Challenges we all face \u2014 in one form or another \u2014 are reflected in new books this month: Nonfiction titles about climate change, Indigenous issues and racism offer new perspectives on reality \u2014 yet so do fiction titles about parental rage, first-responder trauma and past loves. However, as long as there are humans writing, there will also be books filled with wit and joy. Happy reading!<\/p>\n
FICTION <\/p>\n
Shadow Ticket<\/a> At 88, in his first novel in more than a decade<\/a>, Pynchon turns not to dystopian modern America, but to the comforts of noir fiction. His gumshoe, Hicks McTaggart, starts out in Depression-era Milwaukee, investigating the disappearance of the heiress to a dairy fortune. Like a cheese sauce, the plot thickens \u2014 before long McTaggart lands in Central Europe, where new complications for the detective et al. allow his famed but reclusive creator to indulge in his singularly sly and humorous writing.<\/p>\n The Wayfinder<\/a> In the remote South Pacific during the Middle Ages, a young leader, K\u014drero, accepts food for her starving people. In return, she agrees that Bird Island will support two Tongan princes in their battle against their uncle, who has seized power. While the long, twisty plot about the politics of war is spellbinding, Johnson (who won a Pulitzer for 2012\u2019s \u201cThe Orphan Master\u2019s Son\u201d) excels at showing how an oral tradition\u2019s stories provide nourishment.<\/p>\n Big Kiss, Bye-Bye<\/a> Like Joris-Karl Huysmans did with \u201cThe Damned,\u201d which the protagonist is reading, Bennett (\u201cCheckout 19\u201d) crafts an epistolary novel not in letters sent, but in letters that protagonist puts in her journal, to men with whom she\u2019s had (in her words) \u201cdealings with,\u201d including one who will no longer respond, and one who can\u2019t. The gap between bodily experience and how to capture it on the page results in writing swollen with desire \u2014 and its rare fulfillment.<\/p>\n Bad Bad Girl<\/a> Originally intended as a memoir, Jen\u2019s account of a Chinese-born mother and her American-born daughter works brilliantly as a novel because only fiction could give this deceased parent (Jen\u2019s mother died in 2020) a full, contrapuntal voice. As the elder berates her child for being a \u201cbad bad girl,\u201d the reader will hear the echoes of her own mother\u2019s chastisements, a song of intergenerational despair.<\/p>\n Sacrament<\/a> Three first-responder nurses during the pandemic live in a hastily planned trailer park near the San Bernardino hospital where all day, every day they confront the comatose and the dying. Cherrise, Larette and Marisol (the first two are cousins) are torn between caring for their patients and missing their families in a moment few of us will soon forget. Straight offers their grief and work much as a celebrant holds up a sacrifice, for all to see and contemplate.<\/p>\n NONFICTION Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age<\/a> Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Nation, spent three terms as U.S. Poet Laureate. Her first memoir, 2012\u2019s \u201cCrazy Brave,\u201d focused on the birth and development of her poetic voice. In \u201cGirl Warrior,\u201d she uses her life experience to inspire, particularly to inspire younger Native women, writing about the importance of stories and songs to build community. As Harjo has written, \u201cRemember that you are all people and all people are you.\u201d It\u2019s a beautiful memoir.<\/p>\n The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It\u2019s Too Late<\/a> Last year, the authors released \u201cOvershoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown.\u201d \u201cThe Long Heat\u201d details what might occur if capitalism based on fossil fuels cannot be overturned, in three sections with bleak views on adaptation, emissions and geo-engineering. Many will argue with their conclusions, but their impeccable research and clear-cut cause-and-effect scenarios might at least spur actionable change.<\/p>\n Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here, 2012-2025<\/a> Cobb, dean of the Columbia graduate school of journalism, co-edited the 2021 updated \u201cEssential Kerner Commission Report,\u201d originally written after the 1965 Watts Riots, and his new book dives into the hypocrisies of Black life in America. Much of this work was first published in the New Yorker, where Cobb is a staff writer.<\/p>\n
By Thomas Pynchon
Penguin Press: 304 pages, $30
(Oct. 7)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Adam Johnson
MCD: 736 pages, $30
(Oct. 14)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Claire-Louise Bennett
Riverhead: 224 pages, $29
(Oct. 21)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Gish Jen
Knopf: 352 pages, $30
(Oct. 21)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Susan Straight
Counterpoint: 352 pages, $29
(Oct. 28)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Joy Harjo
W. W. Norton: 176 pages, $22
(Oct. 7)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Andreas Malm & Wim Carton
Verso: 656 pages, $40
(Oct. 7)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
By Jelani Cobb
One World: 496 pages, $32
(Oct. 14)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n