The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler (Random House). This chronicle of New York City covers four “convulsive and consequential” years in its history, 1986 through 1989, an era that included the AIDS and crack epidemics, rolling corruption scandals, rising crime, and a giddy Wall Street high on junk bonds. The book tracks activists, artists, politicians, and tycoons—Larry Kramer, Spike Lee, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump, among others—as they vie to make their marks, creating legacies still palpable today. Each chapter covers a single year, shifting between characters and story lines in a narrative as sprawling and multifaceted as the city itself.
Trying, by Chloé Caldwell (Graywolf). In this electrically candid memoir about attempting to get pregnant without I.V.F., Caldwell writes, “Supposedly the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over but expect different results, but isn’t that precisely what trying to get pregnant and failing is?” Caldwell, an essay writer and teacher, manages to be funny while handling tender subjects, such as infertility and the discovery that her husband has an extramarital sex addiction. “I knew something was wrong,” she recounts. “I thought it was perhaps blocked fallopian tubes, and it ended up being sex workers in Geneva.”
Illustration by Ben Hickey
Discover notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
