LITERARY ENLIGHTENMENT

Fiction can go places, and can take readers places, that nonfiction cannot. Places that are too raw and painful to look at head-on. These novels have powerful insights into longing, loneliness, and connection. Through the characters’ eyes, readers will find a safe way to explore their darkest feelings and impulses—and perhaps even hope for better days ahead.

THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES

Elif Shafak, Bloomsbury Publishing (NOV 2) Hardcover $27 (368pp), 978-1-63557-859-1

In Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees, a father and daughter reconnect after years of secrecy and a devastating loss.

Ada has only ever known her parents: her father, Kostas, and her mother, Defne, who died. Her other relatives are in Cyprus, and seem to be an impenetrable mystery. The unexpected arrival of her Aunt Meryem during a bleak winter storm sends Ada, who’s already on edge, into an anxious quest to understand her family’s dark past—and to find a way to reconnect with her grieving father.

The book is a modern fairy tale. It contains forbidden love, a dash of fantasy, and secrets that, once exposed, change people forever. But the events that surround the family’s saga are all too real: the ethnic and political violence that engulfed Cyprus in the mid-1970s, and its unintended consequences for future generations of animals, plants, and humans, are a constant presence.

The story alternates between its human characters and the fig tree that Kostas smuggled into England from Cyprus seventeen years ago. Ada and the fig tree could not be more different. The tree, nostalgic and just a bit proud, still has searing memories of the many tragedies that precipitated Kostas and Defne’s flight to London. Ada, a teenager who’s struggling with her mother’s death, is often angry and petulant, especially with her long-absent aunt, who is now looking to bond with her. Quiet and reserved, Ada is further distressed by an embarrassing incident on her last day of school. But in the end, the very qualities that make Ada such a stubborn, even prickly girl enable her to learn the truth and find her own path to healing.

The Island of Missing Trees is a poignant novel about the power memory has to harm and to heal.

UNDERNEATH

Lily Hoang, Red Hen Press (OCT 12) Softcover $16.95 (264pp), 978-1-63628-004-2 MYSTERY

A girl tells the story of how her mother killed her in Lily Hoang’s novel Underneath.

Arlene was only eleven when her mother, Martha, having already killed Arlene’s younger siblings, suffocated her in her own bed. Though Martha was sentenced to prison, Arlene endures her own type of punishment: an eternity in a place unknown, left to ponder her fate and the woman who orchestrated it. Her family’s history is one of cyclical grief and pain that escalates beyond what anyone could have imagined.

Arlene’s voice is both childlike and world weary. Her narration transforms an already chilling story into a wrenching examination of generational abuse. Martha suffered at her mother’s hands, and then passed that suffering on to her own children.

Martha’s story is horrifying on several levels. As a childhood victim of fatphobic bullying and abuse, she becomes petulant, vengeful, and convinced that no one could ever hurt more than she does—qualities that follow her into adulthood and into a string of terrible relationships. Martha cares only for Martha, and that drives her to actions that ordinary mothers would find unthinkable.

Arlene’s feelings for her mother are a surprising mix: despite her understandable anguish, she retains a hint of tenderness for the woman she calls “monster.” And yet the book’s most heartbreaking element is how preventable it all seems in retrospect. There are so many moments when something could have changed Martha for the better—or at least stopped her from killing again. Perhaps, as Arlene speculates, everything that happened was inevitable. And perhaps it doesn’t matter anyway: Arlene is dead and always will be, and Martha will always be her murderer.

Inspired by true events, Underneath is a haunting novel about the making of a serial killer.

WIN ME SOMETHING

Kyle Lucia Wu, Tin House Books (NOV 2) Softcover $16.95 (268pp) 978-1-951142-89-6

A young woman figures out how to belong in Kyle Lucia Wu’s novel Win Me Something.

Willa isn’t passionate about being a nanny, but it beats working at another coffee shop. Her latest charge is Bijou, a precocious nine-year-old next to whom Willa feels inadequate. As Willa navigates this new world of privilege, feelings about her own childhood float to the surface, pushing her toward a reckoning with her past— and into possible futures.

In Willa’s eyes, Bijou’s family is light years away from her own: well off, whereas hers is working class; attentive, whereas hers is neglectful and absent; devoted to Bijou, whereas Willa’s divorced parents are preoccupied with their younger children. Adding to Willa’s sense of disconnect is her ethnicity: she is half Asian and half white, which prompts confusion and nosy, insensitive questions from strangers who think that they are entitled to her life story. The contrast between her current life and her childhood is made plain through painful, lonely flashbacks. It is also implied in Willa’s reactions to events that, for anyone else, would be ordinary.

Willa is a compelling but unreliable narrator: there is much more to Bijou’s family than she is ever aware of. Her desire to belong—such a human instinct—makes her relatable, as do her occasional, mild indiscretions, such as sneaking into her boss’s room to try on make-up. She spends so long wondering why she doesn’t fit in that she never thinks about how her own actions might contribute to her present situation. That realization, as late as it comes, may allow her to find a place for herself at last.

Win Me Something is a wistful novel about how much effort it can take to find and settle into your place in the world.

I WILL DIE IN A FOREIGN LAND

Kalani Pickhart, Two Dollar Radio (OCT 19) Hardcover $25 (260pp) 978-1-953387-08-0, HISTORICAL

The 2014 Crimean war becomes the backdrop of a more personal drama in Kalani Pickhart’s novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land.

In late 2013, Ukraine explodes into political violence, which is made worse when Russia annexes the Crimean peninsula early the next year. In Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, injured protesters converge on St. Michael’s Monastery for protection and care at the height of the conflict. Among those working or sheltering at the church are four individuals whose lives become entwined in ways they never could have predicted. They are Katya, an American doctor who seeks to forget one tragedy by burying herself in another; Misha, a widower who keeps falling for women he cannot have; Slava, an activist who begins a relationship with a woman journalist; and The Captain, a mysterious old man who was injured while playing piano for the protesters. Each is scarred by betrayal, lost chances, and premature deaths, but they still struggle to find purposes for their lives, as well as the people they are meant to be with.

The narrative is interspersed with established facts about the protests and Ukrainian history, as well as with poems about past atrocities and lists of victims who died in the war at its center. This contextual work puts the characters’ troubles in perspective—not by diminishing their pain, but by allowing them to be part of a tragic but proud national heritage. The novel shows that Ukraine and its people have suffered at the hands of a bevy of invaders; its leads are the latest in a long line of people who loved, lost, evolved, and endured there.

The historical novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land is a love letter to Ukraine, its people, and its ability to rise up from piled catastrophes.

HOW HIGH?—THAT HIGH

Stories Diane Williams, Soho Press (OCT 12) Hardcover $25 (128pp), 978-1-64129-306-8 SHORT STORIES

Diane Williams constructs scenes of gentle sadness in the micro entries of her short story collection How High?—that High.

Here, even everyday situations, like unconfessed infidelities, slow-moving illnesses, and incompatible personalities, can become the scenes of soft calamities—the most devastating tragedies of all. Everyone deals with misfortune, Williams knows, but it’s how people react—or refuse to react— that’s worth examining. Her short entries range from single paragraphs to a few pages in length, and their spare prose evokes deep feelings of discontentment, loneliness, inadequacy, and imminent loss. Whether single or partnered, her characters are almost always alone in the end, separated from others by death, discomfort, or disinterest.

Many of the stories deal with domestic upset. In “O Fortuna, Velut Luna,” a woman is stood up for a date; in “Garden Magic,” the narrator is in the process of losing her lover’s affections. The stories take place in ordinary, recognizable locations, emphasizing that their situations can happen to anyone. Their characters can’t always define what is wrong, but they can feel it, inside and out.

Every word matters in these micro entries, and “Finished Being” is among the collection’s most impressive feats, packing a book’s worth of mystery and emotion into a single sentence. The book’s appraisals of intimacy, relationships, and the lack thereof are startling and frank. Despite the book’s general candor, much remains unsaid, encouraging the careful dissection of each sentence—and personalized considerations of what it all means. The short stories in How High?—that High peek into quotidian moments; despite their small slivers of space, they have outsized emotional and intellectual impacts.

SKIN ELEGIES

Lance Olsen, Dzanc Books (NOV 9) Softcover $16.95 (248pp) 978-1-950539-35-2, THRILLER

Lance Olsen explores the past and potential future of human interaction in his spellbinding novel Skin Elegies.

The twentieth century was filled with grand and intimate tragedies: natural disasters, murders, abuses, accidents. These incidents—and humanity as a whole—were connected throughout by the bond that exists between the people involved. No matter how fraught or tenuous, human beings’ ability to establish connections with others proves to be both a gift and a curse—and, perhaps someday, might be a saving grace.

The story begins with a jumble of words and perspectives. Only their dates provide a hint of what is happening and what is to come. The more each thread unwinds, the more compelling the story as a whole becomes. Each character plunges toward their fate. Some are perpetrators of violence, others are victims; each has an unforgettable, unavoidable story to tell.

Nimble prose captures the book’s diverse moods and tones, from a famous murderer’s twisted inner ramblings to a Japanese math teacher’s minimalist, poetic observations about life as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit. Each story is distinctive and memorable, but also contributes to the overall narrative. Olsen’s evocative language joins the stories, too, resulting in a sense of continuity and demonstrating the universal urge to connect with others, even in violent or unconventional ways.

The book’s ending—a wrenching scene of simultaneous triumph and devastation—brings all of the narratives together and casts them in a stunning new light. All of human history is reduced, in brilliant fashion, to a single sentence that resonates back through every page. The combined effect is a haunting work that shows just how much humans still need each other, despite the worst humanity has to offer.

Skin Elegies is a most unusual and compelling novel about the diversity and necessity of human connection.

THE INTERIM

Wolfgang Hilbig, Isabel Fargo Cole (Translator), Two Lines Press (NOV 2) Hardcover $22.95 (256pp) 978-1-949641-23-3, TRANSLATIONS

An East German expat drinks his way through a neverending identity crisis in Wolfgang Hilbig’s historical novel The Interim.

C. is a man of contradictions. He is a writer who cannot write. He was granted permission to leave struggling East Germany and visit Western Europe’s most beautiful cities, but he spends all of his time there in train stations and hotel rooms. He loves his girlfriend, but he cannot acknowledge this until she leaves him. Because no one can live in limbo forever, sooner or later, C. will have to decide what he wants—or have outside forces decide for him.

C.’s detachment is palpable. He can’t commit to anything or anyone, even when he wants to (which isn’t often). Unable to express himself in words, his frustration takes the form of addiction, neglect, guilt, and bursts of rage. The narrative reinforces his isolation, berating him as a self-pitying liar who can only self-tolerate through an alcoholic haze. It even refuses to give him the dignity of context or an identity: he is known only by an initial, and almost none of the other characters are ever addressed by their real names.

East and West Germany, despite their many differences, are both uninhabitable in C.’s eyes. Earthy descriptions relay the bad weather and overabundance of people that plague both sides of the border. C.’s incurable misanthropy colors everything he sees, though there is no obvious reason for his malaise. And yet he stumbles on, vacillating between sobriety and drunkenness, East and West, bachelorhood and serious relationships, unable to find happiness anywhere—and sure to be just as unhappy at his journey’s end as he was at its start.

Set in the 1980s, The Interim is a portrait of a man and a nation in the midst of transition.