Entertainment Weekly – September 01, 2019

Books

Akin

IN HER CELEBRATED

novels, Emma Dono-

ghue has embodied

everything from an

18th-century prosti-

tute (Slammerkin)

to a young ascetic

starving herself for

God (The Wonder)—

and most memorably,

perhaps, a preco-

cious 5-year-old born

in captivity (Room).

The two main char-

acters in Akin are,

despite the title,

essentially strangers:

a widowed professor

and his half-orphaned

grandnephew, flung

together on a trip

to Nice to trace a

relative’s possible

long-ago involvement

in the French Resis-

tance. Donoghue

draws a vivid picture,

but Akin never quite

gels, either in its

central relationship

or its underdrawn

myster y. B —LG

The Secrets

We Kept

IF BIOLOGY IS DESTINY,

maybe biography

is too; Lara Prescott’s

parents named her

for the heroine

of Boris Pasternak’s

Doctor Zhivago, and

now she’s centered

her crackling debut

around the covert

Cold War efforts

to alternately halt (on

the Soviet side) and

help (on America’s)

its publication. Unlike

Prescott's namesake,

though, women live

fully at the center of

Secrets: mistresses,

secretaries, and

agents who may have

seemed invisible

but saw everything.

The result is a sort

of proto-feminist Mad

Men transposed to

the world of interna-

tional espionage—all

midcentury style and

intrigue set against

real, indelible history.

A– —Leah Greenblatt

AUTHOR

Lara Prescott

PAGES

368

A Door in

the Earth

A SENIOR AT BERKELEY

drifting in the wake

of her mother’s death,

Parveen Shamsa

finds sudden purpose

in the best-selling

memoir of Gideon

Crane—an American

doctor whose work in

a remote Afghan

village prompts her to

uproot everything and

follow his path.

But the warm glow of

good deeds quickly

meets cold reality

when she realizes

that Crane’s clinic is

essentially unstaffed

and the locals are,

at best, nonplussed

by her presence.

Though Parveen stays

credulous far longer

than she should, Amy

Waldman (a longtime

journalist) writes

about the clash of

cultures and ideals

with clean-lined grace

and quiet eye-level

empathy. B+ —LG

AUTHOR

Amy Waldman

PAGES

400

AUTHOR

Emma Donoghue

PAGES

352

Fiction

Revıews
BOOKS GET OPTIONED ALL THE TIME.
WE BREAK DOWN WHY THIS PARTICULAR
TITLE DESERVES THE HOLLYWOOD
TREATMENT NOW. BY SEIJA RANKIN

THE BOOK

Heaven,

My Home

By Attica Locke

The sequel in Locke’s award-winning

Highway 59 mystery series finds Texas

Ranger Darren Matthews tracking down

a missing boy from a white supremacist

family, forcing the officer to confront

Texas’ history of racial turmoil.

WHY IT’S READY FOR ITS CLOSE-UP

Optioned by FX, the series smartly

mixes hot-button issues with

suspenseful drama. And Locke has

Hollywood cred: She wrote for Ava

DuVernay’s (below) Emmy-nominated

When They See Us and will coexecutive-

produce Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere

adaptation.

IF WE WERE CASTING...

Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight) exudes

the commanding physicality and the

sensitivity required for Matthews. And

wouldn’t it be great if Locke and DuVernay

made prestige-TV magic again?

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