Entertainment Weekly - 04.2020

FICTION

REVIEWS

GODSHOT

AUTHOR CHELSEA

BIEKER

PAGES 336

In the barren

wasteland of

Peaches, Calif.,

water is pre-

cious, but blood

runs thick. Lacey

May’s troubled

family devotedly

follows an enig-

matic pastor

who promises

to bring rain to

their devastated

town, but she

uncovers sinis-

ter truths about

the cult after

her mom de-

serts her. Drawn

in brilliant,

bizarre detail—

baptisms in

warm soda,

wisdom from ro-

mance novels—

Lacey’s twin

crises of faith

and femininity

tangle power-

fully. Fiercely

written and end-

lessly readable,

a novel like this

is a godsend. A–

—MARY SOLLOSI

AFTERLIFE

AUTHOR JULIA

ALVAREZ

PAGES 272

The In the Time

of the Butter-

flies icon makes

a satisfying and

long-awaited

return to adult

fiction with this

kind tale of grief

and sisterhood.

Treading familiar

themes and

maintaining a

loose, fragmen-

tary structure,

Julia Alvarez fol-

lows recently

widowed Anto-

nia, a retired

poet worrying

over her sister’s

disappearance

yet finding

meaning and

mystery in her

dynamic with an

undocumented

pregnant woman

who needs her

help. The author

doesn’t break

any new ground

but does settle

into a deeply

poignant groove.

B —DAVID CANFIELD

VALENTINE

AUTHOR ELIZABETH

WETMORE

PAGES 320

Odessa in 1976

is the kind of

Texas oil town

where the men

work as hard as

they drink, the

women carry

pistols in their

pocketbooks,

and tumble-

weeds are what

pass for local

greenery. But

no one knows

quite how to

handle the rape

of a girl named

Gloria Ramírez—

especially when

her attacker is

white. Elizabeth

Wetmore’s sun-

baked prose

can read more

like a writer’s

rich imagination

than real life,

but as the story

goes on it be-

comes a monu-

ment to a sort

of singular

grace, and true

grit. B+ —LEAH

GREENBLATT

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