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Fiction A to Z October 2020
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| Homeland Elegies by Ayad AkhtarWhat it is: a thought-provoking literary novel-in-stories about being Pakistani-American before and after 9/11, with clear parallels to the author's own life.
About the author: Ayad Akhtar is, like his protagonist, the son of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan and a Pulitzer-winning playwright known for a complex, controversial play about being Muslim-American after 9/11.
What reviewers say: It's "a provocative and urgent examination of the political and economic conditions that shape personal identity, especially for immigrants and communities of color" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa GyasiStarring: Ghanaian American Gifty, a neuroscience PhD candidate studying neural pathways in mice as a way of understanding the loss and suffering in her family -- though she insists that's not what she's doing.
Why you might like it: Gifty's a reflective and observant narrator, nimbly moving from analyzing previous relationships or her childhood church's entrenched racism to noting her lab mate's quirks or her mother's struggles.
Read it for: a complex, non-linear story that examines faith and science, addiction and grief. |
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| Sisters by Daisy JohnsonStarring: September and July, teen sisters who are perceived to be abnormally close by their teachers. After an incident so destructive that July, who helps narrate, cannot remember it, their mother moves them back to a tumbledown family home on England's North York Moors.
What happens: essentially abandoned by their mother, who is fighting her own demons, the relationship between the two girls shifts...but to say more would ruin this unsettling novel.
For fans of: dark, character-driven stories with overtones of Gothic fiction or horror. |
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The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysettby Annie LyonsWanting to organize an assisted death on her own terms, a world-weary octogenarian forges an unexpected bond with an exuberant 10-year-old who drags her to tea parties, shopping sprees and other social excursions. 100,000 first printing.
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| His Only Wife by Peace Adzo MedieStarring: young Ghanaian Afi Tekple, who escapes poverty with an arranged marriage to wealthy Eli, who does not attend his own wedding and prioritizes his business (and his mistress) over Afi.
What happens: Making full use of her new family's connections, Afi learns new skills and gains confidence -- and soon wants to be the only woman in her husband's life.
What reviewers say: "an emotional rollercoaster" (Booklist). |
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The Turner House by Angela FlournoyLearning that after a half-century of family life that their house on Detroit's East Side is worth only a fraction of its mortgage, the members of the Turner family gather to reckon with their pasts and decide the house's fate.
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| Lost and Wanted by Nell FreudenbergerWhat it's about: Wealthy, stylish Charlie (who is Black) and nerdy scholarship student Helen (who is white) were best friends and roommates in college. Twenty years later, Charlie is dead...but Helen continues to receive texts from her.
Is it for you? This complex, leisurely paced novel is as much a character study of Helen, now a respected scientist, as it is a story of female friendship. Deep discussions of physics add an intriguing layer of appeal. |
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| Night Theater by Vikram ParalkarStarring: a village surgeon somewhere in rural India, whose last three patients of the night are a family recently killed by highwaymen. They've been told by an angel that if the doctor can fix their bodies by dawn, they will live again.
Why you might like it: With a fable-like feel -- albeit with realistic medical descriptions, fairly straightforward writing style, and some clever humor -- this curious tale tackles big questions of mortality and death. |
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| This Town Sleeps by Dennis E. StaplesWhat happens: Marion Lafournier, a young Ojibwe man in a relationship with a deeply closeted white man, follows the ghost of a dog to the grave of a local basketball star murdered ten years previously, launching him on a quest to find the truth -- and to repair ties within his own family.
Why you might like it: Wry humor and a nonlinear narrative distinguish Ojibwe author Dennis Staples' debut, which captures the crushing lack of options in his Minnesota reservation hometown from multiple perspectives. |
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Past perfect by Danielle SteelAn abrupt job relocation that takes them from their well-ordered Manhattan life to San Francisco triggers a collision between the past and present for a successful married couple who during a small earthquake experience visions of their new home's original inhabitants from a century earlier.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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