Through a variety of voices, Phil Klay’s Redeployment explores with unflinching detail what it means to serve in the Iraq War. There are intense combat stories as well as vivid accounts of readjusting to civilian life back home. This National Book Award winner is intense and yet several of the tales artfully convey distance and numbness.
Check It Out Category: Picks by Nancy
Nancy’s Pick: The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
Nancy of Fiction/AV/Teen Services suggests The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
Laurelfield, a grand old estate north of Chicago, is the centerpiece of Rebecca Makkai’s clever novel. The book begins in 1999 with descendants of the well-heeled Devohr family. Zee Devohr and her husband Doug, both academics, are living temporarily in the coach house. Doug hopes to do research on an obscure poet who lived at Laurelfield when it was an artists’ colony in the 1920s, but Zee’s mother is surprisingly protective of whatever files and artifacts might be in the attic. The narrative travels backward in time, leaping to 1955, 1929, and 1900, revealing Laurelfield’s complicated past and its eccentric occupants. In this reverse chronological order, echoes from the past – and future – are well crafted, and the engaged reader will be rewarded. With its rich detail, fine prose, and dark humor, The Hundred Year House is a unique and satisfying read.
For more eccentric characters in grand settings, try…
The Last Summer of the Camperdowns by Elizabeth Kelly is the rollicking novel about a 12-year-old girl’s eventful summer of 1972 on her dysfunctional family’s Cape Cod compound.
In Lauren Oliver’s suspenseful novel Rooms, a troubled family arrives at the mansion of their estranged, recently deceased patriarch, but find there are ghosts too.
In the witty Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia, talented high school musicians and their chaperones descend upon a huge, once-grand hotel in the Catskills for a music festival on the anniversary of a shocking crime.
Set in a haunted mansion in the Pacific Northwest, A Sudden Light by Garth Stein is an atmospheric novel narrated by a 14-year-old boy who embarks on a quest to learn more about the house and his family’s secrets.
An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray features colorful characters at a crumbling seaside estate near Dublin, where the cozy existence of 24-year-old Charles is about to be given a serious shake-up.Nancy’s Pick: In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist
Escape the winter chill and transport yourself to the South with a collection of short stories by Ellen Gilchrist. The critically acclaimed In the Land of Dreamy Dreams showcases her frank yet warm and lively writing style. Her daring, spirited female protagonists are sometimes flawed but always entertaining.
Nancy’s Pick: 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter
In Ernessa T. Carter’s spirited 32 Candles, Davidia Jones endures a tough childhood and then reinvents herself as a singer in Los Angeles. When she runs into her high school crush, her attraction is back in an instant, but so is her memory of a hurtful prank. When he pursues a romance, sparks fly. Will she get the “happy Molly Ringwald ending” she’s always wanted?
Nancy’s Pick: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia
In Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody, high school musicians and their chaperones gather for a music festival at a huge old hotel. It’s the 15-year anniversary of a shocking crime in Room 712, a blizzard is approaching, and one of the students disappears. This unique premise drew me in, but the sharp writing and eccentric characters kept me hooked.