, The Black Cat, Lolita and other rather unlikely candidates for prison reading. Brottman is an Oxford-educated scholar volunteering within the grim walls of Maryland’s Jessup Correctional Institute, bringing her deep love of literature to men who, she hopes, will find something meaningful for themselves in the books she cherishes. Her own troubled childhood led her to seek escape in such works; complex characters like Conrad’s Marlow and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, she reasons, may help these convicts reach a deeper understanding of themselves and each other. They seem willing to try. But the crushing weight of prison life—unrelenting boredom, punitive corrections officers, random lockdowns, sol-
itary confinements, illnesses and violent gang fights—takes its toll. They all make mistakes here: Brottman misspeaks to a reporter and worries the club will be cancelled altogether. The men nod off when high or ill. She wonders why she ever thought reading about the pedophile and nymphet in Lolita was a good idea. Then again, they make her see Gregor’s transformation into a bug in Metamorphosis in an entirely new way. Later, when two of the men are released and Brottman meets them “outside,” she discovers they have no more interest in reading literature. “On the inside,” she concludes, “I’d loved those men. But on the outside, I’d lost them. Because literature was all I had.” Not quite all: She tells her own good story here, too.
As the old saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. And the two often intertwine, as we learn in Lesley M.M. Blume’s mesmerizing account of the young Ernest Hemingway in Paris in the 1920s as he prepares to write his breakout debut novel, The Sun Also Rises. While many readers are familiar with Hemingway among the expats and his post-World War I modernist classic, Blume opens up the story in surprising new ways. She was inspired to dig into this project after seeing a photograph of Hemingway with the main cast of characters who would later appear in the novel—what some called a barely fictionalized account of a trip by a group of friends to Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls. In Everybody Behaves Badly we meet femme fatale Lady Duff Twysden, inspiration for Lady Brett Ashley, Harold Loeb (Robert Cohn), Donald Ogden Stewart (Bill Gorton) and Patrick Guthrie (Mike Campbell). She describes not only their real-life intrigues but also the impact that the novel had on their later lives. Blume’s account also probes Hemingway’s first marriage and its dissolution and his larger-thanlife literary ambitions. Among the most fascinating aspects of Everybody Behaves Badly are the insights into the editing, publishing and marketing of The Sun Also Rises. Here, we see the friendship of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway in action and their mutual dedication to craft. Blume’s book is nonfiction, impeccably documented. Yet, like Hemingway’s fictional masterpiece, it reminds us that real life can inspire great stories and writing.
—PRISCILLA KIPP
—DEBORAH HOPKINSON
NONFICTION I’M JUST A PERSON By Tig Notaro
Ecco $26.99, 244 pages ISBN 9780062266637 Audio, eBook available MEMOIR
After reading this slim, melancholy memoir, you may be tempted to turn to the Book of Job for comic relief. Notaro’s avalanche of ordeals has become such a staple of her comedy routines and interviews and is so prominently featured in the 2015 documentary Tig that many readers will likely know about them already. For those who don’t, they include, in rapid succession, a broken romance, a debilitating digestive tract disorder called C-diff, the sudden, violent death of her mother and breast cancer leading to a double mastectomy. All these calamities are revisited within a framework that embraces Notaro’s difficult childhood relationships with an endearing but irresponsible mother, a martinet stepfather and a spacedout, absentee biological father. Although there are diverting comic touches (most in the ironic vein), the book’s chief virtue is Notaro’s absolute candor in describing how these devastating setbacks wracked both her body and soul. We feel C-diff sap her strength, partake of the terror she experiences when discovering she has cancer and grieve with her as the mother she emotionally relied on slips away. The focal point of I’m Just a Person—and the turning point in her career and outlook—is the night in 2012, when she goes onstage at a comedy club and begins her routine with, “Hello. Good evening. Hello. I have cancer, how are you.” Her performance, undertaken as a wild gambit, captivated the crowd and became a milestone in comic history. Even with cancer gnawing away at her, she had triumphed. Notaro ends the book with the happy tale of meeting and marrying Stephanie Allynne and of look-
ing, with fingers prudently crossed, toward a bright future. —EDWARD MORRIS
GRUNT
important, difficult and often ugly, leaving readers with a new appreciation for the bizarre sciences and creative minds that strive to better the lives of soldiers. —CAT ACREE
By Mary Roach
Norton $26.95, 288 pages ISBN 9780393245448 Audio, eBook available SCIENCE
From the digestive system (Gulp) to the body after death (Stiff ) to the science of sex (Bonk ), Mary Roach’s books have all touched on familiar topics that have been written about over and over again. But Roach, a self-described “goober with a flashlight,” brings a nearly insane glee to each of her subjects as she transforms well-worn topics into fresh learning experiences. At first pass, her latest book is her least universal: Grunt explores the science of the human body at war. After all, everyone has a digestive system, we all experience death, and most of us have had sex or at least considered it—but few of us will ever fight in a war. As Roach makes clear, Grunt is no Zero Dark Thirty, nor is it about the science of military armaments. She never ignores the bullets and bombs but instead focuses on the unsung heroes of battle. At the fashion design studio of the U.S. Army Natick Labs, Roach learns about the ballistic qualities of silk underpants and why snipers can’t wear zippers. She runs around with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss in combat. And she spends multiple chapters on penis transplants, a particularly timely topic since the first successful procedure occurred just last December. Grunt has everything Roach fans look for: guffaw-worthy footnotes, questions pursued to hilarious and rewarding ends and connections that we never would’ve considered. Perhaps no one else walks the line of irreverent and considerate as skillfully as Roach does, and with this book, she presents something
BUT WHAT IF WE’RE WRONG?
GREETINGS FROM UTOPIA PARK By Claire Hoffman Harper $25.99, 288 pages ISBN 9780062338846 Audio, eBook available MEMOIR
By Chuck Klosterman
Blue Rider $26, 288 pages ISBN 9780399184123 Audio, eBook available
Can we know anything with certainty? Of all the knowledge we hold dear today, what will we still be certain of 50 or 100 years from now? In But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About the Present as If It Were the Past, cultural critic Chuck Klosterman mischievously poses these questions about many aspects of culture and science in an effort to get us to consider the relative character of all knowledge. Take team sports, for example. In Klosterman’s view, we’re building a world in which the competitive nature and emotionally and physically injurious character of team sports don’t fit as they once did. “We want a pain-free world where everyone is the same, even if they are not. That can’t happen in world where we’re still keeping score.” Rock music, writes Klosterman, “will recede out of view, just as all great things eventually do.” Some 500 years from now, when a college professor attempts to bring to life the concept of rock music through one artist, will it be Chuck Berry or Bob Dylan? Klosterman doesn’t think it will be Dylan; if it is, though, he doesn’t know if that means things went right or wrong, but probably both. As it turns out, it’s not so much that anyone’s right or wrong about various matters; it’s just that the cultural contexts in which all knowledge is viewed change from one generation to the next. One thing we can be certain of: We’re all wrong some of the time.
What child would not long for a secret password that opens a magical door? At age 3, Claire Hoffman was given just such a word—a mantra she believed was created just for her. It provided entry into the intense spiritual world inhabited by her mother, a practitioner of transcendental meditation (TM). Hoffman’s thoughtful memoir, Greetings from Utopia Park, chronicles a childhood immersed in TM and the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as well as the adult reckonings that followed. From a trailer on the campus of the National Headquarters for Heaven on Earth in Fairfield, Iowa, Hoffman watched the Maharishi’s quest for world peace through meditation rise and fall outside her bedroom window. Her story could be yet another tale of growing up in and escaping a religious cult, but she is careful to note not only the heartbreaking ways her innocence was taken from her, but also the life-affirming sense of community and purpose she gained in Fairfield. This balanced approach, likely related to her career as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sets Hoffman’s story apart from more simplistic retellings. She never pulls punches in the personal arena—young Claire’s unchecked enthusiasm comes through as clearly as her adolescent skepticism. Although she analyzes the social and historical influences on the Maharishi’s movement, in the end, Hoffman’s story is intensely personal and spiritual. When she goes back to gather the threads of meaning that remain for her in TM, we understand that she has reached a new kind of transcendence, one that accepts uncertainty without giving up hope.
—HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.
—SHEILA M. TRASK
PHILOSOPHY
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reviews THE LYNCHING By Laurence Leamer
Morrow $27.99, 384 pages ISBN 9780062458346 Audio, eBook available HISTORY
NONFICTION lawyers like Dees: One of Donald’s killers was eventually executed and his accomplice imprisoned. The SPLC’s lawsuit bankrupted the Alabama Klan. As for Shelton, before his death in 2003 he despaired, “The Klan is my belief, my religion. But it won’t work anymore. The Klan is gone. Forever.” Today, the Klan still exists. The Lynching reminds us why that matters. —PRISCILLA KIPP
Robert Shelton, George Wallace and Michael Donald may no longer be in the news, but they are forever entwined in this riveting account of a racist murder in the Deep South. The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan, by journalist and author Laurence Leamer, recounts 19-year-old Donald’s horrific death in 1981 at the hands of Alabama Ku Klux Klan members. The book is also a deftly researched history of the civil rights movement. Most vividly, it is the story of Morris Dees, born poor and white in solidly segregated Alabama, who abandoned his inherited segregationist leanings to become a civil rights attorney and cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC’s civil lawsuit against the United Klans of America led to an unprecedented $7 million judgment against the group. Shelton, Imperial Wizard of the Alabama Klan, was driven to rage when murder charges against a black man resulted in a mistrial. Underlings turned hate into action: Two Klan members randomly selected, beat and strangled Donald, unlucky enough to be walking alone one night. They hung his body from a tree on a residential street. Wallace, about to win his fourth term as governor, had imbued his state with racist rhetoric, and the United Klans of America were his devoted supporters. They had met the civil rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s with bombings, beatings and murders, and their power, like Wallace’s, remained largely unchallenged. Despite landmark civil rights legislation, with Donald’s murder, it appeared nothing much had changed in Alabama. Yet times had changed, thanks to
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DOUBLE CUP LOVE By Eddie Huang
Spiegel & Grau $27, 240 pages ISBN 9780812995466 Audio, eBook available CULTURE
It’s fitting that Eddie Huang’s follow-up to the bestselling Fresh Off the Boat—adapted into a TV series—opens as he phonetically transcribes a Charlie Parker sax riff. Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China is a foodie travelogue and comic tour de force, but it’s also something of a word-jazz concerto. The setup is simple: Feeling pressured by his success, Huang ventures to Chengdu to cook with street vendors and dig further into the roots of the food he’s known for. He also plans to fly his girlfriend out and propose. Huang’s hip-hop patois infuses his writing, whether he’s describing a bout of chili-induced diarrhea (and there are several) or exploring the difficult family dynamics that shaped him as a young man. He captures the pressures of the kitchen, which are even greater while he’s in China, since as often as not he’s cooking in a converted closet, battling chili fumes along with carbon monoxide. Huang’s romance takes some unexpected twists (on his way to propose he is almost left behind at a rest stop where he’s once again paying for his gastronomic bravery), but Double Cup Love has more to offer than that. The rooftop parties and underground
clubs, chewy intestines and all that swagger reveal a family story that’s tender at the core.
her past and finds purpose in this next phase of her life. —AMY SCRIBNER
—HEATHER SEGGEL
THE HOUR OF LAND LIVING WITH A DEAD LANGUAGE By Ann Patty
By Terry Tempest Williams
Viking $25, 256 pages ISBN 9781101980224 eBook available
Sarah Crichton $27, 416 pages ISBN 9780374280093 Audio, eBook available
MEMOIR
NATURE
In this gorgeous collection of 12 essays, published to mark the Ann Patty was at loose ends after centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams being forced into early retirement from her high-powered job in book provides a poetic and searing portrait of the land and, by extension, publishing. It was 2008, the recesof America itself. sion was grinding everything to a Philanthropists loom large in the halt, and suddenly Patty, the editor of the bestselling Life of Pi, was rat- history of our national parks and Williams draws them in compeltling around her home in upstate ling detail: Teddy Roosevelt riding New York. She joined Match.com, read piles of books and weeded her out to North Dakota wearing spurs garden. But something was missing he bought at Tiffany’s, Laurance Rockefeller donating his family’s from this new life. ranch to Grand Teton National Park “I took on more and more uninand having every object meticspiring freelance work and honed ulously cataloged (including the my gourmet cooking skills,” she positions of ashtrays) so the ranch writes in her lovely new memoir, could be recreated later. She deLiving with a Dead Language. scribes the difficult test that would“With the companionship of too many glasses of wine, I could while be tour guides in Gettysburg must take (since 2012, only two have away hours comparing recipes, shopping, and preparing meals. . . . passed). There’s the pleasure of journalism, the unexpected detail I gained ten pounds.” that never disappoints, the feeling Worried that she would become of seeing something from an inside “a drunk, a bore, a depressive,” angle. But there’s poetry, too. Patty decides to study Latin at The intimate moments Williams nearby Vassar College. She is the experiences in these parks, often oldest student—by far—and her accompanied by beautiful photogclassmates don’t quite know what raphy, speak to the reader—what to make of her, mostly choosing it’s like to witness the body of a biinstead to gaze at their cellphones son eaten by other animals on the until class starts. But slowly, Patty plain; what kind of lichen grows on decodes the language and learns the chilly tundra; what oil-soaked some things about herself in the sand feels like between the toes. process. “To bear witness is not a passive Look, I know what you’re thinking: a book about a retiree studying act,” she writes. Williams’ reverent eyes catalog Latin in Poughkeepsie. Titillating! But Patty brings humor and clarity how humans have impacted the to her storytelling, and she paints a wilderness, but The Hour of Land vivid picture of her hours toiling in is a hopeful book. “We are slowly a musty college classroom. Anyone returning to the hour of land,” she who loves words and language will writes, “where our human presence can take a side step and respect the recognize him or herself in these pages. Through the study of a dead integrity of the place itself.” — K E L LY B L E W E T T language, she makes peace with
T PI OP CK
TEEN
STEEPLEJACK
Outsider teeters on the edge REVIEW BY NORAH PIEHL
The best imaginary worlds give readers the opportunity not only to enter a different realm but also to consider how that imaginary world reflects or distorts our actual one. Few novels have tackled this as skillfully as Steeplejack, the young-adult debut by bestselling author A.J. Hartley. Set in a world that looks very much like an alternative historical version of South Africa, Steeplejack tackles head-on the kinds of bigotry, class and race warfare and identity politics that are all too relevant in the real world. This social commentary is placed in the context of a thrilling mystery plot, investigated by a truly unforgettable heroine. Anglet Sutonga is a steeplejack, one of the best climbers the city of Bar-Selehm has ever seen. But when the boy picked to be her next apprentice dies in a fall, Ang is convinced not only that his death was no accident, but also that he is somehow connected to the sudden By A.J. Hartley Tor Teen, $17.99, 336 pages disappearance of the Beacon, Bar-Selehm’s greatest treasure, a hunk ISBN 9780765383426, eBook available of priceless luxorite. Soon Ang, like the city itself, is caught between difAges 12 and up ferent factions and racial groups, each blaming the other for the city’s mounting problems, each convinced the other has something to hide. HISTORICAL FANTASY Ang must discover new reserves of strength, especially when she faces a very personal betrayal. Steeplejack is quietly thoughtful and breathlessly exciting, and with two more series installments to follow, Ang’s personal and professional journey is far from over.
DRAW THE LINE By Laurent Linn
Margaret K. McElderry $17.99, 528 pages ISBN 9781481452809 eBook available Ages 12 and up FICTION
Adrian is gay and perfectly content to blend into the background at his stereotypically conservative Texas high school. He prefers to escape into the world of his Renaissance-inspired art and his superhero creation, Graphite. But when he intervenes during the brutal beating of another gay student, he draws unwanted attention to himself. No longer in the background, Adrian must decide whether he (and Graphite) should stand for something more than solitude and invisibility.
Laurent Linn’s debut novel is less “coming out” and more “coming-of-age,” as it asks compelling questions about responsibility, retaliation and integrity. Adrian’s two sidekicks, the drastically different Audrey and Trent, are well-rounded characters who support and challenge Adrian in equal measure. The text is interspersed with beautiful snippets of the Graphite comic, drawn by the author, and a believable budding romance lends lightness to the otherwise violent plot. Despite the novel’s length, the story unfolds over just a few weeks, which underscores how quickly and drastically circumstances can change, an especially important message for young readers. Draw the Line does leave a few loose ends untied, but readers will appreciate the happy place Adrian finds himself in at the story’s conclusion and the admirable choices he made to get there. —ANNIE METCALF
YOU KNOW ME WELL By Nina LaCour and David Levithan St. Martin’s Griffin $18.99, 256 pages ISBN 9781250098641 eBook available Ages 12 and up FICTION
High school seniors Mark and Kate have sat next to each other in class all year but have rarely spoken. On the first night of Pride, the two run into each other in a San Francisco bar, where Kate is avoiding a setup with her (likely) soul mate, Violet, and Mark is trying to impress the (definite) love of his life, Ryan. Through this chance encounter, they realize they are each uniquely prepared to guide each other through the loneliness of first loves, friendship crises and heartbreaks that lie ahead.
You Know Me Well perfectly encapsulates those fraught, endall-be-all feelings of high-school romance and graduation. Authors Nina LaCour and David Levithan have the utmost respect for their subjects. Kate and Mark—and all their friends—are allowed to feel like every fight and every heartbreak is the end of the world; they’re allowed to run away, to lash out, to curl up in bed and cry. The raw emotion of this novel will delight fans of Rainbow Rowell and John Green. —SARAH WEBER
DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD By Jennifer Mason-Black
Amulet $17.95, 336 pages ISBN 9781419720000 eBook available Ages 13 and up FICTION
In a sort of modern retelling of the Faustian myth that legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson achieved his success by selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads, Devil and the Bluebird follows the winding and heart-wrenching path of one young girl who’s trying to save her sister’s soul. Blue Riley is willing to give up anything to find her missing older sister, Cass, who left to chase dreams of musical fame not long after their mother died of cancer. Blue finds the devil down at the nearby crossroads and bargains her soul to try to save her sister’s. She gives up her voice as collateral and gets only six months and a pair of vaguely magical boots in exchange. Throughout her journey to find Cass, Blue meets all sorts of gifted and seedy characters. And as the devil changes the terms of their deal, she must re-evaluate her understanding of good and evil, all while hoping that a bluebird has a chance in hell of defeating the devil. Debut author Jennifer MasonBlack’s prose is fittingly lyrical, and her narrative always takes the most devilish of turns. —J U S T I N B A R I S I C H
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From John Boyne, author oF
THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, comes another extraordinary story oF
World War ii WHEN PIERROT BECOMES AN orphan, he must leave his home in Paris for a new life with his aunt Beatrix, a servant in a wealthy Austrian household. But this is no ordinary time, for it is 1935 and the Second World War is fast approaching; and this is no ordinary house, for this is the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler.
H“ Will captivate teens.” —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW
“A compelling account of the attractions of power, the malleability of youth, and the terrible pain of a life filled with regret.” —THE GUARDIAN
“A story full of suspense and heartbreak that will leave readers wanting more. Compare this book to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” —SCHOOL LIBRARY CONNECTION
AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK
HENRY HOLT
IMPRINTS OF MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING GROUP
children’s
KAREN HARRINGTON
A young survivor from a family of heroes
K
aren Harrington has described her books as “coming-of-age survival stories,” and she’s certainly on a roll. On the heels of two awardwinning novels, Sure Signs of Crazy and Courage for Beginners, her third, Mayday, begins with a bang. Specifically, a plane crash.
Harrington’s latest inspiration struck while watching an episode of “Air Disasters” about a plane crash over France, during which a coffin, of all things, fell into a farmer’s field. “Imagine finding this really odd thing in the middle of a field,” she says. “That really caught my attention.” Speaking from her Texas home, Harrington is excited about her new book, though she jokes, “My husband says now I’ve written a book that’s guaranteed not to be in airport bookstores.” That said, she doesn’t believe her book will increase readers’ fears of flying. After conducting research that included interviews with several pilots, she concludes that survival rates are “actually pretty positive.” One vital piece of information she learned about accidents and disasters is crucial to Mayday’s plot: “If you just get moving in those first 90 seconds, your odds of survival increase tenfold,” Harrington says. The novel’s central character, seventh-grader Wayne Kovok,
MAYDAY
By Karen Harrington
Little, Brown, $16.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780316298018, eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
does just that, guiding himself and his mother to safety after a commercial plane crash. However, his world is dramatically changed when he emerges with bruised vocal cords that leave him unable to speak for several months. His recovery involves not only physically regaining his voice, but also learning to confront the adults who seek to guide his life, including his difficult, divorced father and his military-minded grandfather, who moves in after the crash. Wayne had been on Harrington’s mind for quite some time, after appearing as a minor character in Courage for Beginners. In both books, he’s known for sharing his love of trivia and intriguing facts. “He never fully emerged there,” Harrington says of his role in the earlier book, “and I was just so curious about him. It made sense to me that he might come from a family of very strong people, and that’s why he was trying to stand out in his own way.” As a result, Harrington decided that one side of Wayne’s family would have strong military roots, as is the case with her own family, whose involvement dates back to the Revolutionary War. In middle school, her father gave her a copy of Howard Fast’s April Morning, a fictional account of the Battle of Lexington. “There are, like, 14 Harringtons in it,” she says. “I remember that making a big impression on me, connecting me to history, and my family being in it.” To help connect her own two daughters (ages 11 and 12) with their storied past, she and her husband hung a gallery of family photos in their home to honor the many hard-working people who came before them. The photos include a grandmother who was a gifted seamstress and model and a grandfather who painted sets for RKO Studios and brought home
gifts from Cary Grant. These photographs inspired “The Wall of Honor” in Wayne’s house: a hallway photo collage of deceased military ancestors. That wall takes on new meaning early in the book when Wayne’s beloved Uncle Reed dies while serving his country. On their way home from Uncle Reed’s burial in Arlington National Cemetery, Wayne and his mother end up in the plane crash, and during the terrifying descent, Wayne lets go of his uncle’s burial “My husband flag, which he remains detersays now I’ve mined to find. written a “At the time, book that’s I was feeling patriotic and guaranteed having a lot not to be of discussions in airport with my father, bookstores.” and I thought I would love to link those,” Harrington says. She even modeled Wayne’s grandpa after her father. “My dad is extremely patriotic, and I get 100 percent of my patriotism from him.” This isn’t the first time that a family member has given rise to one of Harrington’s characters. The mother in Courage for Beginners was inspired by Harrington’s late mother, who suffered from agoraphobia. After writing two novels that featured mothers with mental illness—the family situation in Sure Signs of Crazy is loosely based on the horrifying Andrea Yates case, in which the Texas mother drowned five of her children in the bathtub—Harrington made sure that Wayne’s mother was “awesome.” Nonetheless, Mayday does indeed feature another largely absent parent: Wayne’s father. While she says such recurring themes are “accidental,” Har-
© JOSEPHINE SITTENFELD
INTERVIEW BY ALICE CARY
rington muses, “Who knows? My favorite writing professor in college said that you will find your ‘country,’ and you continue to return to those themes. So if you think of someone like Pat Conroy, he stayed with his themes of his family and the Lowcountry. So perhaps that’s part of my country.” Harrington had an important early influence on her writing career: Her middle school English teacher was a prolific historical novelist, the late G. Clifton Wisler, know for books such as Mr. Lincoln’s Drummer and Caleb’s Choice. “There’s something about meeting somebody who is doing the thing that you are dreaming of doing that makes it seems possible,” Harrington says. “They no longer seem like they’re off in this magical writing place, wherever that might be. They’re right there; they’re in the lunchroom. That just made a huge impact on me.” Many years and a lot of hard work ensued before Harrington’s literary dream became a reality, including years of night school and working as a speechwriter for Greyhound Bus Lines and Electronic Data Systems. “I remember really bad days when I would get binders thrown at me by speakers,” Harrington recalls. “I remember thinking that they don’t even know that a future novelist lurks in their midst.” Just like Wayne, Karen Harrington has indeed found her voice.
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reviews T PI OP CK
CHILDREN’S
FRANK AND LUCKY GET SCHOOLED
Good dog, good boy REVIEW BY JULIE DANIELSON
In her latest picture book, Lynne Rae Perkins celebrates the bond between a dog and his boy, while also celebrating the love of learning. Frank’s spectacularly bad day gets better when his parents take him to a shelter to get a new dog, and the day also improves significantly for Lucky the dog when Frank and his family show up to give him a new home and a better life. With that, a dynamic duo is born. Both boy and dog have a lot to learn. “Lucky went to his school ten times,” Perkins writes. “Frank went to his school thousands of times. . . . Lucky did a lot of learning on his own.” It’s after this that Perkins launches into the kind of learning the boy and dog do in their daily lives—learning that is the inherent part of a curious child’s (and By Lynne Rae Perkins pet’s) day. There’s Science (exploring nature), Chemistry (cleaning Greenwillow, $17.99, 32 pages your dog when he gets ticks while exploring nature), Math (Lucky ISBN 9780062373458, ages 4 to 8 years attempts to maximize the number of biscuits he can get from his huPICTURE BOOK mans), Geography (readers see Frank on a map as he looks for Lucky, who gets lost while exploring), Spanish (Frank makes a new bilingual friend while trying to locate Lucky) and much more. Perkins’ textured illustrations, rendered via pen and ink and watercolors, use small panels on some spreads to break up the action, and this sets the pace for a detailed yet never hurried tale. Perkins takes advantage of every moment to launch her story, with illustrations that begin on the copyright page, before the readers even get to the first spread. The joy is in all these details—and in the seamless way Perkins shows the sheer amount of information boy and dog take in while enjoying each other’s company and exploring their worlds. Never once does the author get in the way of the story. Informative and entertaining, Frank and Lucky Get Schooled is an A+ picture book in every way. Illustration © 2016 by Lynne Rae Perkins. Reprinted with permission from HarperCollins Children’s Books.
SOME KIND OF HAPPINESS By Claire Legrand Simon & Schuster $16.99, 384 pages ISBN 9781442466012 eBook available Ages 8 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE
Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness explores life’s awkward silences, ruined moments and hidden truths. Eleven-year-old Finley navigates life like a prisoner. Held captive by a darkness from within, she struggles with terrible thoughts, night sweats and unexplained bouts of panic. Though overwhelmed by depression, she hides it well. Even her parents, busy with their
30
lives and failing relationship, don’t know. The chronic sadness is Finley’s secret—as is Evermore, a land of her invention where twisted trees, trolls and a dark castle let her escape to a magical realm. When Finley is sent to live with grandparents she’s never met, she feels even more like a stranger in her own skin. However, once she sees the forest behind her grandparents’ house, she recognizes it as her Evermore—a wild place, a real place where she can be herself. Cautiously, she invites her cousins—and the Bailey boys, whom they’ve been told to avoid—into her world, and soon the summer’s trajectory takes on a life all its own. Legrand’s greatest strengths are her elegant restraint and her visceral portrayal of her characters from the inside out. —BILLIE B. LITTLE
WHEN FRIENDSHIP FOLLOWED ME HOME By Paul Griffin
Dial $16.99, 256 pages ISBN 9780803738164 Audio, eBook available Ages 10 and up MIDDLE GRADE
Trust is a challenging concept for 12-year-old Ben Coffin, who has spent most of his life in foster care with people constantly coming and going like a revolving door. But how can a boy’s life not change when a stray dog enters, even “a girly little dog” named Flip? In When Friendship Followed Me Home, Paul Griffin brings his hard-hitting, realistic fiction, once reserved for
teens, to the middle grade set. Meeting Flip is equally as important as meeting spunky Halley, dubbed the “Rainbow Girl” for the colorful accessories she wears to complement her appearance after chemotherapy treatments. Together, the trio forms a fierce bond, but when tragedy strikes the only home that has made Ben feel safe, he is left to forge his own way again. People come and go from Ben’s life, but they all have a meaningful impact and give him the sense of belonging he needs—and deserves. Even hardened readers will find it impossible to keep a dry eye at the bittersweet ending, which is full of love’s magic. —ANGELA LEEPER
GRAYLING’S SONG By Karen Cushman
Clarion $16.99, 224 pages ISBN 9780544301801 eBook available Ages 10 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE
Newbery Medalist Karen Cushman crafts a spellbinding tale teeming with an endless array of magical delights and charming characters, including a shape-shifting mouse and a wizard whose chosen method of soothsaying is with cheese. Grayling meets these quirky characters and many others on her journey to discover the dark force that has been targeting the kingdom’s magic makers. Grayling and her motley crew must crisscross the kingdom in search of her mother’s stolen grimoire, the spell book they hope will hold the key to restoring peace and tranquility in the kingdom. And although she and her companions face innumerable dangers and trials along the way, Grayling soon realizes that her greatest challenge is to believe in herself. In this world, magic is commonplace but no less enchanting. This adventure story has the feel of a classic fable, and Cushman’s writing brims with grace and warmth. —HANNAH LAMB
FATHER’S DAY BY JULIE HALE
the title of your Q: What’s new book?
Dedicated to Dad
N
o doubt about it—Dad’s pretty rad! Show him some love on June 19 with one of the stellar books featured below. These sweet celebrations of fatherhood will inspire a bit of dad-kiddo bonding.
Bertie, a floppy-eared pup, looks up to his pop—and no wonder. A builder who gets to drive big machines on construction sites, Bertie’s father works hard. In The Best Part of Daddy’s Day (little bee, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9781499801965, ages 4 to 8), Claire Alexander follows this adorable duo through their daily routines. Breakfast comes first, then Bertie goes to class with his dog pals, and Daddy heads off to construct a giant tower. At school, Bertie works on a tower made of blocks and thinks happily of his pop, but a trip-up in the cafeteria puts a damper on his day. Back at home, he tells Daddy about the mishap, only to learn that accidents happen to grownups, too! Alexander’s warmhearted illustrations feature delicate lines and soft washes of color, and her canine characters have loads of charm.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE DAD Brian Lies’ oh-so-clever Gator Dad (HMH, $17.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780544534339, ages 4 to 7) features a reptile father with a suitably wild parenting style. After rousing his three gator kids out of bed and exhorting them to “squeeze the day,” Gator Dad prepares breakfast for his brood, flipping fried fish from pan to plate with panache. Then it’s time to run errands, which entails whizzing around the supermarket in a cart and hitting the playground for a session on
meet DANIEL MIYARES
the swings (“I’ll help you try to touch the moon,” Papa promises). At home, the gang builds a fort from the living room furniture. But make no mistake—Gator Dad is in complete control. By story’s end, his crew is bathed and ready for bed. In his genius acrylic illustrations, Lies contrasts his characters’ gator-ness with their city surroundings, lending the story surreal appeal. This is big fun for Father’s Day— or any day.
DAD’S JUNIOR Profound yet playful, Sherman Alexie’s debut picture book, Thunder Boy Jr. (Little, Brown, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780316013727, ages 3 to 6), is an out-of-theordinary father-son story and a delight from start to finish. Little Thunder, the American Indian boy who narrates the tale, is named after his father, Big Thunder. “My dad is awesome,” he says. “But I don’t want to have the same name as him. . . . I want a name that sounds like me.” So Little Thunder brainstorms names that celebrate what he enjoys. One possibility, “Drums, Drums, and More Drums,” is prompted by his love of pow wows. “Old Toys Are Awesome” is inspired by family garage-sale excursions. The problem is solved when (surprise!) Dad gives Little Thunder a new name, one that’s just right. Yuyi Morales’ buoyant illustrations feature colors that pop, bold word balloons and textures that make you want to touch the page. This wise yet accessible story is bound to become a year-round read.
© DANIEL MIYARES
spotlight
would you describe Q: How the book?
has been the biggest influence on your work? Q: Who
was your favorite subject in school? Why? Q: What
Q: Who was your childhood hero?
books did you enjoy as a child? Q: What
one thing would you like to learn to do? Q: What
message would you like to send to young readers? Q: What
BRING ME A ROCK! A grasshopper king demands that his loyal buggy subjects build him a throne in Bring Me a Rock! (Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9781481446020, ages 4 to 8), but the tiniest bug’s contribution makes the biggest difference. Daniel Miyares is also the author-illustrator of Pardon Me! and Float. He lives near Kansas City with his wife and their two children.
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WORDNOOK
BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
LOOSE ENDS
The word agnostic owes its origin to a particular occasion on the evening of April 21, 1869, when it was coined by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley at an organizational meeting of the Metaphysical Society. The precise etymological route by which Huxley arrived at his coinage has been a matter of debate. Two decades after the fact, the coiner himself recalled that the word seemed “suggestively antithetic to the ‘gnostic’ of church history” and so he chose it on that basis. In any event, agnostic is undoubtedly rooted in agnostos, a Greek word meaning “unknown” or “unknowable.” The ending “-ic” was probably suggested by the previously established English word gnostic.
You’re right that the word height stands in peculiar contrast to width, breadth and length in having a final \t\ sound rather than \th\. Only a couple of centuries ago, however, there was a heighth or highth that competed in popularity with height and was common enough in literary English to be used by Milton in Paradise Lost. The form with final “t” arose in northern dialects of Middle English while the \gh\ sound in heighth was still pronounced, having approximately the sound of \k\ in the German name Bach or the Scots pronunciation of loch. But because few other English words ended in the consonant cluster \kth\, the second sound
Dear Editor: Can you tell me how we got the word agnostic? R. B. Nashua, New Hampshire
Dear Editor: Can you explain why length, width and breadth all end in “th,” but height ends in just a “t”? J. C. Newark, New Jersey
lost its fricative quality and became a simple \t\, remaining so even after the \k\ sound had been lost. In dialects of southern England, the cluster was preserved until the \k\ sound was lost, but by the 19th century heighth, despite its correspondence to the other nouns of dimension, had been largely ousted by height.
some occasional uses of muckrake in the 19th century, most notably in political circles, but the word received its greatest boost when it was used by Theodore Roosevelt in an April 1906 speech criticizing the excesses of journalists who had achieved popularity by exposing the corruption of public figures and institutions. Roosevelt said, “The men with the muckrakes are often indispensable to the well-beREFORM MINDED ing of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.” Dear Editor: The term muckraker quickly beDid Theodore Roosevelt coin the came established in popular use word muckrake? as a name for reform writers such L. V. as Lincoln Steffens, Ida M. TarGary, Indiana bell, Edwin Markham and Upton Sinclair. Although originally meant John Bunyan’s religious allegoto be pejorative, the word was ry The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) adopted by the writers themselves, includes a character identified as and it acquired connotations of “a man . . . with a Muckrake in his hand,” who busies himself so much courageous honesty and social conscience. with raking the muck—that is, with attending to worldly things—that Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: his gaze is always downward and Language Research Service he never sees a celestial crown held P.O. Box 281 above him. The metaphor inspired Springfield, MA 01102
Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from The Little Book of Big Brain Games
SWORDS AND SCABBARDS
workman.com
DIFFICULTY: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● COMPLETION: ■ TIME: ______
Can you place three different numbers in the circles below so that the sum of the two numbers along any given side is equal to the square of another number?
ANSWER
The problem lies in drawing the swords from the scabbards. It is impossible for the warrior with the wavy sword to pull it out of its scabbard. The other swords will go in and out of their scabbards, although the helical sword must be “unscrewed,” a time-consuming act that would leave its owner at a bit of a disadvantage.
ANSWER
As they prepare for battle, four warriors draw their swords from their scabbards. One sword is completely straight. Another is a semicircle. A third sword has the form of a wavy curve. And the fourth has the three-dimensional form of a helicoid spiral, as shown. Something isn’t right about this story. What is it?
SQUARE NUMBER TRIANGLE
SQUARE NUMBER TRIANGLE
DIFFICULTY: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● COMPLETION: ■ TIME: ______
n = 5; k = 11;
SWORDS AND SCABBARDS
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