If you don’t know this by now, Justin Torres’ novel Blackouts won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. (Book awards don’t get too much bigger than that.) It also has a special place on Wikipedia: an entire page/entry dedicated to it. It is a novel that “tickles the brain,” as I’m wont to say lately. It’s historical fiction, but part of it is actual history. How much of it is true and how much of it is fiction is open-ended. Using the 1941 medical guide Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns as a jumping-off point, it tells the story of a man named Juan Gay who is nearing death and living in a kind of institution or hospice. An unnamed younger man who met Juan briefly when he was hospitalized in a mental institution as a teenager visits Juan’s bedside to learn more about Jan Gay (née Helen Reitman), whose case studies in New York City and Europe during the 1920s and ’30s formed the basis of the Sex Variants book. The novel oscillates between the narrator’s (nicknamed Nene) conversations with Juan and excerpts from Sex Variants that the author partially redacts. As a bonus, there’s a 32-page zine of homosexual slang illustrated with found photos and paintings appended to Blackouts — which is informative for how much homosexual slang has percolated into pop culture: ga-ga (as in Lady?) and mamas and papas (as in the musical group?) were gay slang at one point.

As I read Blackouts, I felt like I was watching a play. Since much of the narration is monologues and shared conversations, the text has a performative aspect. I could imagine a Christopher Plummer-like figure in the role of Juan, and perhaps the narrator would have his back turned to the audience. I also found the redacted pages of the Sex Variants study to read as poetry. And, of course, the added photographs and illustrations usually have faces scratched out, rendering the text and accompanying pictures almost anonymous. There’s so much going on here that having a bead on it or writing about it is hard. This is one of those innovative novels that are best experienced for oneself. To that end, I would implore you to go out and seek out this book. For the straight audience, it may open one’s eyes to just how much history about the queer community has been either forgotten about or dismissed as deviant. In addition, the main characters’ conversations turn into discussions about their past personal histories as if it were a film. Thus, one’s personal history as a gay man is something that is removed from oneself — as though the protagonist were watching the past unspool in thought detached from one’s viewpoint.

The novel also works as a collage (which is not an original thought; at least one other writer has pointed this out) in the same way that the musician Beck makes sonic pastiches out of genre. It’s bits and pieces that the reader must tease out and put together on their own. To me, though, this novel transcends the boundaries of what is a queer relationship. Unless I was sleeping, I didn’t quite catch if Juan and “Nene” were lovers in the past, but I imagined them as friends as Juan relates his past — very good, close friends. Thus, imagining how “Nene” seemingly knows this man fleetingly is hard. Reading Blackouts is like watching two close buddies catching up on the years behind them. It’s as delicious as eating scones and sipping tea as one reads on. You can see why this novel won a prestigious book award. If I may continue with the food metaphors, reading the book is a little like eating at a buffet. It has a little of everything to keep readers engaged and interested.

Overall, I found Blackouts to be a triumphant, important book. The way it tries to humanize relationships between the sexes, even as it is being dissected and condemned by the medical establishment of the World War II years, is striking. I know it’s a cliché in my writing, but there’s a lot on offer here to think about, and — another cliché — might be worth revisiting at some point in the future to see if this momentous work still stands up. Still, those who have yet to hear of this work should run out and get a copy of it — even if you’re not queer (and, perhaps, especially if you’re not queer). This treatise on longing and love transcends all gender boundaries and sexual preferences. It’s elegant and playful simultaneously — the endnotes wind up being a part of the narrative in a bold move. If you like thoughtful and sterling fiction, you must find Blackouts and add it to your life. It’s worth more than a cursory look; this is a treasure.

Justin Torres’ Blackouts was published by Picador on October 8, 2024.

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Dionne Brand is one of Canada’s most celebrated writers, at least in my eyes. I’ve only read two of her previous works, the affecting What We All Long For and her experimental novel Theory. To a certain degree, I’m hot and cold on her. Still, I do respect her for her incredible academic and intellectual brain. Originally published in Canada in 2001, A Map to the Door of No Return — a long-form essay — was republished in her native land last year and is now being published for the first time south of the border in the United States, this time with a new afterword that does little to illuminate the text presented (it was highly specialized — the sort of thing you might read in a PhD dissertation.) Though dated and referencing culturally specific things of the year it was first published, the essay is intriguing — even if there were parts I didn’t understand. Effectively fusing a memoir and cultural criticism, A Map to the Door of No Return is groundbreaking. It accounts for the Black Diaspora and its existence without context or history. Sure, everyone knows where slaves were stolen from — Africa. But where in Africa? How can a person’s lineage be traced back to the continent when slave owners shoddily kept records? And also, there’s the notion that a door of no return — metaphorically speaking — can be many doors. Doors from many different places, it seems.

The most interesting thing about this book is how Brand frames her Canadian-ness. She frequently refers to her home city of Toronto — if I can get away with calling Toronto her home city without seeming ignorant to what I think this book is trying to say — as American, as that frame of reference is only what people in the Caribbean can think of when trying to locate her latest home. I find that interesting because Toronto is Canada’s most American city, with all its gun violence and urban sprawl. Visiting Toronto — and I haven’t been back there in 15 years now — is a little like visiting a place of smug self-importance, a place that doesn’t feel remotely Canadian, and a place that exists without borders with all its multicultural fabric. Taken apart from the book’s focus on race, this idea fascinates me because it would imply that we are one big world and lines drawn on maps don’t matter. However, it’s also a scary thought because the United States terrifies me, a feeling bolstered by living in Toronto for two years as an adult. (Interestingly, Brand tells us in this work that she used to live on the same small street that I did 15 years ago. It’s a small world after all.)

The memoir aspects of this book are also intriguing, but they can sometimes feel vague and sparse in details — which may be the whole point of this writing. Although I’m not entirely sure what it’s doing in this book to an extent, Brand talks about the culture shock she experiences when she leaves the city for a home in the Kawarthas that she inhabits. She later overlays this experience with the experience of running into people from the same region of the West Indies that she’s from, trying to explain to them that she is of the Town but also not of the Town. (I hope I’m not mangling my interpretation of the prose.) Aside from this, much of the text is political and recounts her escape from certain death during the American invasion of Grenada. However, I’m unsure if she was living there or visiting or what her connection to that specific island was when she was born in Trinidad and Tobago — you must visit her Wikipedia page to understand the connection, which may be a fault of this still impressive work.

Overall, I liked A Map to the Door of No Return as an intellectual exercise, even if some of its content was slightly over my head. I’m glad that a work of Canadian non-fiction will now find an audience among Americans who may be interested in seeing beyond their own culture and borders. This sterling academic work should cement Brand’s reputation as a writer of significant importance. I’ll be honest and say that it is a little haphazard. I wish that some of the language was more precise rather than speaking in figurative tones to be more easily understood by the reader — but perhaps I, again, am missing the point. I feel that this book will linger in my consciousness. It should be read by anybody interested in learning more about the Black Canadian Diaspora and what it means to be a person of color in the Great White North. Who knows. Maybe I’ll have to reread it to tease out things I missed the first time, which is as good a recommendation as possible. This intrigues.

Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging was published by Picador on October 1, 2024.

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– Everyone says they don’t understand a work of art when they want to destroy it, said Celine.

– I don’t want to destroy it. Absolutely not, he said. — I just don’t get it –

– “The Future Future,” Adam Thirlwell.

Some time ago, I read Mordecai Richler’s St. Urbain’s Horseman. It initially was a confusing work until all the strands of the stream-of-consciousness narrative started to come together and make some sense or order. I thought of this feeling as I read Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future– a novel that holds intrigue but is too scattershot and distant to be genuinely effective. Unlike Richler’s work, The Future Future never really comes together and gets more unbelievable as it goes along (some of it is set on the moon!). It’s a story concerned with the notions of power and how out of reach that might seem for the ordinary woman. While it has some intriguing things to say and does so in bite-sized pieces, the novel never indeed coheres. While it does get more readable as it goes along, sadly, there’s little that I can say to recommend it. I know I’m not the only one: as of this writing, the book has only a 2.93 rating out of five on Goodreads from more than 300 people who rated it. (I feel that if a book has a rating of under three, it is verging on the territory of the terrible.) I want to be charitable and say something good about this book, but it is difficult. This is a case of not judging a book by the contents of its cover art, which is striking in the paperback version.

The novel is about a woman named Celine who lived during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. At the book’s outset, she is concerned about pornographic tracts that are being published about her and sets out to host lavish parties to attract men who may be able to undo these libels somehow. (Think lawyers and politicians, mostly. However, it’s hard to tell because a raft of characters is introduced at a distance from the reader, making it next to impossible to differentiate between who’s who.) The story unravels from there as she’s forced into exile in America, but not before she is transported to the 22nd century and finds a rocket ship that will take her to the moon. There, she finds a colony of aliens that she doesn’t get along with or understand fully, so she returns to Earth and her earthly problems. Her husband is a brute, and she is in love with another woman with whom she’s slept. For some reason, the late 1700s and early 1800s, in which Celine lives, are populated by racing boats, cinemas, and other anachronisms. No explanation is given for this, and none makes any sense in the context of the book except to situate its themes in the present here and now.

Thus, it’s hard to conclude as to whether this book is brilliant or not. Are the anachronisms there to augment the text, or is it the mark of lazy writing? Is the reader supposed to be detached from emotionally connecting with Celine and her friends? What is the meaning behind this book? And so it goes. I must say that perhaps once I had given up on making heads or tails of the plot — if you want to call it that — the novel became more pleasurable to read. I’m not sure if that’s because my expectations of it were somehow reduced or the writing got a little better. (At least the trip to the moon was a little enjoyable.) Ultimately, The Future Future winds up being a novel that is both historical fiction and not historical fiction. It is also science fiction, but not science fiction. There is a tension at its opposites that eventually makes this work somewhat intriguing, but not enough, unfortunately, to make this a successful read.

Perhaps, though, the whole point of The Future Future is to, as the author puts it late in one of the book’s passages, make “no sense.” “It was a long message, and it took Celine a very long time to read it because [another character’s] handwriting was incredibly neat and microscopic.” Is this something that sounds like a reflexive self-aware comment that Thirlwell is making about his work? I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t fully understand the nature of this novel, and, as such, it might have served better as a collection of linked short stories at a much pruned-back word count. But that’s me. If you’re curious about this one, I’m not stopping you from reading it. While The Future Future could have been so much more, it may tickle your brain in wonderment — wonderment at what is going on here within its well-manicured world.

Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future was published by Picador on October 15, 2024.

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I have read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness twice — once in high school and once in university — both in English classes. I wouldn’t say I liked the book the first time I read it. I cannot say why — I suppose, in my 17-year-old imagination, the book was dry and dull. However, the following year, I had to reread the book; this time, I immensely enjoyed it. I suppose that because I knew the plot and how it would end, I could lose myself in the poetic ambiance of the book’s prose. Or maybe the extra year of maturity had something to do with it. Anyhow, I suppose it helped that the book is only 100 pages long. Greg Jackson’s The Dimensions of a Cave — billed as a modern version of Heart of Darkness — is nearly 500 pages long. But it begs you to read the book twice. I don’t think I’ll take up the challenge of rereading this dense, uneven book; however, I suspect that one’s enjoyment of this lyrical work will be enhanced once one knows what to look for and skip over. (Like most epics, this book doesn’t need to be as lengthy as it is. I had a conversation with a friend some time ago over Haruki Murakami’s 1,000-page doorstop, 1Q84, and we both agreed that the novel would be better cut in half.)

I’m not trying to be churlish in my appraisal of this work. After all, Jackson reveals himself to be a genius. He is very, incredibly smart — way above my pay grade. And so, we are peppered with $100 words throughout the text of this novel: “perigean,” “littoral,” and “sedge” appear on the very first page. It may help to read the book with a dictionary by your side, though I suppose one might get more of the gist of the work and some of these words after reading through it once. However, as I said, Jackson is a revered writer who deserves much literary fame, even if I feel his best work may still be in front of him. The Dimensions of a Cave is a twisty, turny descent into the hell of virtual reality. It is more about the human mind’s darkness than the heart’s. Let me explain: the latter parts of the book feature dozens upon dozens of pages of the unspeakable horrors humans have laid upon one another through countless millennia of war. Honestly, and not wanting to be critical, sections of this work made me almost want to barf. If I can be critical of this work for a moment, it’s that The Dimensions of a Cave drives its point home and then bludgeons it to death. It goes on and on and on and on and on, seemingly nonstop, with passages about how sick and terrible people have been to one another, historically speaking.

So what’s the book about? Well, there’s this reporter named Quentin, who is on the trail of a hot story. However, one of his recent stories had either been spiked or shown up in the back pages of the A section of the newspaper. (It’s unclear what happened after I read this so that a second readthrough might assist with my understanding of the work.) The story Quentin is after is about a government program that creates a virtual reality for someone being interrogated about matters related to the war. (Which war? Well, the book seems to be set in a world like our own but is vague on the precision of its details — leading me to speculate that this novel itself is “virtual.”) The more Quentin unravels, the more it seems his journalistic protégé, Bruce, is somehow involved. Thus, the book begins to feel like a journey into another reality to find Bruce and bring him back after his disappearance many years ago, covering the war.

As you can tell, The Dimensions of a Cave is a cerebral and philosophical work. It’s a little like listening in on a conversation between several academics. I probably gained a few IQ points by reading it, which is an excellent reason to eyeball it. However, it is mediocre and problematic — and the least of the problems is the repetitive nature of the book’s central conceit. Quentin comes across as more of a hard-boiled detective and less of a journalist, making him seem a little unbelievable. Plot threads are dropped, only to be picked up hundreds of pages later, meaning one must have a keen memory when reading this book. And it has dozens of characters who exist on the periphery of this novel, making it challenging to relate to. But should you read this book? The answer is … maybe. This is far from a masterpiece in my mind (and I do not mean to sound critical here), but it does have its moments. It is intelligent and bracingly honest. It sustains itself for almost 500 pages. And it will sometimes revolt you — disgust is not usually something you see in a book that Stephen King didn’t write. All in all, The Dimensions of a Cave is a book that wants you to read it twice. Perhaps I may change my appraisal if I do so, but I might wait for the cut-down version to be released. This is one overlong book, and much of it is hubris. Still, Heart of Darkness taught me something, so … who knows? Who knows? The horror of humanity. The horror.

Greg Jackson’s The Dimensions of a Cave was published by Picador on October 22, 2024.

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I feel that I’ve finally come to a book about which I feel woefully underqualified to write a review. It’s Dr. Guy Leschziner’s Seven Deadly Sins, a look at neurobiology related to gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, envy, lust, and anger. (With a chapter on free will thrown in for the heck of it. More on that in just a second.) It’s a book labeled as “controversial” by its publisher, St. Martin’s Press, because of its shocking declaration that human beings do not have free will because the synapses firing on all cylinders are so rapid that decisions are made in the brain before the thought that we humans may have. If I’m getting this right, that means that the cheeseburger you find yourself craving was decided to be ordered well in advance of you going to the local hamburger joint and plunking down money for some tasty ground beef on a bun. (With cheese!) The book is a little more complicated than that, and it’s a long one — it’ll take you about seven hours to get through it if you read indiscriminately. I think this might be a book that is best meant for academics and clinicians; the only reason I’ve read it is because a free advance copy was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I can say a few good things about this book. The most appealing aspect is easily the case studies that Dr. Leschziner presents. Culling from his patient records, the good doctor tells stories of people who have suffered brain injuries and have become promiscuous (that’s lust) or are suddenly prone to angry outbursts (that’s, well, anger). The premise itself is also likable: that the seven deadly sins are neurologically based instead of being a moral imperative — that is to say, we are hardwired to do bad things at some cellular level that a slight bump to the head can throw off-kilter. However, I wonder if this book is “controversial” for the wrong reasons. That is, if one is to believe Dr. Leschziner’s findings and hypothesis that sin is more a matter of the mind than of the heart, it can lead one to make the following conclusion: if a gene causes undesired behavior a, b, or c, then it would logically flow from that that that gene or piece of grey matter could be edited out. In other words, eugenics. To the best of my memory, this is very lightly (if at all) touched on in the book — and if that memory is faulty, well, it was a long, dense book packed to the gills with information.

So why do I feel so unqualified to review this book? Well, I am not a brain surgeon but a simple layperson. This book was not for me as it was above my pay grade. However, as a layperson, I found this volume repetitive. It also takes weird curve balls into areas such as Huntington’s Disease, which I suppose goes back to the notion of editing out genes that carry horrific diseases down through the generations of families. In short, if this book has any failing, it might be that the author is a tad little too close to his subject matter. Perhaps he was also desperate to shoehorn the “seven deadly sins” angle into this package — making it more of a marketing ploy than anything else. (To wit, I initially thought this would be a book about religious theology before reading the synopsis from the publisher. However, I still greedily took it from the publisher, so say what you will about me.) How much one enjoys this dry and academic read (except for the case studies, which provide glimpses of illumination and interest for the reader) is based on how much scientific jargon and medical mumbo-jumbo you’re willing to take on.

But I don’t mean to be harsh at all. This book will be held closely and lovingly to the chests of neurosurgeons, geneticists, and potentially even psychiatrists. The audience for a scientific tome such as this may be broad amongst brain and nervous systems specialists. And, I have to admit that I was impressed by the intelligence and insight of the author — a native of London, England. Dr. Leschziner is a brilliant man with a clever mind, even if he’s most straightforward in describing the afflictions of his various patients. So, what can I really say about this book? Aside from the fact that I feel underqualified to write about this work (so you may want to consult a second opinion somewhere else), I must concede that it has appeal. If you like medical non-fiction and are interested in grey matter, you might find something to write about here. It would be a sin to skip over this one. All others can take this or leave it. I’m unsure where I exist on this spectrum, but I found the book mildly fascinating, even in its wanting bits. It’s a curiosity, to be sure.

Dr. Guy Leschziner’s Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human will be published by St. Martin’s Press on December 3, 2024.

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I’m not usually one for spy novels, though I’m aware they can be political thrillers of high caliber. While scrolling through NetGalley one day last summer, I came to a write-up on this book and thought it sounded intriguing enough that I went and requested it from the publisher. I’m ecstatic that I did. Michael Idov’s The Collaborators is a novel that is an adrenaline thrill ride of, indeed, the highest caliber. After a slow start, I couldn’t put this book down. The book begs the question, what went wrong with post-Soviet Russia? And the answer all points back to US involvement in their federal elections. (Which is to say that perhaps the pot is calling the kettle black here. Who’s to say?) That’s not to say that this is a perfect novel — it stretches incredibility at points, and the characters get painted into corners one too many times. But you know what? This book is fun! I had a whale of an entertaining time with this. I was sad that the book was over when I turned off my Kindle after reading the last 60 percent of it in one sitting. If anything sings of the praises of being a good book, that’s probably it right there.

The Collaborators is about a young American spy named Ari Falk trying to get an influential Russian blogger (who has crossed the government one too many times, maybe) out of the motherland. The blogger’s flight out of Russia, though, is made to make a forced landing where the blogger is plucked off the flight and, a day later, dies in the presence of the CIA agent. Meanwhile, the rest of his team dies in a shootout, seemingly to protect the fact that the blogger saw two other people — an older married couple — get off the plane with him. While Falk tries to pick up the pieces, he gets involved with the twentysomething daughter of a Russian millionaire living in the States. Said millionaire has recently taken his life, but both the agent and his daughter aren’t so sure he’s dead. And does the mystery have anything to do with the blogger’s tale? As things usually go, time will only tell if there is or is not a connection.

I don’t know what else to say about this spy novel that won’t sound like a repetition of this review’s first paragraph. It is sometimes bracingly funny, with witty dialogue, and also strikes a note or two of melancholy as this book isn’t afraid to kill off characters you have grown to like, if only for a brief time. It’s also a book that moves along at a breakneck speed and can be finished in five hours or less. Despite the slow beginning — portions of books set in airports tend to be a little slower paced, I guess, owing to bureaucracy — it quickly opens up and becomes one heck of a knuckle-dragging, double-crossing shoot-em-up that is Grade A. Again, some of it stretches the point of incredibility, but, of course, in this book, you can essentially read with your mind shut off and have things explained to you at the appropriate times. It has all the hallmarks of a good caper — the panache of a James Bond book but the brains of a John Le Carré read. You’ll want to spend time with The Collaborators, as this is a compelling book.

This brings me back to why I wouldn’t say I like to read spy fiction. Some of it has to do with the fact that a great deal of it is Eastern European, which isn’t as sexy since the end of the Cold War. However, I think the time is ripe for reimagining Russia as a political enemy once again, particularly considering the war in Ukraine. Strangely enough, this book is set in 2021, before the current invasion began. If the time is right for conspiracy theories and back-door politicking, that time is now. To that end, perhaps I’ll go back and read some of those spy novels of yore to get a sense of the craft and finesse that goes into making a compelling spy thriller. (If I have time — I have far more books on my TBR list than I imagined having at any point in my life.) Still, if The Collaborators proves anything, the spy thriller is alive and well, and Michael Idov is an author worth watching. There’s plenty here to be considered inviting, and that’s all you need to know. This is an extraordinary page-turner.

Michael Idov’s The Collaborators will be published by Scribner / Simon & Schuster on November 19, 2024.

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Without meaning to sound harsh or slighting the publisher, the release date for Sacha Naspini’s The Bishop’s Villa in America comes a little late. This World War II novel begs to be read before November 11, the day we remember the sacrifices people, whether soldiers or civilians, made during the major armed conflicts of the 20th century. Instead, the book is being released closer to another holiday, American Thanksgiving, which doesn’t have the same weight or gravitas as Remembrance Day (as we call it here in Canada, where I’m from). Regardless, The Bishop’s Villa is a slightly intriguing tale of what it’s like to be a civilian in an area seemingly untouched directly by the war and what happens when war finally rears its head in said small village. It is the story of a cobbler named René, who lost three fingers on his right hand from a working accident when he was young (though we’re not told much more than that). He lives in rural Italy and is living through a brutal winter with food shortages. That’s until things turn worse when Jewish prisoners in his neck of the woods start being rounded up and sequestered away in a seminary, leading to questions of whom is loyal to whom. You see, René is fond of a woman named Anna, who lives in an apartment beneath him and is mourning her son’s loss in the resistance. Eventually, she fights in the resistance to get revenge — and René soon finds himself implicated in this activity. What will happen to him if he’s to be packed up and shipped to the seminary as a political prisoner?

That’s the central question the first part of The Bishop’s Villa poses to readers. However, once the answer is revealed, the account is less shocking than it would appear. Don’t get me wrong: any novel about the atrocities of the Holocaust is worth reading if only to bludgeon home, again and again, the sheer brutality of the Second World War. However, the critical problem with this work is that it isn’t all that shocking. The worst thing that happens to René outside of a broken leg (and I’m not sure how he got the broken leg, so you need to pay close attention and not let your mind wander even for a second reading this) is that someone spits in a water bowl he’s using to wash his face. Let me go back to the fact that you can get confused if you let your mind wander: characters in this novel sometimes have two names, one their real name and another their “battle name” used in fascism fighting activities, so, yes, things can get very confusing in short order. However, I must wonder if that’s part of the rouse Naspini has scrounged up: make it hard to tell people apart so their loyalties can be questioned. If so, it’s a card well played.

Readers may be interested in knowing this work is based on a true story. There really was a seminary in Italy that was used for holding political prisoners and captured Jewish peoples before they were sent northward to concentration camps such as Auschwitz. The story of René and Anna is just window dressing on this authentic event, which illustrates that there is still enough material some 80 years on to mine for original stories of World War II. And I suppose all of these stories need to be unearthed and held up to the light so that history will not repeat itself — though I’m holding my breath as I type this as I’m writing two days before the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, which could very well be an example of, well, history repeating itself. I wish a little more of a story could be told here. Anna is introduced as a significant character early on but disappears for a very long stretch. So, a lot of this novel is René working at his cobbler’s bench, trying to please his German and Italian Fascist masters and those of his fellow partisan townsfolk. That’s boring. By deliberately centering the story away from the front lines, there’s not much of a sense of adventure in what’s trying to be an adventure story.

But am I quibbling? Perhaps this novel wasn’t for me, and you might find something to enjoy here. I just really thought that this book was a little dry. The one good thing I could say about this direct criticism is that the novel is short — less than 200 pages. So, even if you dislike it, you’re not investing more than two or three hours reading it. And you might want to consider reading this, especially around this time of year when the poppies come out in full bloom. As a result, The Bishop’s Villa is one of those crucial novels for November. Still, maybe something of its nuanced story got lost in the translation from Italian. If I can say this without spoiling anything, the story is a bit unresolved by the novel’s end, so I wasn’t sure what happened to Anna. Instead, we find out what happened to a soldier with whom René frequently interacted. Again, maybe that’s the point — this is World War II, and we don’t get a satisfactory ending to a simple love story. Still, I found it made for a weak ending.

In conclusion, I would try The Bishop’s Villa if you want something different from a World War II story. Otherwise, there’s not a lot here to chew on. What more can be said about a hard-to-categorize novel that comes out a week after we commemorate our veterans? Still, interest in World War II will continue, as will novels like this — even if they are a curiosity at best.

Sacha Naspini’s The Bishop’s Villa will be published by Europa Editions on November 19, 2024.

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Simply the Best

Back when I was writing my weird brand of science fiction, I regularly submitted my work to what I considered to be the big-name magazines that published such work: Asimov’s, Interzone, On Spec, etc. I got turned down at each magazine — though I once got a friendly rejection letter from Asimov’s. Even though I submitted to these places regularly, I wasn’t reading any of their short stories. (Which, of course, may say something about why I was getting turned down.) That makes The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 so important. If you’re hurried for time and can’t read through the usual SF and fantasy magazines, you get the best of the best, the cream of the crop here. Based on the book’s introduction, this volume takes the 20 best short stories published in the SF and fantasy fields in 2023. It splits them even between the genres: 10 science fiction stories and 10 fantasy stories. That makes for a very generous helping of fiction, and this should appeal to anyone who wants to keep dibs on what’s being published out there. Also of note is that this collection is relatively evenly split between more well-known or established writers (such as Sam J. Miller and Amal El-Mohtar) and names you probably haven’t heard of.

Of course, with a collection such as this one, a person’s favorites are probably based on subjectivity. What I might like could very well differ from what you might like. However, even if a story or two doesn’t resonate with you (I disliked the hard SF stories, for instance, though I could see the intelligence behind these stories and understood why they were included), there’s bound to be something that you’ll enjoy if you keep reading. My favorites from this collection were usually, and strangely, rooted more towards the horror end of the spectrum. There’s plenty here for those who like their gore: Grady Hendrix’s “Ankle Snatcher,” which is about the creatures that live under the bed, is delightfully scary, though it easily could have been cut in half and have more of a chilling effect. Then there’s Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Eye & Tooth,” a piece about a pair of monster hunters that is begging to be expanded. (Roanhorse, though relatively established, is an author worth watching as she has two pieces in this collection.) And then there’s P. Djèlí Clark’s “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub,” which turns the tables on Victorian British colonialism of subjects from India. These stories do something to subvert the usual horror tropes — and they’re a great deal of fun, too.

However, there are other standouts from this book as well. P. A. Cornell’s unusual time-travel story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” about a woman from the present day who falls in love with a serviceman from the American outbreak of World War II, is touching, bittersweet and sad, even if it has something of a happy ending. “John Hollowback and the Witch,” a story by fellow Ottawa, Canada, resident Amal El-Mohtar, is a beguiling tale of a man who has been cursed to have a hole in his back and the steps he entails to try and reverse the curse. Similarly, Jonathan Louis Duckworth’s “Bruised-Eye Dusk” is a rip-roaring fantasy tale set in a land not unlike the swamps of the southern U.S., where a man who can break spells tries to save a small village from a curse. As you can see, for me, the more vital tales in this collection hewed to the fantasy side of things. While there are standouts among the SF stuff in this book, including Roanhorse’s “Falling Bodies,” which has a shocking ending, it tended to be the weaker of the material for me — particularly as a lot of it was jargon-filled and written in a way for the reader to try and parse between the lines as to what is being said. The main offender is the lone Asimov’s story here: Christopher Rowe’s “The Four Last Things.” I had no idea what the piece was about, and, to me, it wasn’t entirely memorable — though your mileage may vary.

One of the things that delighted me about this collection was the number of stories that featured queer characters as protagonists in this. V. M. Ayala’s “Emotional Resonance” goes so far as to have gay robots as its main characters. So there’s a lot to dig into here, and, again, my favorite stories might not be your favorite stories, which is all the more reason to search this collection out and see for yourself. Of course, there are other standouts here, but I would be remiss to name them all. Ultimately, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 is a fantastic collection and a sign pointing to where the science fiction and fantasy genres are going. Reading this may stir your creative juices and get you to try writing fiction (again). However, if this collection proves anything important, if you try to write your own stories, you must also read others’ stories to see what’s being done with the genre. That was my fatal mistake; don’t let it be yours. Most of the stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 hit home runs, and you’ll have a whale (if not a Kraken) of a time reading this. This is excellent stuff.

Hugh Howey’s and John Joseph Adam’s The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 was published by Mariner Books on October 22, 2024.

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Korean culture has reached a broader audience in recent years, whether through the ultraviolence of Squid Game and the excellent zombie film Train to Busan, the Oscar-winning Parasite, or the pop music genre named after the peninsula. It’s about time that the spotlight be turned over to the realm of literary fiction. Enter Cho Nam-Joo’s Miss Kim Knows. It’s a collection of eight short stories that are not quite interlinked but sometimes are by having a character with the surname Kim. Doing some Googling on this choice reveals that Kim is a common surname in Korea, akin to how Smith is a common surname in English-speaking parts of the world. This means that this collection reveals what accounts for the ordinary person in navigating this unfamiliar territory of Korean-ness. Like most short-story collections — and repeat after me — some stories run on all cylinders, and some sputter and fail. Still, Miss Kim Knows is an engaging read, and the gems are so good that they outweigh the duds. You must get through the duds to get to the gems, as much of the collection is backloaded.

That’s also not to say that the front is loaded with unexploded ordinance. The opening story, “Under the Plum Tree,” is quite touching — it’s the tale of an elderly woman watching her sister die in a hospice care center. “Runaway” is enjoyable in a Haruki Murakami-esque way: the piece is about a father who leaves his family and mirrors what his only daughter tried to do in running away from home and all its responsibilities earlier in life. However, the better stories are generally found towards the end of the set. The most extended story here, “Night of Aurora,” is a poignant tale of a nearly 60-year-old woman who travels from Korea to Yellowknife, Canada, with her mother-in-law to witness the aurora borealis. It’s a story about inviting a stranger (or the strange) into your home and the relationship between a mother and her daughter (and one of a mother and daughter-in-law). It’s perhaps one of the few stories that read like a novel. The best story is hands-down the final one: “Puppy Love, 2020,” which is the tale of two young students who try and fail to see each other during the COVID pandemic. It is utterly heartbreaking, as it shows the cascading effect on relationships of a virus from a set of parents right on down to all of their children.

Miss Kim Knows is a collection of brevity: this can be either an asset or a liability, depending on your point of view. And the thread of having the occasional character named Kim (as a surname) doesn’t seem to weave its way through all the stories (unless I’ve missed something), which leaves one to wonder why it was even used in the first place if it wasn’t meant to be used in every tale. But this should all be of no matter and be of limited import. Miss Kim Knows is a pretty good collection. There’s stuff here that reveals the socioeconomic divide of Korea in ways that Squid Game and Parasite do. Reading a book about another culture is richly rewarding in its own way: we learn of the pressures of children to study mathematical and language concepts a grade or two where they are not to risk being left behind with students who cannot afford private “cram schools.” There’s a lot to digest here and take in. The book does an excellent job of revealing that the more things seem to be culturally different, the more they seem to be the same between different races. This is something the MAGA crowd might want to keep in mind.

Ultimately, Miss Kim Knows is an intriguing concoction. Its author has written at least two novels, so this collection probably exists as a holding pattern while she finds the material for her next “full-length feature.” Still, while this collection isn’t entirely consistently successful as some of the stories seem to be divorced of context from one another, and I would have liked more from the male point of view to shake things up, it’s still worth a read. If anything, Miss Kim Knows shows that Korea is a place of great creativity, and it’s coming into its own as an Asian exporter of fantastic fiction and film. That’s probably all the reason to recommend this, mainly if one is interested in slice-of-life stories from another cultural viewpoint. If that sounds up your alley, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here in bite-sized, easy-to-manage pieces. This is rewarding for Asian fiction fanatics.

Cho Nam-Joo’s Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories will be published by Liveright / W. W. Norton on October 29, 2024.

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John Larison’s The Ancients is a tremendous novel. It’s one of those books that could be a masterpiece, for — as I’ve said on these pages before — masterpieces are books that teach you how to read them. To that end, The Ancients is an ambitious read, taking place in many different areas of the earth and hopscotching over various characters whose lives will all intersect at some point. It’s a book that invites readers to linger over it, even though, at times, the bounty of characters threatens to tip the work onto its side. Still, this is a remarkable novel, a work of speculative fiction set long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Or maybe I should say that it is set in the future in a world not unlike ours. Whatever the case, this is one of my favorite books of 2024. It’s not without faults, but they can be overlooked as the storytelling here is generally first-rate. The Ancients is not an old story but a new envisioning of a world ravaged by climate change. This is the tale of a land that is becoming barren and the efforts humanity has put in motion to escape its debilitating effects. This book is for the here and now, with an eye to the horizon.

The book follows three groups of characters throughout. The first narrative is about two sisters and a brother who have been separated from their family and are looking to reunite with them across a dystopian wasteland. The siblings believe their mother and other relatives have abandoned them. This could be further from the truth: their mother has been kidnapped by “Barbarians” and is put to work as forced labor in a camp near a city that deals with processing sheep wool. The third story is about a man of some pedigree named Cyrus who is struggling to come to terms with his sexual identity while hoping to add more wools to his coffers to be given to an Emperor who savagely demands tithes. Cyrus’s father has just died of cancer — meaning that he has inherited his father’s business and its debts — and his relationship with a medical doctor is on the rocks. At specific points, the lives of all of these characters will come together, as disparate as they may seem.

Thus, The Ancients is a book about the bonds of family and the lengths some people will go to to keep the family unit together. It’s also a coming-of-age tale in many respects, with its various characters grappling to become sexual beings. It’s additionally a tale about the current climate crisis we’re facing and the resilience of humans to survive past crises, which can be applied to the present day. However, most of all, it’s a good, crackling adventure tale — though one that takes some time to warm up to. I found the first quarter of the book to be relatively dry. That’s not all that’s deficient here. Characters reunite with each other through the flimsiest of plot devices: coincidence. In addition, the book seemingly has multiple endings, making it feel a little overlong. However, don’t let those factors deter you from a primarily superlative read. The Ancients is commanding in its ambition and rivals the best in literary fiction in its experimental style and succulent quality.

So, what more can be said about this terrific work of art? Well, this book works best when you slowly savor it and pay close attention to it — don’t let your mind wander when reading this, as you may miss the subtlest clues as to what will happen next. Ultimately, this is a book about hope — that even the most broken of people deserve a shot at redemption, even if society has, by and large, cast them away. You will think about this book and let marinade in your mind, and you may be a bit saddened when you reach its final page. Even if the characters tend to blur — the children’s mother becomes a surrogate to other children in her care in slavery, which is a tad bit confusing at times as the book treats them like her real children — this is a fine read. This dystopian fantasy novel, masquerading as other things, is richly rewarding and well worth the sticker price. I don’t know if something more needs to be said about that. Do yourself a favor, run to your nearest bookstore or library, and take the time it will take to get to know The Ancients. In the end, it’ll be a decision you won’t regret. A whole brave new world is waiting for you here, so be sure to dive right in!

John Larison’s The Ancients will be published by Viking on October 15, 2024.

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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com