Beyond Bestsellers - Fiction, Summer 2020

Great recent titles you may have missed, selected by our librarians.

July - September 2020 Issue

       

See also:

Ackerman, Elliot.  Red Dress in Black and White.  
An American woman living in Turkey, unhappily married to a Turkish real estate developer, is having an affair with an American photographer, while another woman who works at the U.S. Consulate seems to be orchestrating events around them.

Adimi, Kaouther.  Our Riches.  
This novel tells the story of an influential bookstore which an Algerian man named Edmond Charlot opened in Algiers in 1936.

Appanah, Nathacha.  Tropic of Violence.
This harrowing novel, set on the French island of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, tells the story of a boy who was raised by a foster mother, and then finding himself alone after her death, becomes involved with a vicious gang.

Barry, Sebastian.  A Thousand Moons.  
This sequel continues the story of a Lakota Indian girl orphaned by a massacre, who is rescued by two Civil War veterans who take her to live on their farm in Tennessee. After she and another family member are brutally attacked, the young woman sets out to find their assailants.

Beah, Ishmael.  Little Family.
In this novel set in an African country similar to Sierra Leone, five children, the victims of civil war, make a home and a family in an abandoned airplane, where they survive by stealing what they need to live.

Bieker, Chelsea.  Godshot.  
In a drought-stricken California town that has turned to a religious leader who promises that he will bring rain if his orders are obeyed, a teenaged girl goes in search of her mother, who has been banished.

Cha, Frances.  If I Had Your Face.  
The unrealistic beauty standards placed on Korean women are explored through the stories of four women who live in the same apartment building in Seoul, South Korea.

Chang, Alexandra.  Days of Distraction.
A first generation Chinese-American woman struggles to be taken seriously at her job as a technology reporter in Silicon Valley, and after following her white boyfriend to Ithaca, New York, she feels even more isolated.

Christie, Michael.  Greenwood.
This multi-generational novel begins in the year 2038 at a time when most of the world’s trees have died, and examines the history and environmental legacy of a family of lumber barons.

Ford, Richard.  Sorry for Your Trouble: Stories.
The protagonists in these short stories are mostly older men, their lives disrupted by divorce or death, who struggle to put the pieces of their lives back together, while discovering that they never fit together in the first place.

Francis-Sharma, Lauren.  Book of the Little Axe.
This historical novel takes its heroine, the daughter of free Black property owners in Trinidad in the 1790s, to her marriage to a chief of the Crow Nation in Montana, and then continues with the story of her son.

Haratischvili, Nino.  The Eighth Life.  
This novel tells the story of an elite family in the Russian republic of Georgia, from their financial success as chocolatiers before the Bolshevik Revolution to the Georgian uprising in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Jedrowski, Tomasz.  Swimming in the Dark.
In Poland in the early 1980s, two young men meet and fall in love while working at a summer camp, but one of them is an idealist, who is increasingly troubled by the other’s willingness to make compromises with a corrupt political system.

Jiles, Paulette.  Simon the Fiddler.
In this novel set in Texas after the Civil War, a musician who served in the Confederate Army falls in love with an Irish woman who is an indentured servant, and travels around the state playing music with a band to raise the money he needs to buy land and marry her.
 
Majumdar, Megha.  A Burning.
After a poor Muslim woman, new to social media, witnesses a horrifying terrorist attack on a train in Bengal and posts her criticism of the Police, she finds herself arrested and accused of the crime.
 
Masad, Ilana.  All My Mother’s Lovers.  
After the sudden death of her mother, a young woman sets out to hand-deliver five sealed letters that had been left with her will, all addressed to men who were important in her mother’s life.

Melchor, Fernanda.  Hurricane Season.
A witch living in a Mexican village is found dead in an irrigation canal, and the villagers share their memories and rumors about her life and death.

Millet, Lydia.  A Children’s Bible.
In this allegorical novel, a group of wealthy East Coasters get together for a vacation at a lakeside rental mansion; after a massive storm disrupts their lives, their adolescent children take charge and escape to a nearby farmhouse.

Momplaisir, Francesca.  My Mother’s House.
In this dark fantasy, a Haitian man marries a much younger woman, and brings her and their three little daughters to a house in Queens, New York, but the house itself becomes horrified by the man’s predatory activities, and sets itself on fire to kill him.

Nam-Joo, Cho.  Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.
This is the story of a young Korean woman who has a psychological breakdown after a lifetime of sexism and discrimination, beginning with her childhood, when she was held to a different standard than her brother.

Nguyen, Phan Que Mai.  The Mountains Sing.
The story of a Vietnamese family who lived through the Japanese and French occupations, as well as the long war with the United States, recalled by a woman and the grandmother who raised her.
 
O’Connor, Joseph.  Shadowplay.  
This historical novel depicts the friendships of three famous Victorians – the actors, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, and Bram Stoker, a theater manager and author of the novel, Dracula.

Pochoda, Ivy.  These Women.
In this gritty thriller set in a South Los Angeles neighborhood, fifteen years after thirteen women were murdered by a serial killer, more women are found killed in the same way, and a young Latina detective pursues the case.  

Sofer, Dalia.  Man of My Time.
After an Iranian man comes to New York on a diplomatic mission, is reunited with the family he hasn’t seen since their exile in 1979, and is given his father’s ashes to take back to Iran, he looks back on his life, and explores how he became an unapologetic supporter of a dictatorial regime.
 
Thammavongsa, Souvankham.  How to Pronounce Knife: Stories.  
These fourteen short stories by a Laotian-Canadian author explore the lives of working class Laotian immigrants in North America.

Thomas, Elisabeth.  Catherine House.
This supernatural story takes place at a prestigious but mysterious school, whose students give up all contact with the outside world for the three years of their enrollment.

Washburn, Kawai Strong.  Sharks in the Time of Saviors.
The lives of a working class Hawaiian family are changed forever after one of their children falls overboard during a boat tour and is rescued by sharks.

Wayne, Teddy.  Apartment.
Two young aspiring fiction writers– one from a wealthy family, and the other a community college graduate from a small town in Illinois, become friends in New York in the late 1960’s, until their different backgrounds lead to a break-up.

Wolfe, Paul.  The Lost Diary of M.  
A fictionalized diary of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a woman who, according to rumor, had a serious relationship with John F. Kennedy during his presidency.

Wright, Steven.  The Coyotes of Carthage.  
In this cynical political novel about dark money, an African-American ex-con who works as a political consultant for a shady Washington, D.C. firm runs a campaign in South Carolina to elect a new county manager who will sell valuable public land to a metals conglomerate.

Yu, An.  Braised Pork.
After a young Chinese woman finds her husband dead in their bathtub, she experiences strange dreams, returns to making art, starts a new relationship, and travels to Tibet.

Zhang, C Pam.  How Much of These Hills Is Gold.  
A Chinese family comes to America to prospect for gold, but finds that the gold rush has already ended. After the father dies, his children travel through the West with their father’s corpse, searching for a place to bury him where his ghost can rest.