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The die has been cast! We've chosen our favorite books of 2018, and even by our discerning standards this year's list is a humdinger. The books in this newsletter represent crème de la crème, the picks of the litter, the cream of the crop. We hope you love them just as much as we do.
Join us in celebrating these titles at our annual holiday party! From 7PM to 9PM on Saturday, December 8th, everything in the shop will be 10% off. We'll have wine, homemade sweets, a literary photo booth, live music, and an opportunity to win a $50 gift card when you share your 2019 literary resolutions with us! This event is free and open to the public, but the Facebook-inclined may RSVP here. We hope to see you there!
In other news, our first book club pick of 2019 will be Zora Neale Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God! We'll meet to discuss Hurston's acclaimed novel on Tuesday, January 8th. The discussion will begin promptly at 7PM. Drinks and sweets will be served at 6:30 for those who wish to mingle and unwind before the discussion. All are welcome to attend. Join us!
As 2018 draws to a close, we'd like to thank you all for making this our best year yet. We are continually delighted by your intelligence, curiosity, and passion for your community. See you in 2019!
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We're always eager to hear how we can be the best neighborhood bookstore we can be. We're super nice and very approachable and LOVE talking about books. Pick your favorite technology to contact us or stop by today!
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This month's newest titles are picked, as always, from the fevered minds of the employees at Unabridged. Comments always appreciated. Email the store at
unabridged@unabridgedbookstore.com or call us at 773.883.9119.
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THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers
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The Overstory is a big, ambitious epic, an elegant ode to the singularly splendid grandeur and wonder of trees, and their desire to communicate to us the imminent threats to our mutual survival.It is a song of celebration and lament, in which Powers asks us to consider, with startling impact, our assault on nature and the growing problem of deforestation. It is the story of a handful of people who learn to "hear" the plight of the trees, and as each of their lives converge after being "summoned" by the trees, are drawn into an unfolding catastrophe. The book is brilliant, it astonishes us in so many ways- Power's meditative prose is utterly believable and engrossing, the intricate structure of the book is ingenious, the plot is thrilling and suspenseful, the characters grab at our heart. I was wowed by its richness and complexity and intelligence.
The Overstory is a magnificent achievement, satisfying AND profoundly meaningful. The Minneapolis Star Tribune says, "reading
The Overstory will convince you that we walk among gods every time we enter a forest." This is a Great American Novel, it is that good!
In hardcover, fiction, 27.95; W.W. Norton & Company.
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CALL ME ZEBRA by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
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Call Me Zebra is a wild ride of a novel, filled with intellectual sparring, sex, and quotes from famous authors and philosophers (like Borges and Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin); it is Zebra's "literary pilgrimage into the void of exile." Zebra is haunted by her exile from Iran, her mother's death, and by images (and words!) of her dead father ("love nothing, except literature"), and later by her emotional entanglement with Ludo, an Italian living in Barcelona. Her outpouring of thoughts-- about literature and death, exodus and exile, about ill-fatedness and interconnectedness-- are manic, frantic, exuberant and fascinating. It is a novel of ideas (Zebra devises THE MATRIX OF LITERATURE.....GRAND TOUR OF EXILE....PILGRIMS OF THE VOID.....THEORY OF THE PYRAMID OF EXILE....ARCHITECTURAL PILGRIMAGE OF FRAGMENTATION), but well-grounded in a plot about "the cruel calamity of exile," life-as-pilgrimage set in Iran, NYC and Barcelona. Brilliantly written, full of ideas, wildly imaginative, and often dryly funny, it is a young woman's odyssey where literature is her source of healing, and "Anarchists, Atheists and Autodidacts" serve as life's guideposts.
In hardcover, fiction, 24.00; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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THE FERAL DETECTIVE by Jonathan Lethem
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Phoebe Siegler, a Manhattanite thru-and-thru, part Nancy Drew, part Joan Didion, and Charles Heist, the rogue detective she has hired, search for a missing girl in the off-the-grid world of utopian survivalists in the desert southwest in Jonathan Lethem's exhilarating first detective novel since
Motherless Brooklyn. Using the last election as metaphor for the apocalypse (and the brave new world of the Trump era that we no longer recognize), the novel is a wild rollercoaster-of-a-ride, very funny, caustic and clever, filled with wisecracking, sarcastic dialogue and brilliant, funny, meticulously crafted sentences and turns of phrase (Kirkus praises "Lethem's linguistic alchemy"). The pace of the novel is unrelenting, the desert descriptions palpable, and the protagonists' developing relationship as interesting as the mystery they are trying to solve. Brilliant!
In hardcover, fiction, 26.99; Ecco Press
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UNSHELTERED by Barbara Kingsolver
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Unsheltered
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combining gripping storytelling with social commentary, is a powerful lament for the American dream. A crumbling house turns out to be a solid metaphor for this striking, time-shifting tale of a nation adrift, where a home on the verge of collapse speaks volumes about the strains within American society and the crumbling dreams of its families. Kingsolver's narrative uses interwoven timelines to trace the lives of two families living in the same house a century and a half apart (1870 and 2018) in Vineland, New Jersey (which is now far from the "utopian community" it was founded as in the 1800's.) The parallels between the two eras are apparent--echoes of demagoguery, suppression of the press, social turmoil, crises in health care, the tangled mess of patriotism and religion, and families living on the edge resonate in both tales. Barbara Kingsolver told an interviewer, "I don't understand how any good art can fail to be political," but because Kingsolver excels at her craft, her story is never overwhelmed by her progressive politics. The adroitly told story (including the great use of metaphors) carries the day, and her particularly well-drawn, compelling characters jump off the page; I especially loved the intriguing female Darwinian biologist from the 1870's, Mary Treat (based on a real person!) One reviewer asked, "Is this the first great novel of the Trump Age?"; I think it very well might be!
In hardcover, fiction, 29.99; Harper.
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EVERYTHING UNDER by Daisy Johnson
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In
Everything Under, a reunited mother and daughter delve into their eerie past in Daisy Johnson's complex, harrowing and intoxicating retelling of the Oedipus myth. It is a fever dream of a novel, a rich mix of myth and fairytale and otherworldliness, with mercurial, liminal, almost shape-shifting characters who seem to be cast-offs from the world, including the alchemical Fiona (a transgendered seer,) the foundling Margot/Marcus (also transgendered,) and the narrator Gretel, raised in an eerie river-world on a canal boat by her mother, Sarah (the two of whom sharing their own private language, including the word "Bonak," a spectral riverside monster that may well be the sum of their own fears.) Johnson excels at making the phenomena she describes feel visceral, and while the twists of the tale are signposted, the story still spins you around a bit (going back and forth in time, with different voices,) so while hard to follow at first, the more the plot unfolds, and the gripping story threads move to a common end, the more the characters come clearly into view, and by page 100, I was completely immersed in the murky world she is describing, and the story had me in its compulsive grip! The story is fantastical, brilliant in so many ways (I loved the use of the unusual 2nd person voice!), imaginative and spellbinding, discomfiting and bewitching.
In paperback, fiction, 16.00; Graywolf Press.
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CIRCE by Madeline Miller
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A dazzling, seductive, and mesmerizing novel! Circe, the vilified witch and infamous female figure from
The Odyssey, gets her own epic in this bold, subversive, and feminist retelling of her transformation from awkward nymph into angry goddess, and, eventually, sage woman. I will be so lucky to read a finer novel this year!
In hardcover, fiction, 27.00; Little Brown and Company.
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LAST STORIES by William Trevor
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Although he's written several novels, many of which top prize winners, William Trevor did his finest work in short bursts. His mournful, darkly funny stories about the "small struggles of unremarkable people" have led him to be recognized as one of the two best writers of short fiction in English (the other is Alice Munro). This last collection is no different. Populated by a remarkably varied cast of characters of the middling sort, these stories of betrayal, loss, and frustrated ambitions are marvels of precision and condensation, yet full of intricate details and subtle intrusions (look out for those - they are wonderful). "Making Conversation" and the one of the aging music teacher and piano prodigy with sticky fingers are among my favorites. We lost an uncommonly good writer in Trevor and his Last Stories are a wonderful parting gift.
In hardcover, fiction,
26.00; Viking.
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THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS by Pat Barker
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Who gets to tell the story? In the legend of The Iliad and the Trojan War, the victors, the men, tell the story, they drive the narrative, but in Pat Barker's masterful retelling, The Silence of the Girls, the story is told by Briseis, a woman, Achilles's (then Agamemnon's) concubine. All of Homer's "heroes" are here -- Odysseus, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Ajax, and Nestor, as well as Priam, Hector, and Paris on the Trojan side-- but their stories are now seen and old through the eyes of a woman. Through Briseis we see the heavy price woman have had to pay for male violence and vainglory, the true horror of war's atrocities, the sexual enslavement of women, all in the name of "male" honor, courage, and everlasting glory. Profound and imaginative! For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe and Song of Achilles. Ed recommends!! (Ianni loved, too!)
In hardcover, fiction, 27.95; Doubleday Books.
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THE DARKENING AGE by Catherine Nixey
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An exceptional account of murder and vandalism wrought by religious zealotry - and one that suggests modern parallels, Nixey's book presents the progress of Christianity as a triumph only in the military sense of a victory parade. Culturally, it was genocide: a kind of anti-Enlightenment, a darkening, during which, while annihilating the old religions, the rampaging evangelists carried out 'the largest destruction of art that human history had ever seen'. (This certainly isn't the history we were taught in Sunday school.) Rather than lionizing monks for preserving slivers of classical wisdom, she argues, we should acknowledge how much was knowingly erased. (Over ninety percent of Greco-roman art and literature, apparently!) If you ever wondered why so many ancient statues lack noses, limps, or genitalia, read this this fascinating, finely crafted polemic on the error and corruption of the early Church.
In hardcover, non-fiction, 28.00; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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NEOPOLITAN CHRONICLES by Anna Maria Ortese
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 Released in 1953 to wide acclaim (and edited by Italo Calvino!) this collection of short stories and non-fiction was a landmark publication of Italian neorealism. The original title in Italian is "The Sea Doesn't Bath Naples" which is an apt metaphor for the wretched state of the city post-World War II. Like the celebrated films of the era (think de Sica's "Bicycle Thieves," for example) Ortese is mostly contend with the difficult economic and moral conditions of the time, representing changes in the Italian psyche and everyday life of a people caught in poverty, oppression, injustice, desperation and yet this "unquenchable resilience." It's no wonder that Elena Ferrante cites this as the greatest influence on her best-selling tetralogy. (the first story, "A pair of Eyeglasses," is ESSENTIAL reading!)
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; New Vessel Press.
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WHY ART? by Eleanor Davis
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Why Art? is the sort of question that seems almost laughably weighted, at once too important & too immaterial to answer with a 200 page comic. As usual, Davis' work holds this tension beautifully, finding an easy & disarming balance of intimacy & irreverence that will gather you in as it tilts into something unexpected, evocative, and deeply moving.
In paperback, graphic novel, 14.99; Fantagraphics Books.
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M ARCHIVE by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
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M Archive is a speculative documentary text that imagines a time beyond the end of the world. Lyric, visionary, & deep in conversation with Black feminist thought, this radical anticapitalist & ecopoetic mythology is "an invitation into the blackness of what we cannot know from here."
In paperback, poetry, 24.95; Duke University Press.
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ON A SUNBEAM by Tillie Walden
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We meet Mia as she joins a crew traveling through outer space, documenting & restoring crumbling structures. Their adventures & slow bonding are interspersed with flashbacks to Mia's time at a fancy boarding school, where she fell in love with a girl named Grace. The slow entangling of these two threads makes for a sensitive and sprawling coming-of-age space epic.
In paperback, graphic novel, 21.99; First Second.
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THE BLUE CLERK by Dionne Brand
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 This latest from prolific black Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, documentarian & all-around genius Dionne Brand is a sequence of sublimely wide-ranging prose poems that reflect on decisions of language, the undone & ongoing work of poetry, & what it means to be in relation with one's work & one another.
In hardcover, poetry, 24.95; Duke University Press.
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JUNK by Tommy Pico
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 Equal parts June Jordan & Janet Jackson, this tightly crafted book-length poem from Brooklyn-based Kumeyaay poet Tommy Pico is a glittering & abundant meditation on desire, loss, & value beyond utility.
In paperback, poetry, 15.95; Tin House Books.
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YOUR DUCK IS MY DUCK: Stories by Deborah Eisenberg
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Deborah Eisenberg's first new collection of short stories since 2006 addresses
the depth and variety of human experience with clarity, tenderness, and humor. Eisenberg nimbly negotiates between her characters' shifting identities (private and public, personal and political, emotional and psychological), pinpointing sites of overlap and contradiction and plumbing them for all they're worth. I was consistently astonished by the acuity and wit permeating each of these stories.
In hardcover, fiction, 26.99; Ecco Press.
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THE CARRYING: Poems by Ada Limón
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In a year defined by punishing ambient trauma, few books sufficiently addressed the profound despair I felt and witnessed all around me. Enter Ada Limón's The Carrying. In this exquisite collection of poems, Limón explores the scope and magnificence of human survival in the face of steep odds. She considers anguish through various lenses, running the gamut from national tragedies to existential crises. Limón's poems translate the experience of bearing up under the knowledge of an indifferent universe. She holds herself accountable for her hopelessness, and mines beauty where she finds it. This book helped.
In hardcover, poetry, 22.00; Milkweed Editions.
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HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL: Essays by Alexander Chee
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In this stunning collection of essays, Alexander Chee refracts his identity as a writer through the lenses of art, sexuality, politics, and trauma to form an unconventional autobiography of substance and mettle. These pieces follow the chronology of Chee's life, tracking his development as an artist as he comes to terms with his multifaceted identity as a Korean-American and a gay man. Canny, conversational, and consummately vulnerable, you won't read a more passionate defense for the practice of writing this year.
In paperback, non-fiction, 15.99; Mariner Books.
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AFTER THE WINTER by Guadalupe Nettel
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Claudio is a haughty Cuban expat with a misanthropic streak and an outsized sense of entitlement to boot. Though he's carved out a comfortable existence in New York City, Claudio dreams of his perfectly matched companion, a woman of refined taste and impeccable manners.
Cecilia is a pensive Mexican grad student and a recent transplant to Paris. Braced by aloof Parisian manners and the winter's bitter cold, Cecilia is driven into seclusion until she embarks on an intense romantic friendship with her next-door neighbor, Tom. After Tom suddenly departs for a trip of indeterminate length, Cecilia finds herself at sea, incapable of coping with the her obsessive yearning.
Here Claudio and Cecilia cross paths, producing a fascinating glimpse into the narratives people encrypt on one another in moments of loneliness and desperation.
Beautifully evocative of place, After the Winter vaults from Oaxaca to Cuba to New York City to Paris, lingering at last in Père Lachaise. At once devastating and redolent of the delicate pleasures that make life worth living, After the Winter is a subtle and profound novel filled with unforgettable characters and motifs.
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; Coffee House Press.
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NORTHWOOD: A Novella by Maryse Meijer
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This poignant and evocative novel in verse punched me right in the gut. Seeking clarity in asceticism, Northwood's unnamed narrator retreats to a secluded cabin in the woods to refine her artistic practice. Instead, she embarks on an obsessive affair that haunts her for years thereafter. Over years she develops an erotics of violence that continually undermines her carefully crafted identity. The uneasy portrait that develops throughout forces the reader to reckon with uncomfortable truths about the nature of self and its relationship to love. Beautifully rendered in white-on-black text, this claustrophobic beauty is unlike anything else you'll read this year.
In hardcover, fiction, 18.95; Black Balloon Publishing.
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THE GREAT BELIEVERS by Rebecca Makkai
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 Owen loves The Great Believers. In this book Makkai juxtaposes a compelling and emotional mid-1980s Chicago-based AIDS drama with alternating chapters set in contemporary Paris. The result is an expansive view, not only of the epidemic, but of the recurrent themes of devotion, loss, honoring the past, and carrying on. With The Great Believers, Makkai has crafted a multi-layered, smart, and gripping read that puts Chicago's LGBT community front and center in the telling.
In hardcover, fiction, 27.00; Viking.
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BUTCH HEROES by Ria Brodell
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 Butch Heroes is a gorgeous and important addition to trans history. With an accompanying collection of 28 original color plates, Brodell captures a culturally and ethnically diverse collection of individuals, assigned as female at birth, who presented themselves as male. The biographies span from the 1400s to the 1900s, revealing the prejudices and social constraints faced by each of these heroes who chose to live authentically. A terrific book and an exciting reclaiming of history.
In hardcover, fiction, 24.95; MIT Press.
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THE WORD IS MURDER by Anthony Horowitz
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 The Word is Murder is terrific! This engrossing mystery, about a woman, who plans her own funeral and hours later is murdered, is so well executed that I could have read another 200 pages of it. Original, fun, and deeply satisfying. Another great book by the celebrated author of Moriarty and The Magpie Murders.
In hardcover, fiction, 27.99; Harper.
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SUNBURN by Laura Lippman
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 Sunburn by Laura Lippman is an expertly paced neo-noir thriller that had me hooked in the early pages. Set in rural Delaware, this novel of insurance, arson, and murder is a prime example of suspense by the "slow reveal," giving the reader the backstory (and motivation) of these desperate and well-defined characters bit by bit. Sexy, solid, and addictive.
In paperback, fiction, 16.99; William Morrow and Company.
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TINDERBOX by Robert Fieseler
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 Tinderbox is the tragic tale surrounding the 1973 Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans which claimed 32 lives. In his painstaking research, Fieseler goes beyond mere reportage. We get to know the victims, tracing their lives, and giving a personal face to the tragedy. Fieseler explains New Orleans gay life at the time, the fires itself -- what happened, how it spread, the bungled/apathetic investigation, the lives of the survivors, and the aftermath. Fieseler gives the book additional heft by placing the tragedy in a larger context, explaining the socio-political ripples the fire sent through the gay community nation-wide. Brilliant, engrossing, and essential. Tinderbox is a fantastic contribution to LGBT history, giving focus to a grim but important chapter in our ongoing story.
In hardcover, non-fiction, 26.95; Liveright Publishing Corporation.
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NOT HERE by Hieu Minh Nguyen
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Expanding on the themes of his electrifying debut, This Way to the Sugar, queer Vietnamese-American poet Hieu Minh Nguyen's second collection, Not Here, explores how race, trauma, inner and familial conflict, shame, and sense of home and belonging have shaped his life and his sense of self. Nguyen understands the power of words to break and to heal. He also understands the element of surprise, as an unexpected turn of phrase or striking image can feel like a punch to the gut. Not Here is filled with ghosts, with longing and loneliness, and a fearless attempt to reconcile the past/present/future with a stubborn will to survive it all. This stunning and heartbreaking book is a testament to the enduring relevancy and importance of poetry. Surrender to Nguyen's linguistic alchemy and courageous spirit and be transformed.
In paperback, fiction, 16.99; Coffee House Press.
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BROTHER by David Chariandy
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Two brothers, immigrants from Trinidad, are living their lives on the outskirts of Toronto, trying to fit in, trying to find themselves. This is the core of Chariandy's brilliant and stunning Brother, a novel that completely caught me off guard with its searing emotive force. Chariandy is a commanding, dazzling writer; there's a musicality and rhythm to the tight prose that propels the novel's elegiac qualities with a poet's intensity and heart. Bursting with tenderness and sorrow, brutality and gritty realism, this slim but essential novel speaks to many urgent political, social, and familial issues without ever losing sight of the question, how does one cope with a dream and a future denied? This is literature as cruel truth, a voice for the voiceless, a testament to the sheer power and importance of storytelling.
In hardcover, fiction, 22.00; Bloomsbury Publishing.
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DISORIENTAL by Negar Djavadi
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"Life is such that, even in the darkest depths of the drama, there is always still a little room left for the absurd."
Disoriental begins innocuously with the narrator, Kimiâ, at a fertility clinic in contemporary Paris. Soon, however, the reader is thrown into the past, encountering Kimiâ's Persian great grandfather and eventually learning of her family's harrowing escape to France during the Iranian Revolution. This ambitious, intricate story weaves a family's history with the history of a country, but it is firmly rooted in one woman's exploration of her place in the world, as a refugee from her homeland and an outcast from her family. Blending the personal and the political, tragedy and humor, the evocative story that unfolds is full of heart and warmth, unearthing sharp truths about diaspora, integration and segregation, sexuality, and how our family histories and political/cultural oppressions shape who we become. Ultimately, Disoriental is about the freedom to live and love in a world that doesn't always grant such freedoms, unless you fight for them. Multigenerational sagas don't always work, but Djavadi is a masterful storyteller. Disoriental doesn't merely work, it absolutely triumphs.
In paperback, fiction, 18.00; Europa Editions.
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HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
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 With the sheer abundance of new books responding to our current political crisis, it's difficult to distinguish between those that are just cashing in on the chaos versus those that are truly relevant. How Democracies Die is the latter. In it, professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt show how democracies have collapsed throughout history, creating a framework to draw parallels to the United States and Trump. They also reveal what we can learn from countries where autocracy has risen out of the ashes of democracy. This demise of democracy, they argue, rarely happens with a bang, but instead happens incrementally, and relies on the normalization of these overt and covert changes. Trump is merely a symptom and not the cause, they believe, and democracy can only survive and thrive with the active engagement and participation from its citizens. This work may be scholarly, but it is not written for academics. It's written for concerned citizens. Insightful, provocative, accessible, and sometimes downright disturbing, this book is essential for anyone looking to make sense of this mess. There are no easy answers, and this book doesn't pretend to have them. But it's a great place to start.
In hardcover, non-fiction, 26.00; Crown Publishing Group.
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CENZONTLE by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
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Lush and lyrical, this essential debut interrogates the American dream from the perspective of someone who was never allowed to be a part of it. Castillo's arresting, sometimes surreal imagery perfectly accompanies his emotional sincerity, which contrasts with the casual cruelties and artifice of American ideals/policy with striking poignancy. Each poem exists like an understated song, sweet and mournful, and they will haunt you with their magic and beauty.
In paperback, poetry, 16.00; BOA Editions.
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| FRIDAY BLACK by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah |
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 These short stories in Adjei-Brenyah's debut collection are straight fire. Inventively confronting the injustices and trauma with being black in America, many of the stories in Friday Black show reality just enough to show the absurdity of everyday life. "The Finkelsteins" is a powerful first story, where a white man, feeling threatened, kills five black kids with a chainsaw... and is acquitted. Retribution is swift and brutal, but to what end? Other stories deal with societies hooked on drugs, shopping, and violence - focusing on characters that are just trying to get by, but are sucked up i the cultural maelstrom. Adjei-Brenyah builds complicated worlds on big ideas, but never loses sight of his characters, who are just as complicated, and also flawed, and so memorable! Lovers of George Saunders, Paul Beatty, and Karen Russell - check this out!
In paperback, fiction, 14.99; Mariner.
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HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE: Stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
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I was thrilled that I picked up this amazing collection of stories from a startling new voice in Nafissa Thompson-Spires! As funny as it is heart-wrenching, these stories delve into the lives of a myriad of characters, all facing their black identities in the prism of the middle class lifestyle. Some stories are as simple as following a troubled woman who is trying to be a better person, but has to contend with the incompetencies of the DMV. Others, like the title story, contend with the black narrative itself. But all of them manage to be compelling, narratively inventive, and a joy to read. I didn't want this collection to end!
In hardcover, fiction, 23.00; Atria Books.
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THERE THERE by Tommy Orange
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 I was struck from the first page of this electric debut novel, throughout which Orange brings together and tears apart an unforgettable cast of characters. Each successive voice embroiders and illuminates the experience of the "urban Native American." As the cast is drawn together toward the Big Oakland Powwow, each character reveals their aches, loves, fraught histories, and inescapable legacies. Orange tempers the violence of this book with great beauty, and even the most troubling characters are not denied their humanity.
In hardcover, fiction, 25.95; Knopf Publishing Group.
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THE THIRD HOTEL by Laura Van Den Berg
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This wonderfully strange, haunting novel by Laura Van Den Berg concerns recently widowed Clare, arriving in Cuba for a horror film convention. Numb, but also hyper-aware with grief, Clare's sense of reality is put into question when she sees her husband in Havana, appearing very much alive. This book is a mystery, but it is more about the mystery of the human condition: how a spouse can be a stranger, and how grief can be all-encompassing or feel like nothing at all. The writing here is crisp and darkly funny, the references to the tropes of horror fascinating. You must experience this novel for yourself.
In hardcover, fiction, 26.00; Farrar Straus and Giroux.
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HISTORY OF VIOLENCE by Édouard Louis
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 Édouard Louis was raped and almost murdered on Christmas Eve, 2012. In History of Violence, he breathlessly tries to piece together and, ultimately, to understand the events of that night and his life in its wake. What I found so captivating about this book was Édouard's ability to weave between past and present, between his private recollections and what he tells the police and his sister (a sister tha the overhears sharing his sotry with her husband, to devastating effect). Édouard doesn't pull any punches - not with the violence that was done to him, or the desire that he felt for the perpetrator at first, or the homophobia and racism entwined with this crime. This can be difficult to read, but I found it to be important and a book I'll never forget.
In hardcover, fiction, 25.00; Farrar Straus and Giroux.
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