September 13, 2025
Gay polyamory, heartache, and obsession; five Black women across twenty years of friendship; an alternative universe where four adolescents must escape their fate; a newly built prison in Tokyo causing controversy; and a searing memoir tracing generations of women in one family to tell a larger story of Black American history—all feature in our column this week.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Middle Spoon
By ALEJANDRO VARELA
Published by VIKING
Not your typical story of heartbreak—and what a joy that is. Varela’s second novel also addresses infidelity, but from a different angle: Our narrator is poly, and has both a devoted husband and a young sexy boyfriend, Ben. But when Ben dumps him after realizing he is not willing to share him, our narrator spirals into writing endless emails to him—but never sending them—to work out his feelings. The author says he “essentially becomes a 17-year-old, but has the intelligence and maturity of a middle-aged person.” The result is an utterly of-the-moment and often very funny novel of modern life.
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The Wilderness
By ANGELA FLOURNOY
Published by MARINER
Just longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, Flournoy returns a decade after her highly praised first novel with an examination of a group of Black women from 2008 to the near future. Desiree waits tables in L.A., and we first meet her as she takes her grandfather to Switzerland for assisted suicide; her bossy sister is doing a residency in Cleveland; Nakia lives in Manhattan and runs a successful restaurant; January is about to have a child; and Monique is a librarian. These women’s lives intersect through the bonds of friendship as Flournoy explores group dynamics and the challenges of approaching middle-age. They are all great company.
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The Book of Guilt
By CATHERINE CHIDGEY
Published by CARDINAL
New Zealander Chidgey is an extraordinary writer who more people should know. In an unrecognizable 1979, we find ourselves in an English home for orphans where triplets Vincent (one of the narrators), William, and Lawrence are the only children still in residence. They are given ‘medicine’ to keep them well. But is it medicine? Nancy, living in a grand house nearby, is kept inside by her parents, but why? All the kids are thirteen. The journey to uncover the secrets of their lives generates a dystopian portrait of an eerily possible alternative world. It reads a bit like Atwood’s future visions or even Ishiguro; I couldn’t put it down.
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Sympathy Tower Tokyo
By RIE QUDAN
Published by SUMMIT BOOKS
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Qudan’s fascinating novel, which won the Akutagawa Prize in Japan, is an exploration of language—particularly two systems of Japanese writing, kanji and katakana—and some big ideas: think Tower of Babel and the politics of the criminal justice system. The setting is a future Tokyo where a skyscraper prison is being built by Sarah Machina (great name), a celebrated architect who won a design competition. Using AI to help her design the building turns out to be divisive for its ubiquitous place in the skyline and the fact that it is incredibly luxurious. Is that what the inmates deserve? This provocative little novel packs a very big punch.
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The Waterbearers
By SASHA BONÉT
Published by KNOPF
Bonét’s gorgeous, clear-eyed memoir brings you in immediately, revealing the story of generations of the Black women in her family from the Louisiana bayou to Houston and beyond. Sasha tells us, “Water flow […] reminds me of my inheritance. The way my mother and grandmother pour into me, and I into my daughter.” From her grandmother who bore 11 children including Connie, Sasha’s mother, she conveys the enduring legacy of strife, trauma, and, above all, great resilience. She captures the entire cultural history of American Black women. It is a poetic tribute to matriarchy that is even more powerful for providing a compassionate narrative that is both general and specific.
