March 30, 2024
Five very special novels by women bring Women’s History Month to a close: an unlikely friendship in the Orkney Islands; a writer reflecting on stories never fully told; a person who finds herself in a Groundhog’s Day situation with alternative endings; a young woman navigating shifting time frames in Prague; and a Greek myth updated for a contemporary mother-daughter story.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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The Cemetery of Untold Stories
By JULIA ALVAREZ
Published by ALGONQUIN
Alvarez’s beautiful new novel synthesizes the themes she has touched upon in her many books: storytelling, sisterhood, family differences, the violent legacy of the Dominican Republic, the allure of ‘home,’ and of ‘up North,’ and the craft of writing itself. Doña Alma inherits a plot of land in the DR which she decides to dedicate to all the unfinished stories she could not (or chose not to) complete. Here she buries her manuscripts and papers, tended to by her groundskeeper Filomena. Voices of both the living and the departed enrich Alvarez’s tale with the lovely metaphor of a ‘garden’ of stories, some revealing secrets, all filling the story with unforgettable characters.
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Clear
By CARYS DAVIES
Published by SCRIBNER
It is the mid-1880s when John Ferguson of the Scottish Free Church is sent for a month to a remote island in the Orkneys tasked with removing Ivar, its lone inhabitant, as part of the ‘clearing,’ a forced eviction program. After an accident on the cliffs, Ivar, ignorant of John’s mission, nurses John back to health in his peaty hovel and a tender friendship develops. A quietly magnificent novel full of vivid descriptions of the cold, harsh beauty of this remote land, Clear brings together two unlikely people in this unforgiving landscape. The choices that must be made to preserve their fragile bond are equally poignant and psychologically profound.
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Parasol Against the Axe
By HELEN OYEYEMI
Published by RIVERHEAD
Oyeyemi’s latest is a wild ride through the city of Prague—a mere plot description won’t convey the exhilaration of the journey. Protagonist Hero comes to the Czech city for a bachelorette getaway, a ‘hen party’ of an ex-friend. The narrator of the novel is…Prague itself. Within that framework there are recurring excerpts of a novel-within-the-novel that changes its stories and content with each rereading. Parasol Against the Axe is about a city, friendship, and the extremes prose can go to in creating a giddy, mind-bending trip. Don’t spend too much time worrying over what it all means—just enjoy a weird and wonderful Borgesian reading experience.
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The Husbands
By HOLLY GRAMAZIO
Published by DOUBLEDAY
When Lauren comes home drunk from a night out with her girlfriend a strange man is in her apartment. Is this her husband? Some things are familiar, but some are not. Slowly she pieces it together, but when this ‘stranger’ returns from fixing a lightbulb in their attic, he is an entirely different man. Repeat. That’s the conceit of Gramazio’s comic romp that hits the sweet spot between commercial and literary as Lauren’s life is laid out in alternative scenarios. The Husbands is a clever look into life’s infinite choices and at the path not taken, over and over and over again.
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Fruit of the Dead
By RACHEL LYON
Published by SCRIBNER
Madeline Miller’s excellent Circe heralded an influx of ancient myth retellings. Lyon’s entry, which updates the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter, is among the very best. As Lyon states, her novel “speak[s] implicitly to the ancientness of this story about power, seduction, and betrayal.” Here she mirrors the myth’s theme of the inextricable bonds between mothers and daughters and the sexual dynamics of men over women. Set on a sumptuous island, 18-year-old Cory has ill-advisedly accepted a job offered by a rich pharma CEO. And so, it begins. Lyon’s debut Self-Portrait with Boy, was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Check out the terrific Brooklyn reading series she co-founded here.
