Also of interest... In fresh starts

Again and Again

by Jonathan Evison (Dutton, $28)

With his eighth novel, Jonathan Evison “performs writing magic,” said Lorraine Berry in the Los Angeles Times. Eugene Miles, a 106-year-old resident of a care home, claims to have been reincarnated many times, as both male and female; even as Oscar Wilde’s cat. As the wild yarns he spins earn him the friendship of his housekeeper, “the joy of watching Evison braid together multiple stories from Eugene’s lives is akin to witnessing a master carpet weaver work out a fantastically intricate rug.”

The Book of Ayn

by Lexi Freiman (Catapult, $27)

Lexi Freiman has our era’s number, said Alexandra Tanner in The New York Times. This follow-up novel to 2018’s “singularly funny” Inappropriation trails a writer named Anna who is canceled for publishing a satire on the opioid crisis, finds twisted solace in the writings of Ayn Rand, and after stumbling in Hollywood, signs up for an ego-suicide workshop. Altogether, it’s “a furious, radiant reckoning” with myriad modern woes, especially “the vileness of the pursuit of a career in letters.”

Happy

by Celina Baljeet Basra (Astra House, $26)

Happy, the Punjab-born hero of Celina Baljeet Basra’s debut novel, is “cursed with stubborn optimism,” said Jenny Wu in The Washington Post. An amusement park employee in his native land, Happy dreams of Hollywood stardom. But after arranging to be smuggled out of India, he gets stuck in Italy, toiling as a radish picker to try to work off hopeless debt. Basra “keeps the book deceptively lighthearted, offering distraction from the horrors of reality.” Tragedy can’t defeat Happy’s humanity.

The New Naturals

by Gabriel Bump (Algonquin, $27)

“The New Naturals is two-thirds of a great novel,” said Chris Hewitt in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A young Black couple in Boston, disillusioned by social injustice, retreat to an underground bunker where they begin building a utopia for the disenfranchised. But Gabriel Bump, after launching his satire with “lively prose” and filling it with characters who are “specific, engaging, and real,” steers his promising tale toward a predictable collapse. The turn is so dramatic, it feels like a bait and switch.