58 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JULY 29, 2019
Review_FICTION
tive. She spends her days making elaborate
needlework designs of “death samplers,”
with morbid phrases (“he was born without
fuss and died without fuss, slipping out of
life like an oystery down an open throat.
‘That wasn’t so difficult,’ he said, and
expired. No one was listening.”) while
giving her caregivers a hard time. Shimi
Carmelli is a 91-year-old diviner whose
clients are a circle of wealthy London
widows who consider him to be an eligible
bachelor: he walks without an apparatus
and can still dress himself. Shimi’s problem
is that he suffers from an excellent memory
and can’t forget anything. He remains
haunted by his childhood experiment
trying on his mother’s underwear and feels
permanently tainted. Beryl and Shimi meet
after the funeral of his brother, Ephraim,
and strike up an unlikely relationship
with the deceased Ephraim as their mutual
connection. Together they discover a new
way to live by confiding past experiences,
and Shimi is shocked by how easily they
can trust each other. Jacobson’s appealing
tale will delight readers. (Sept.)The Liar
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. Little, Brown, $27
(352p) ISBN 978-0-316-44539-9
Lies take life in this excellent novel about
a young Israeli girl who finds power in
deceit. Nofar Shalev is 17, exceedingly
unremarkable, and stuck in the shadow of
her beautiful younger sister, Maya. She
spends her summer evenings working at an
ice cream parlor and hopes to be noticed
by her high school crush. Instead, she
encounters Avishai Milner, a winner of a
televised singing contest who is now
washed up and without future prospects.
After Avishai lashes out verbally at Nofar,
the teenage girl flees to the alley behind
the shop, and Avishai follows and grabs
her, causing Nofar to scream. When asked
by police if she had been assaulted, Nofar
says yes. This lie snowballs into an
unstoppable force, garnering media
attention and sweeping up friends and
family members along with it as Nofar
battles between her building guilt and her
fear of rejection if she comes clean.
Though some characters fall to the wayside
and leave the reader curious as to their
purpose in the story, Nofar’s internal
journey makes up for it. This tender and
satisfying coming-of-age story leads readersto question how a split second can change
lives. (Sept.)Taína
Ernesto Quiñonez. Vintage, $15.95 trade
paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-9848-9748-0
Spanish Harlem serves as both setting
and muse in Quiñonez’s disarming third
novel (following Bodega Dreams and
Chango’s Fire), a tale of a virgin birth told
by an adoring admirer. Seventeen-year-old
Julio lives upstairs from the pregnant Taína
with his Puerto Rican, Jehovah’s Witness
mom and unemployed, Marxist dad.
Convinced that a revolution of atoms has
taken place in Taína’s body, Julio seeks out
Taína’s uncle Sal, an ex-con, to find out how
he can help. Julio learns much from the
mysterious Sal, including things about his
own parents’ past. The old guy insists that
Julio bring money for Taína’s mom, Dona
Flores, who in turn insists that only the
very expensive “espiritista” Peta Ponce
can discover the truth about the baby’s
origin. Julio comes up with a dog-napping
scheme that works far too well to be
plausible, and in return for sharing his
reward money with Doña Flores, he’s
allowed to visit Taína, a foulmouthed
beauty and the only one of Quiñonez’s
characters to ring untrue. But as the baby’s
birth draws near and Peta Ponce arrives,
Julio’s earnings scam goes heartbreakingly
awry. Though its metaphors go down weird
rabbit holes and the slang sometimes
careens into the awkward, the story is nervy
and fresh. Quiñonez’s entire oeuvre should
be required reading for those who believe
in steering literature toward a more
truthful, nuanced view of America. (Sept.)The Braid
Laetitia Colombani. Atria, $16 trade paper
(224p) ISBN 978-1-9821-3003-9
Colombani’s arresting debut follows
three women facing extreme challenges in
three different parts of the world. Smita,
near 30 years old, lives in contemporary
India, where she’s of the untouchable caste,
forced to clean the excrement from
neighbors’ latrines. In a parallel story,
20-year-old Giulia is in Sicily, and although
she loves working with her father in his
wig shop, the world of traditional goods is
beginning to crumble. Lastly, 40-year-old
Sarah is a lawyer in Montreal, and her
obsessive work habits drive her body to adebilitating illness that she tries to conceal
from the firm where she has become the
first female partner. Suspense builds for
each of these women as they struggle to
make decisions in the face of their harsh
realities. Intriguing strands connect the
three: Smita’s only offering to her god
can be the magnificent hair shorn from
her own and her daughter’s head, Giulia
must expand the family business to an
international market, and Sarah needs an
exquisite wig when cancer takes her hair.
A sense of urgency to learn how the stories
will be resolved drives the fast-paced
narrative. Each character’s intimate per-
spective elucidates the courage that exists
in every woman’s life, regardless of age,
culture, or station. (Sept.)Honey, I Killed the Cats
Dorota Masłowska, trans. from the Polish by
Benjamin Paloff. Deep Vellum, $14.95 trade
paper (166p) ISBN 978-1-941920-82-4
Masłowska (Snow White and Russian Red)
bitingly sends up millennial culture in
this story about two young women and
their trials and tribulations, all set in an
unnamed city overflowing with excess
and pop culture
references.
Joanne (or Jo)
and Farah (but
call her Fah) are
best friends who
have recently
had a wedge
driven between
them by Jo’s
new relationship
with a kitchen
and bath salesman with a Hungarian
Studies degree. Jo, whose style is described
as “comfortable yet ugly, with a hint of
extravagance,” is smitten with the
Hungarianist, spending more and more
time with him. Fah, a bitter hypochondriac,
takes a deep dislike to the Hungarianist,
mostly out of spite and jealousy. Adrift
from her only friend, and increasingly
unhinged by a series of nonsensical but
violent dreams, Fah takes Jo’s offhand
suggestion to check out an art show, where
she meets Gosza (called Go), a wild child
heiress in the midst of a nasty breakup with
a boyfriend who wants to be polyamorous.
Fah’s obsessiveness is transferred onto Go,
but the latter’s casual carelessness sends