We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates
A dark look at a family’s precipitous and almost inexplicable fall from
grace. Her 26th novel, it may be her best (Penguin, 13.95).
No Great Mischief
by Alistair Macleod
A
wonderfully described evocation of life in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
The power of family and tradition and the passing of generations make
this a great book group choice. MacLeod’s prose is musical and powerful
(Vintage, $14).
Enduring Love
by Ian McEwan
When
a group of strangers attempts to bring down a hot-air balloon one man
falls to his death. Joe survives, but the mixed emotions he feels
remembering the event become explosive when Jed, one of the helpers who
has become obsessed with the incident, insinuates himself into Joe’s
life and threatens to destroy it (Random House, $13).
The Book of Daniel
by E.L. Doctorow
Daniel
Isaacson is supposed to be writing his dissertation in the Columbia
University library, but instead he is writing a book that attempts to
understand his life after it was shaken by the execution of his parents
for spying for the Soviets. From the opening pages this book is
provocative and absorbing (Penguin, $15).
Love Medicine
by Louise Erdrich
This
novel-in-stories follows two extended families who live on and around a
Chippewa reservation in North Dakota. Each chapter is told in a
different voice, but the collective affect is heartbreaking yet hopeful
(Harper Collins, $13.95).
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
Comic and sorrowful, The Corrections
portrays the Lambert family as its paterfamilias is dying and the
personal lives of the children are spinning beyond their control
(Picador, $15).
Caramelo
by Sandra Cisneros
Cisneros
depicts joyous but fraught family life as Lala Reyes travels with her
family to her father’s hometown in Mexico. Moving deftly between Lala’s
observations of events and the stories her family members tell her,
Cisneros conveys conflicting truths about family and belonging
(Vintage, $13.95).
Housekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson
Set
in a small Idaho town beside a foggy lake, Robinson’s first novel
follows Ruth and Lucille as they move in with their unstable aunt and
must choose between the life they live with her or the “normal” life
the town offers. This novel is dreamy and at times feels unmoored, but
few books convey so lucidly the bewilderment of displacement and loss
(Picador, $14).
Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson
With
wisdom and a joyous appreciation for small pleasures, John Ames, a
76-year-old Iowa preacher, knows he will die soon so he sets out to
write his “begats” to his 7-year-old son. Ames tells the history of
middle America through two centuries and struggles with his own
feelings about mortality and the world he will leave behind (Picador,
$14).
An Experiment in Love
by Hilary Mantel
Carmel
is her working-class family’s hope to rise in the world. She goes off
to the University of London where she must negotiate complicated new
territory fraught with rigid class distinctions, social pretensions,
and eating disorders (Holt, $13).
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo
Miles
Roby lives above the Empire Grill in the decaying mill town of Empire
Falls, Maine. His wife has left him for the town’s fitness guru and his
promising future is quickly become his past. Deep secrets and an
explosive scene will force Miles to forge a new direction for his
daughter and himself (Vintage, $14.95).
A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Towes
Nomi
is a sixteen year old Canadian Mennonite doomed, she fears, to a life
working in the local chicken slaughterhouse. After both her mother and
her sister leave town without a word, her father becomes sadder and
more inward and Nomi is left to find her own way in this smart funny,
and moving novel (Perseus, $13.95).
