Review_FICTION
46 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ AUGUST 5, 2019
Review_FICTION
Calcutta and sold into slavery at age eight,
Mary learns at an early age to use her wits
survive. She is brought to the American
colonies on the eve of revolution and is
eventually sold to the wife of Col. Aaron
Burr, Theodosia Prevost. Mary is drawn to
the kind, enigmatic Burr, and as they
tend to the dying Theodosia, he and Mary
begin an affair that challenges the rules of
society and the very notions of freedom at
the heart of the new American experiment.
While the plot and pacing can be plodding
and predictable, Scott’s deeply empathetic
heroine is sure to keep readers hooked;
both her inner strength and the strength
of her relationships—such as the connec-
tion she has to her fellow enslaved people
in India—elevate and anchor the story.
Though not exactly revolutionary, this is
a moving and vivid work of historical
fiction. Agent: Annelise Robey, Jane Rotrosen
Agency. (Oct.)If Only I Could Tell You
Hannah Beckerman. Morrow, $15.99 trade
paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-289054-2
Beckerman (The Dead Wife’s Handbook)
does an excellent job of illustrating the
corrosive power of secrets in this achingly
real tale of two sisters and the mother who
hopes to mend their tattered relationship.
Lily’s life looks perfect—a high-powered
marketing job, a beautiful daughter and
loving husband—through the eyes of her
long-estranged younger sister, Jess, a
single and struggling mother to a teenage
daughter, and a senior location manager
for a TV show in London. Their mother,
Audrey, is dying of cancer and is deter-
mined that her daughters will reconcile
before she passes away. Jess’s intense anger
toward her sister is a mystery to both Lily
and Audrey, and Beckerman teases out both
intriguing details and red herrings before
letting readers in on the secret. The author
combines authentically imperfect charac-
ters and a well-paced, plausible plot. Jodi
Picoult’s fans will find much to love in
this often heartbreaking story. (Oct.)The Last Train to London
Meg Waite Clayton. Harper, $27.99 (464p)
ISBN 978-0-06-294693-5
Clayton (Beautiful Exiles) reaches into
the troubled lives of the Third Reich’s
civilian victims, drawing readers into one
woman’s efforts to save children in this★ The Factory
Hiroko Oyamada, trans. from the Japanese by David Boyd. New Directions,
$13.95 trade paper (128p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2885-5T
hree employees at a monolithic factory in an
unnamed Japanese city begin to see reality itself
seem to mutate in Oyamada’s stellar, mind-
bending debut.
After quitting five jobs, Yoshiko Ushiyama finds
a spot at the factory shredding documents all day.
Meanwhile, Yoshio Furufue reluctantly takes a
position “studying moss” in another department—
in which he is the sole employee. His ostensible goal
is to green-roof the whole enterprise, but he’s given
no direction and no time frame and so ends up being
reduced to a guide for a children’s moss hunt on the
factory grounds. Finally, Ushiyama, Yoshiko’s brother, is tasked with proofreading
opaque documents with titles like Goodbye to All Your Problems and Mine: A Guide
to Mental Health Care, though he doesn’t know where his edits go when he’s done
and is told, “You won’t make any mistakes. You can’t.”
Soon, time and the characters’ understanding of life beyond the factory begin to
fog, and perhaps Oyamada’s greatest achievement is transferring this disorientation
to the reader. Scenes jump in time and loop back, and perspectives shift mid-
chapter; at one point Ushiyama starts proofreading a report on the factory’s fauna
authored by a child—the same child who asked Furufue to read that same report
after Furufue took him on the moss hunt. There is an enclosed, purgatory-like feel
to the setting: “The factory was a world of its own,” Furufue thinks at one point.
“Only four ways in and out. North, South, East, West. Shouldn’t there be more?”
The relentless logic of the factory accounts for everything: meal preferences (there
are “nearly a hundred cafeterias, and a decent number of restaurants, too”);
resources (when Furufue is told it’s best for him to live on factory grounds, he
thinks, “The idea of moving here didn’t bother me.... It was just happening so
quickly and without my input, without my knowledge”); and, somehow, even
the novel’s astonishing ending.
Oyamada expertly weaves in a series of strange phenomena—a middle-aged
man known as the Forest Pantser who runs around the factory’s surrounding
forests trying to pull the pants off people; huge flocks of a particular species of
black bird (“The birds roost in such great numbers you can’t tell one from the
next.... There are hundreds of them, all looking toward the factory”)—creating an
atmosphere of unease bordering on pernicious. But by refusing to give answers
and instead letting the mundane and the uncanny blend together (“I thought I
saw one of the smaller women in Print Services holding a black bird by its wings,
but when I looked again it was just a toner cartridge”), Oyamada maximizes her
puzzle. This nonpareil novel will leave readers reeling and beguiled. (Oct.)Gabe Habash is the author of Stephen Florida and is the deputy reviews editor of
Publishers Weekly.[Signature]
Reviewed by Gabe Habash