1) Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
This novel marks an expansion in the scope of Catton's work. The Luminaries and The Rehearsal were brimming with ambition, but Birnam Wood, which also explores a host of weighty themes, successfully grafts them to the thriller form. The novel reminds me of Joseph Conrad's Victory in that it seeks to wed the author's high falutin preoccupations within a more populist framework. Victory was criticized at the time, by H.L. Mencken in particular, as a potboiler not worthy of Conrad's talent. Catton interweaves her characters into an inexorable, bloody, and Shakespearean tragedy, giving the book a dynamism largely absent from her previous work. The social and political complexity in Catton's work, inspired by models like Austen and George Eliot, are very much in evidence in Birnam Wood. An anti-capitalist and ecological fervor informs the book, but Catton is too much of a psychological realist to not know that the better angel's of mankind's nature are oft ignored. Accordingly, even the Musk like villain of the piece has his reasons.
2) Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham
3) White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
Fiercely funny fables for adults.
4) The Winter People by John Ehle
This 1982 novel is set in Appalachia during the Depression. Ehle's exploration of the mountain folk transcends "regional writing" and has a density and seriousness to its portraits that put to shame most of the highly praised American literature of the era. As for me, on to more of his books.
5) Toad by Katherine Dunn
An caustic look at the counterculture, Portland Oregon style. Dunn's best book.
6) The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
McMurtry is a slippery figure who went from debunker to mythologist of the American West, but he never wrote a more elegantly concise book
7) Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
I've enjoyed all of Ms. Groff's work, but this novel about a playwright and their mate is her most enjoyable. I especially appreciated the burlesquing of the various theatrical styles of the last half century.
8) Country Girl by Edna O'Brien
This memoir is as tart and compelling as her fiction. Whether romancing Robert Mitchum or being brought down from her RD Laing induced trip by Sean Connery, Ms. O' Brien offers one compelling anecdote after another.
9) Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
I've been holding this in reserve because I knew it would be a sheer pleasure.
10) Nobody's Fool by Bill Griffith
The graphic novel Griffith was born to write, an affectionate biography of Schlitzie the Pinhead. Schlitzie was one of the featured players in Tod Browning's Freaks and the inspiration for Griffith's greatest creation, Zippy the Pinhead.
I also thoroughly enjoyed:
One Hundred Demons by Lynda Berry
What About This by Frank Stanford
City of Nets by Otto Friedrich
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
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