Selected Reading - Fiction 
Blue at the Mizzen (Aubrey/Maturin Series, No 20)
by Patrick O'Brian
Almost three decades after commencing his maritime epic with Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian is still at it. The 20th episode, Blue at the Mizzen, is another swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, complete with romantic escapades from smoggy London to Sierra Leone, diplomacy, espionage, the intricacies of warfare, and imperial brinksmanship. As always, these events are bound up in the ongoing friendship between two officers of the Royal Navy. Jack Aubrey is the naval captain, bold yet compassionate, innovative yet cautious, as fearless in war as he is bumbling in affairs of the heart and household. His boon companion Stephen Maturin is the ship's surgeon--and additionally a spy for the British government, a wealthy Catalonian aristocrat, a doting Irish father, and an avid naturalist.The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Aubrey/Maturin Series, No 20)
by Wayne Johnston
In 1949, Joseph Smallwood became the first premier of the newly federated Canadian province of Newfoundland. Predictably, and almost immediately, his name retreated to the footnotes of history. And yet, as Wayne Johnston makes plain in his epic and affectionate fifth novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Smallwood's life was endearingly emblematic, an instance of an extraordinary man emerging at a propitious moment. The particular charm of Johnston's book, however, lies not merely in unveiling a career that so seamlessly coincided with the burgeoning self-consciousness of Newfoundland itself, but in exposing a simple truth--namely, that history is no more than the accretion of lived lives.
Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising
by Ian MacMillan
Village of a Million Spirits is set in what one of its characters calls "the most heavily populated quarter-square mile on earth"; the only difference, he tells us, is that "95 percent of the people were spirits." That village is Treblinka, where Jewish prisoners--the lucky ones--cooperate in their own extinction, while those who are strong enough dream of revolt. Here we meet 14-year-old Janusz, whose genius lies in being nondescript; Anatoly, the Ukrainian guard with oversize ears and a burning hatred of his German superiors; Magda, Anatoly's girlfriend, who spends the entire novel giving birth to his child; and the German officer Voss, who drinks his way into an obsession with Jewish gold. All coexist in a camp rendered with nightmarish realism, their minds fixing on almost any detail that might provides a moment's relief: meaningless coincidences, the smell of pine sap, priceless stamps dropped in the snow.The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman Uprising
by Bruce Robinson
Perhaps the most peculiar aspect of The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman is the author's fascination with every form of bodily excretion. Feces, sputum, semen, earwax--the list is endless. We discover early on that Thomas "from the age of four ... navigated all lavatories and shat himself everywhere else," and the pages that follow detail the boy's obsession with his own fecal matter in terms that are as imaginative as they are repugnant. Having established from the get-go that young Thomas Penman is not going to be an ordinary hero, Bruce Robinson (who wrote the screenplays for the films The Killing Fields and Withnail & I, and also directed the latter) then launches us into his protagonist's life with a vengeance. In short order we discover that Thomas's grandfather, Walter, is riddled with cancer and as obsessed with naked women as his 14-year-old grandson. In addition, Thomas's father, Rob, is involved in an illicit affair and his mother has hired a private detective to prove it. And Thomas himself is madly, truly, deeply in love with the divine Gwen Hackett.Somewhere in a Desert Uprising
by Dominique Sigaud, Frank Wynne (Translator)
From Booklist , September 15, 1999 In a tale set during the Gulf War, French author Sigaud recounts the tale of a corpse found in the desert near an Iraqi village. This dead American soldier astounds the people of the nearby, war-ravaged village and touches them in remarkable ways. He is found several days after the war has ended, and his identity is unknown. Somehow the villagers are moved to daily pilgrimages to this body--the men during the day, and the women, in secret, during the night. Meanwhile, the dead soldier's wife waits at home, ever hopeful, watching the husbands of her friends return without any knowledge of the whereabouts of her own husband. Together with a French official in charge of investigating missing soldiers, she tracks down her husband's body. Nothing new is said in this poignant and fantastic tale about the tragedies of war, but Sigaud achieves an utterly human perspective. Her fable evokes an incredible pathos in a story that reflects how modern-day war affects the emotions of everyone involved. Michael SpinellaThe Night Inspector Uprising
by Frederick Busch
In his fiction, at least, Frederick Busch is no stranger to the Victorian era: his 1978 novel The Mutual Friend was a meticulous reconstruction of the Dickensian universe, right down to the last wisp of pea-soup fog. In The Night Inspector, he ventures an equally deep immersion in the past. This time, however, Busch takes us to post-Civil-War Manhattan, where a disfigured veteran named William Bartholomew rages against the Gilded Age--even as he demands remuneration for his own losses.
Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
by Gina Barkhordar-Nahai
The first voice we hear in Gina B. Nahai's second novel is that of Lili, the grown daughter of a miraculous mother. When Lili was 5 and living in the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, her mother, Roxanna, "had grown wings, one night when the darkness was the color of her dreams, and flown into the star-studded night of Iran that claimed her." Thirteen years would pass, Lili informs us, before she would find her mother again. This short introduction serves as a framing device for the story of Roxanna's life, a life begun as a "bad-luck" child. According to her sister, Miriam the Moon, she "had been a runaway before she ever became a wife or a mother, before she came into existence or was even conceived."The Big Bad City: A Novel of the 87th Precinct
by Ed McBain
Ed McBain is the only American winner of the coveted Diamond Dagger Award, and he is also a past recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. So, when a reader picks up the latest installment of McBain's 87th Precinct series, the bar is set pretty high. But with The Big Bad City, McBain meets expectations.The Messenger
by Mayra Montero, Edith Grossman (Translator)
Here are the facts: in June of 1920 the legendary Italian tenor Enrico Caruso arrived in Havana, Cuba, on tour. During a matinee performance of Aïda a bomb went off in the Teatro Nacional, and Caruso, in a panic, rushed out into the streets of the city and disappeared for several days. Taking off from this historical footnote, Cuban-born writer Mayra Montero has impressively imagined what might have occurred during the singer's "lost weekend." The Messenger is narrated by Aida Petrirena Cheng, a Chinese Cuban mulatto woman whom Caruso literally runs into just moments after the explosion. If the singer is shocked by events, Aida is not; she has already been warned by her godfather, a Santería priest, that a man "will come to crown you and tell you that you are the queen of his thoughts. Before that you will hear the thunder, the walls will fall down, there will be dust and fire." She instantly recognizes that Caruso is the man of her godfather's vision, and with that recognition comes a frisson of fear, for old José de Calazán Bangoché had given another warning.Colony Girl
by Thomas Rayfiel
...[a] winning, original and supremely intelligent novel.... [F]or all its gaudy pattern, Colony Girl is seamless. In the middle of Iowa's cornfields is a small Christian community called the Colony, which is dedicated to bringing the biblical times back to life. The Colony is in an uproar because the leader, Gordon, has isolated himself in his house and refuses to take part in the group's rituals. Fifteen-year-old Eve struggles with her role in the group and her role on the outside as she works on the highway crew for the summer, falls in love with both a father and his son, and develops a taste for Everclear (grain alcohol). Eve is torn between her personal relationship ...Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice
by A. S. Byatt
A.S. Byatt's stories simmer with a sensuality and passion that, like topiary trees in a formal garden, are pruned and trained into cultivated shapes while retaining the wild scent of the orchard. In "Crocodile Tears" a woman walks away from a personal tragedy, deserting those she loves to try to reconcile herself to a death for which she feels horribly responsible. Thrown together in Nîmes with another exiled mourner, a Norwegian full of northern folktales, she ricochets between a numbed calm and a reckless urge for self-destruction. Together they begin to assemble some kind of personal solace out of fragments of European history, fiction, and myth, and so come to terms with their guilt. "A Lamia in the Cevennes" is also set in France, where another isolated English exile struggles for self-knowledge amid the shards of history and folktale. "Cold" is itself a kind of latter-day fairy story of ice princesses and sighing suitors. These are stories steeped in light and color, full of glowing landscapes and sensuous delights. Their intricately woven skeins of literary allusion and keenly observed locations bewitch the reader. Yet the figures in Byatt's landscapes seem powerless to derive pleasure or solace from their surroundings, picking their lonely way through the brilliance, carrying with them burdens of painful memories they cannot shake off.
At the Full and Change of the Moon: A Novel
by Dionne Brand
The language in these interlocking tales is as rhythmic as waves in the sea, sometimes incantatory: dreamlike or nightmarish. The story begins in 1824, when a slave on the island of Trinidad, Marie-Ursule, poisons herself and her fellow slaves in a desperate act of defiance but spares her little daughter, Bola. Bola's children, by many fathers, travel to the U.S. and Canada, to London and Amsterdam, and spin out their words like nets to catch the heart. Samuel tries to serve in World War I and is broken by it; Cordelia, in her fiftieth year, blooms with desire heavy as ...Things Unspoken
by Anita Sheen, Anitra Sheen
When Jorie's mother dies, she leaves her three young children and doctor husband to fend for themselves. Their emotional survival is the subject of this lovely, subtle debut novel set in Los Angeles and narrated by the youngest child and only girl, Jorie. Her older brother copes by drinking, smoking, and skipping school; her middle brother bides his time until he can leave home; and Jorie tries to act the way she thinks girls are supposed to act, endearingly if ineffectively. The siblings exist ineffectively. The siblings exist in a sort of limbo, coming and going as they please, never knowing too much about each other, until their father has a heart attack. There isn't a trace of pop psychology in these pages; Jorie and her brothers may be dented characters but they remain whole ones, and as such they are remarkably touching.King: A Street Story
by John Berger
"The Terrain is used as a dump. Smashed lorries. Old boilers. Broken washing machines. Rotary lawn mowers. Refrigerators which don't make cold any more. Wash basins which are cracked. There are also bushes and small trees and tough flowers like pheasant's-eye and viper's-grass."In John Berger's powerful novel King, the Terrain is also home to a small community of the dispossessed. Here, a stone's throw from a highway somewhere in France, in shelters constructed out of detritus, live Jack and Marcello, old Corinna and Liberto, Joachim and Anna, and Danny and Saul. Here also live Vica and Vico, an elderly couple (and couples are a rarity among the homeless) and their dog, King. It is King who narrates this day-in-the-life narrative, and Berger has endowed him with the ability to understand and be understood: "Lying beside the chestnut brazier, something came to me between the ears: the world is so bad, God has to exist. I asked Vico what he thought. 'Most people,' he said quickly, 'would draw the opposite conclusion.'" King: A Street Story by John Berger
The Fan-Maker's Inquisition: A Novel of the Marquis De Sade
by Rikki Ducornet
...as it unfolds, The Fan-Maker's Inquisition proves to be one of the most vigorous celebrations of the imagination, written by an artisan of uncommon talent.Ducornet, best known for her fabulistic plots and sensuous prose, turns her attention to the notorious libertine, the Marquis de Sade. During the French Revolution, a Parisian fan-maker is arrested and tried in court for coauthoring a manuscript with Sade that accuses Spanish Inquisitor Bishop Landa of brutalizing and massacring the native population of the New World. Her blatant indictment of a sanctioned moral figure outrages the jury committee, especially given her own notorious past: her association with the sodomite Sade, her celebrity as an artisan who decorates her fans with pornographic imagery, and her lesbian liaison with a negress. ...
The Walking Tour
by Kathryn Davis
This walking tour ends, literally, at a jumping-off place. It ends, too, at the end of the world. Kathryn Davis's beautifully written tale begins and ends in Wales, a country she would have us believe is looped and configured with myths that govern modern life as well as they did in the days of yore. Four Americans--two couples--make a trip there at the end of the 20th century. By journey's end, two of the four will disappear in a mist on the Gower peninsula. Years later, Susan, the daughter of one of the couples, cobbles their story together from diaries, court documents, and letters. The novel teeters between the Wales of the walking tour and the gray, mysterious, post-Apocalyptic world she endures.
The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life of Senator Joe McCarthy
by William F., Jr. Buckley
If Joseph McCarthy hadn't existed, someone would have had to invent him--the communist witch-hunt he unleashed on 1950s America was, after all, the stuff of epic fiction. Now, it seems, someone has invented the senator from Wisconsin, or at least revised him. And that someone is none other than archconservative political pundit and sometime novelist William F. Buckley Jr., whose 12th work of fiction presents McCarthy in what many readers will consider an original light: that of a hero.Waiting
by Ha Jin
"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, Waiting uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese Army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet). Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid Army officers to divorce without their wives' consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which they are free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom, and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut." Then killing time becomes its own kind of rut, and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting."Who I Was Supposed To Be
by Susan Perabo
If Susan Perabo wrote pop songs instead of fiction, they'd be filled with the kinds of hooks that get stuck in one's head for hours. The first line of nearly every story in her debut, Who I Was Supposed to Be, is a testament to her infectiousness. Just try to read these openings without wanting to unravel the whole yarn:Enchanted Night
by Steven Millhauser
In novels such as Edwin Mullhouse and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser conjured fictions as intricate and delicately formed as soap bubbles. True to form, his Enchanted Night seems to want to float right up out of the reader's hand. In its pages are many of Millhauser's trademark fascinations: dolls; mannequins; an obsessed artist; teenage girls meeting secretly at night; and above all, the strangeness lurking just under the surface of everyday life. Set entirely over the course of one night, Enchanted Night follows the denizens of a Connecticut town as they rise from their beds under the light of a brilliant, almost-full moon. Fourteen-year-old Laura Engstrom wakes to a restlessness so fierce that "if she doesn't do something right away, this second, she'll scream." Middle-aged Haverstraw (who still lives with his mother) writes for hours in the attic, then leaves to wander the streets. Janet Manning trysts with a lover in her yard, and a band of teenage girls breaks into houses only to leave behind the cryptic message "WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS." Meanwhile, more magical events are afoot. "This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods," a chorus of night voices tells us--and a mannequin begins to stir behind a store window, while all over town, abandoned dolls and stuffed animals come slowly to life.
Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail
by Leslie Epstein
Sonja Henie, Carmen Miranda, and Esther Williams have something more in common than simply their film careers--all have been romanced by Leib Goldkorn, the nonagenarian hero of Leslie Epstein's Ice Fire Water. Readers familiar with this elderly Holocaust survivor from Epstein's 1976 The Steinway Quintet and 1985 Goldkorn Tales will already know that he is hardly the most reliable of narrators. Even a newcomer to the Goldkorn universe will quickly find his or her suspicions aroused by the amazing role serendipity plays in the protagonist's life--if not his star-crossed romance with New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani. (An October 29, 1999 Times front-page personal ad reads: "Dear sweet Miss Michiko K.--Call your Leib Goldkorn.")
Selected Reading: Nonfiction
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