Before previewing a few March releases, I want to mention two books that I recommended on a recent talk show. Both newly published in February. They’re too good to let slip by without more mention.
The first recommendation, In Ascension by Martin MacInnes, is one of those novels that reads with such engagement its hefty page count feels more inviting than overwhelming. That’s because of the intriguing narrator, a microbiologist whose family and career stories meld into a great wondering over how she’s going to come through what she’s signed up for. The story begins on an oceanic research trip where Leigh is a working student on the Endeavour, learning alongside research scientists. The discovery of a deep cavern into the earth, called a vent, creates mysteries about cellular origins. Next, several years later, she’s in California involved with a top secret space mission that will go into the far reaches of the universe, further than anyone has ever gone before. She’s involved because her work with algae is critical to producing a sustainable food source on the space capsule. At times, I didn’t understand the science being explained, but I didn’t need to, as the narrator was understanding it for me, if that makes sense. The fictional world takes over, not as escape but with an unrelenting need to keep reading it, to get the conclusion of the mission. The story is both wise and gripping in the imagined possibilities.
The second recommendation from the talk show is Float Up, Sing Down by Laird Hunt, a collection of intertwined stories that follow fourteen residents on a summer day in the fictional town of Bright Creek. As each story unfolds, it lures us further into the peaceful rural community of Clinton County, Indiana, Hunt’s setting for his previous novels, including the acclaimed Zorrie. I don’t typically make comparisons to other authors when recommending books, but with this collection — the warmth and easy connections among the characters in the community — it’s a natural to mention the stories of Elizabeth Strout. Her Maine is Laird Hunt’s rural Indiana. Ordinary life becomes entrancing by way of its profound simplicity. The stories connect not as much by major events as by common occurrences. It could be a drive-by and a wave, a witnessed walk through the cornfields, a cold unopened bottle of Coke left beside an unfilled swimming pool. Sometimes we learn the consequences of an action that happens in one story – in another.
There’s a lot of anticipation around Percival Everett’s James coming out in March. He secured himself much deserved, broader recognition with his previous novel The Trees and also with the 2023 movie “American Fiction” that’s based on his novel Erasure. Everett’s bibliography lists more than 20 published novels, the first one published in 1983. This new novel is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s from the viewpoint of Huck’s companion, the runaway slave Jim, who travels down the Mississippi River with Huck on a raft. It’s been decades since I’ve read Twain’s classic, and even though I’ve read it three times, I don’t remember many details. I have a feeling that’s a good thing. It’s no fun to read with a classic looking over your shoulder noting how scenes have been modified in a modern update. If James is anything like The Trees, it will knock the socks off us.
New York Review Books (NYRB) is bringing back into print Rachel Cohen’s nonfiction A Chance Meeting: American Encounters. It’s a series of essays about American writers and artists crossing paths. “Each person comes round two or three times, and every meeting, friendship, and collaboration has a resonance that can be heard down the ages until what you have before you is an immense chain of artistic consequences.” (The Economist) Timeline is from the American Civil War through the Vietnam War. The book’s description asks: How does the happenstance of daily life become history? You can read more about it on the NYRB website, where people featured are listed. The book includes a new afterword by the author.
Colin Barrett’s new book releases March 19, a novel set in small town rural Ireland. Wild Houses is about local, drug-dealing brothers out to get money owed to them by a former colleague, Cillian English. The two hatch a revenge-ransom plot and show up at their cousin’s door with Cillian’s kidnapped teenage brother, Doll English. Cousin Dev’s quiet life gets turned upside down by force of their presence and the snowball effect of involvement. The brothers threaten to kill the teenager if Cillian doesn’t do what they ask. The kid’s only hope is his girlfriend, 17-year-old Nicky Hennigan. I’m pulling this description from what I’ve read about the book, which feels like a dark thriller but, more than just that, written by a lyric prose stylist. The plot unfolds over one suspenseful weekend. Colin Barrett received high praise for his two short story collections, and he’s one of Ireland’s best authors writing today.
The Longest Chapter 