June 15, 2024
The characters in this week’s selection are often introspective—sometimes to their detriment. This results in soulful contemplation, hilarity, disaster, and joy in equal measure. Life is an enigma, and these gifted writers are welcome guides in unraveling its pleasures and challenges. Three of these exceptional books will be launched soon at The Center.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Parade
By Rachel Cusk
Published by FSG
Cusk’s (Outline) newest puzzle of a book transports the reader into her brilliant sphere of storytelling. I advise letting go and allowing the heady investigations of self, identity, gender, art, and literature to wash over you. Don’t try to disentangle the four threads of her narrative; they inform each other in subtle ways. The group of interconnected characters whose unnamed members seem to all be ‘G’ includes an artist whose work is painted upside down, a novelist, a filmmaker, a mentally abusive mother, and a useless father. Cusk’s signature spare style is provocative and mind-bending. In the end, it all comes down to attempting to answer the question, what is a life?
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Caledonian Road
By ANDREW O'HAGAN
Published by W. W. NORTON
Campbell is a hapless Scottish art historian specializing in the work of Vermeer. Married with two children, he aspires to better book sales and, under a pseudonym, has written a self-help book with the unlikely title of Why Men Weep in Their Cars. He hires an actor to tour as the author—a choice that becomes one of his many problems. His mother-in-law is a countess, so he considers himself protected from self-inflicted folly. But when he gets involved with a student activist and some dicey Russians, big trouble ensues. O’Hagan is a highly entertaining storyteller and Campbell’s fall from grace is dramatic. Reminiscent of the biting satire of Waugh, it’s a great takedown not only of the aristocracy and the government, but of the art and fashion worlds as well.
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1974: A Personal History
By FRANCINE PROSE
Published by HARPER
Of Prose’s (The Vixen) many novels and works of nonfiction, none are memoirs. In 1974 she had a brief, life-changing relationship with a traumatized political radical. Anthony Russo was, with Daniel Ellsberg, responsible for the publishing of the Pentagon Papers. For Prose, a budding novelist who had fled a marriage and the East Coast for an adventure in San Francisco, the attraction was immediate. They took long car rides during which he told endless stories of his risky escapades. This fascinating book becomes a much bigger story about America—the shame surrounding the Vietnam War, Nixon’s resignation, and Patty Hearst’s kidnapping—a seminal moment in our country’s history.
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God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer
By Joseph Earl Thomas
Published by Grand Central
This outrageous debut follows Thomas’s acclaimed memoir, and hews closely to some of those autobiographical elements. The title refers to the muffins distributed to soldiers during the Iraq War. “Ever since my youth on the receiving end of grown men’s knuckles I’d always wondered how they would die; decades of free therapy though…has obliterated my revenge fantasies and my outward animosity.” This quote from his war vet protagonist working in a Philadelphia hospital gives the reader a taste of Thomas’s vivid prose. He uses language as a magic wand to convey the dilemma of a Black man determined to overcome a traumatic childhood. It is spectacular.
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Same As It Ever Was
By Claire Lombardo
Published by Doubleday
In Lombardo’s second novel (The Most Fun We Ever Had) we meet Julia, married for thirty years, mother of two, with an even-keeled life of suburban bliss. Two decades ago, she almost blew up her life. The memories come rushing back when she runs into a former friend at the grocery store. Helen’s son was the young adonis with whom Julia had entered into an ill-advised affair. Helen was not someone Julia wanted to see again, ever. Lombardo, in both her novels of domestic dynamics, says she tends toward the “messiness” of families. Terrific on character, plot, tone, style, and just about everything, this is a perfect summer read.
